Chapter 1: Astonishement Beyond Belief
A/N: Everything you need to know is in the story, you just have to stick with it.
A blast of icey cold air swirled around the spacious gallery. The walls, painted a modest white, were covered by dozens of intricate paintings. On the hardwood floor stood scupltures of everything ranging from a petite woman to unidentifiable shapes.
Near the middle of the room, to the right and around the corner of the glass doors beckoning outsiders to enter, a painting of a sandy beach mounted a wall. The girl staring at it was not what most called an admirer. In fact, as she stood amidst the fellow viewers, all she could do was pick out the flaws in the creation before her.
The mixture of colors didn't truly capture the reality of what the artist had seen.
Near the bottom right hand corner of the canvas, where the sand met grass, the paint was smudged from poor blending.
Where the rising sun cast light onto the ocean, the shading was just downright terrible.
The young woman squinted, her thin eyebrows caved inward. How had such a disastorous piece of art make it amongst more beautiful artwork, whose owners had much more talent than the one at hand.
Just as a group of middle aged women passed by, their heels making soft clacking noises as they met the wood, the girl's phone began to ring in her bag.
With a glance at the caller ID, a smirk appeared on her face. The first in many days.
A hit of a button connected to her the person on the other end, and with joy evident in her silky voice, she answered, "Lena speaking."
The sun was unmerciful. It glared from a cloudless sky and beat on the pavement as if it were punishing all below. Usually a natural lover of outdoors, Bridget believed if she stayed a moment longer, she'd surely die of heat exhaustion.
Unlocking the door to her and her boyfriend's apartment, she sighed with relief as the air conditioner met her face and sent goosebumps down her arms. It should be illegal to be this hot in May, she thought to herself, kicking off her shoes and grabbing a water from the fridge.
Bee debated checking her phone messages, then decided against it. She wasn't in the mood to listen to her old coach at Brown trying his best to get her to volunteer at their summer training camp. Nor did she have the strength to ignore one more reporter begging for an interview.
Crashing on the couch, she turned on the television and began searching for something, anything, to watch. The channels skimmed by without peaking her interest.
Until.
She only caught the end of it. Normally, these kind of things bored her out of her mind, but this time...this time she had seen something remarkable.
A commercial for the annual indie film festival was no big news to Bridget. Living in Sacremento, there were always "annual film festivals." But none like this.
None involving those people.
None that left Bee's mouth agape.
None that froze her in time and caused her water to crash from her hand, making a wet puddle on her floor.
It can't be. Her mind screamed. Thoughts weren't coming through as they should. Her brain was unable to sort through anything. She might as well have shut the thing off completely, at least then she wouldn't have to attempt to process everything.
The shutting of a door did nothing to rouse Bee from her daze. Nor did the approachment of her significant other.
"Hey, babe. How was your run?"
Bridget looked up, wide-eyed. She knew the question at hand was concerning her routine jog around the boardwalk, but to her, it was on a completely different scale.
Quietly, she replied, "I think it caught up with me."