On a pale blue marble, in a city brimming with people, in a place where artists and patrons gather, a woman is giving an interview about her latest work.

“Your latest piece is wonderful as always.” The interviewer smiled nervously holding up her recorder to the artist, “As always, it has its own...ethereal qualities to it.”

The artist smiled holding back a laugh at the interviewer's nervousness. This was not her first time getting a new interviewer for her shows, and wouldn’t be her last, “Thank you. I like to think my work is little windows into worlds of fantasy, separate from ours, ethereal, and hard to pin down. I believe my work is like showing little snippets of other people's lives who live there.”

The interviewer stood open-mouthed trying to think of a follow-up but was having trouble. The artist could see this, and waited patiently for her question, she loved these questions when there grasping for something you never know what they’ll ask, “So each painting is its own world?”

The question didn’t disappoint, as she answered, “I like to think it's a window to a different place. A dream so much like ours yet, very different.”

“Wow” The interviewer was surprised by her, “And your signature eyes, as always add a sense of wonder to your work. What inspired you to add them?” This took the

“Eyes?” This was not a question she had ever been asked and didn’t know what the interviewer was asking, so she looked over one of her paintings when she finally notice two small yellow orbs that could be mistaken for eyes. “I wouldn't call that a signature.”

“But all your work has them.” The interviewer said confused asking, “What else other than a signature?”

“Ah, I see the confusion, these windows are likely to have something similar, that could be mistaken for eyes.” The artist said pushing her comment to the back of her mind. The rest of the interview, the artist thought, was rather mundane.

Later that day the artist thinks about the question the interviewer brought up about the eyes. She had never purposely put anything like that in her work, maybe she did add it by accident. She went over to her website to look over her prints, as she kept most of her paintings in the studio, and searched each painting for the eyes they mentioned.

The artist scanned over her paintings and quickly found the yellow eyes. “I wouldn’t really call them eyes…more like orbs.” The woman scrutinized the painting trying to membered why she put them there but no matter how hard she thought she couldn’t remember. ‘I bet the others are just random orbs they think are my hidden signature or something.’

The woman kept going through her work finding the eyes every time. She had no idea when she painted the eyes or why, but thought it must be something in her subconscious. It was when she realizes the eyes were the same color in every painting, no matter what. That was when she started to feel concerned. ‘I mix my own paints, these should be different colors in each painting, if only slightly, but these are all the same.’

She went through each and every painting now feeling anxiety as she sees the lights. When she thought that she suddenly knew. These weren't eyes. They were lights, and they were growing closer.

In every painting, the lights were growing, getting closer and closer.

“This can't be real.” The woman was freaked out by her own work and to prove this was some sort of hoax, she pulled out her latest half-finished work she had been working on at home. She scanned it immediately, dropping it as she sees the lights again.

“What is going on?”

Needing some kind of control the artist grabs a blank canvas, only blue paint, and begins to paint a little flower. Her mind started wandering in the way it always does when she creates. She sees a beautiful blue flower, the entire thing azure from stem to petal, swaying in the wind. The brush moves in her practiced strokes, quickly finishing the simple painting.

She looks the painting over, there two bright yellow lights sit upon the petal same as always, and she screams.

The woman from that day on stopped painting. She left her career behind having made enough money to retire if she had wanted. She didn't want to do that, she just want to do something, so she became a gallery owner to stay in the world she knew and present the works of others.

Her gallery quickly becomes popular with new artists, as she had always felt a strong connection with relatively new artists. She thought they all deserved a chance to get their work out there.

With her connections, the artist was able to bring many artists their first patrons. She does very well for herself but finds herself missing the brush. A few years go by as she runs her gallery than one day, someone offers her a large amount of money to paint something for her. While her gallery was doing extremely well, this was just the excuse she needed.

The artist had long since reasoned away the lights as having been some kind of nervous breakdown, having worked too hard. She had even reached the point of joking about it to her friends saying, “I must have been going little nuts near the end.” She would then drink just a little more of her wine than she normally would and grow quiet for a little too long.

Now she felt she didn’t have time for that. This was her comeback. So she went big, using the largest canvas she could fit in her studio. She stood staring at the blank canvas with her rigging, and buckets of paint in place as she began.

Like riding a bike, her mind entered the place where all her paintings came from. She found herself lost for hours, but only to her, it felt like a single moment. Every stroke is exact and smooth. Every moment a dream. Then, like always. She came back to her senses seeing what she had painted.

She laughed. She laughed harder than she had before, as on her canvas were the lights, larger than ever. Right in front of her, growing as time passed. Her last thought before darkness took her was, 'So those were headlights.'

——

In a place between, where chaos dances and order is temporary, a truck moves. In the truck are a man and woman are looking around both seeming confused.

The woman looks around at the road they pass seeing brushstrokes all along with it, “Did we just move through a painting?”

The man held his hand out of the window feeling something wet touch his hand pulling in fresh paint. He looked at it wide-eyed, “I think so.”

“How?”

The man was silent for a long time before answering, “I think she created a gate.”

“How could a normal person from earth create a gate? There is no mana for them to open it with?” The woman wonders aloud.

“She must have had a latent psychic ability.” The woman could see he was thinking hard, “She might have been painting us for years before this.” He concluded.

“Sounds like it would drive someone crazy.” She commented.

The man shrugged. “Maybe, but only if they notice.”

“That's the first time I've seen someone pick themselves.” The woman said chuckling.

“I don't think she knew why she did it, but I bet she knew she needed to.”

“A Hero thing?” The woman asked seriously.

The man nodded. “A Hero thing.”