Savannah.

How many people find their way here through life? Not many.

Most people go to New York or California to chase dreams of exceptionality.

But Piper?

She was here by mere chance. Or at least that's what she would tell you. Savannah was like if you took Manhattan, flipped it on its head, and filled it with Georgians. It was always hot and always loud. But not in the way that New York was. New York was loud in a way that was almost too much. Savannah was loud in a way like a big band jazz song, it ebbed and flowed and carried a swinging rhythm to it.

But a good bit of people came to Savannah to find themselves.

Artists did and Piper was one of those artists.

Piper McAllen had some how made her way into one of the world's most prestigious art schools and was finishing up her first year now as a matter of fact. She strode down the narrow streets of the southern city and stopped just outside of the city's most famous cafe. She glanced down at her phone to make sure she was at the right place. She was. She shouldered her bag and entered.

"PIPE!"

A familiar voice broke out amongst the stillness of the cafe, it was closed for renovations. Piper looked across the barren room.

"Hailey."

She said with a smile. Her rambunctious friend bolted to her and smothered her in a hug.

"How was your second to last painting studio class?" Hailey asked her as Piper struggled to pull out of her grasp, gasping for air as she did so. "It was great-" She managed to choke out.

"Let me go, please?" She added with a gasp for air. "Oh." Hailey's shoulders sagged. "Sorry." She added with a bit of a nervous laugh.

"Anyways, Angela is interested in those paintings of yours, you know the one." "The castle?" Piper raised a brow at her friend. "Yeah. that one you keep painting at different angles. She wants something like that painted on this wall here," She stepped over to a wall that had been hastley painted white, covering up a previous mural of sunflowers.

The previous artist wouldn't mind, she had died long ago.

"And she wants me to paint a castle? In a cafe in Savannah in the heart of the American south?" "Look you know she's weird, okay? She's finally moved past the Van Gogh sunflowers and redneck hunting trophies-"

What a mix, right?

"To renaissance and dark academia with a hint of southern barbecue."

Again, weird, but whatever. It wasn't Piper's place to judge. She was hired for a job and she was going to do just that. Her job.

"Alright." She said with a shrug and made her way over to the wall. "Can I get you anything before you start? Some coffee maybe? Or tea?" "Coffee's great." Piper replied and opened her bag. She pulled out various paint brushes, cans of solvent, rags, and an artist's smock.

She draped the smock over herself and grabbed a tube of deep blue paint, a natural phthalo blue if you will, and added it to her pallet as she stared at the blank wall before her.

How would she go about this? How should she go about this?

This was the largest painting she had ever attempted but she was confident she could do it. Besides, the money was good and lets face it, anyone between the age of seventeen and forty five could use any money that came their way with some minor small print.

Four hundred bucks to paint a mural in Savannah's most popular bizarre cafe? Say less.

She pushed out her thumb and held it out in front of her, her right arm perpendicular to her torso, her armpit made a perfect right angle. She leaned her head against her shoulder, making it parallel to her outstretched arm and closed her left eye.

She held her thumb up against the wall vertically and then switched it to horizontally. Once her proportions were all measured up she got to work. The owner, Angela, had already draped tarps and paint stained bed sheets all over the floor to keep them clean from her painting process. A ladder had been folded up against the wall which she quickly unfolded and set up next to the wall.

She climbed up it and began, her paintbrush made the first stroke of many. She dragged it along the white void. A knock on the wall pulled her from her work. Hailey stood holding a cup of hot coffee.

"Coffee's ready for you."

She said with a smile and placed it on a near by table. Piper climbed down the ladder. "Thank you." She said as she picked up the cup and took a sip. Angela may have been a weirdo but she did make a damn good cup of coffee.

"Not a problem. I've got a class to attend to." Hailey said, she was a music student after all, "I'll lock the door behind me but there's a spare in the back for you when you leave. It's under the coffee ground bag. Just be sure to bring it back tomorrow." Piper nodded. "Thanks." She replied.

With Hailey gone now she could really focus. She pulled out her phone and turned the volume all the way up. She one of those armbands that runners use to hold their phones while they go for a morning jog and slipped it inside.

She chose Claire De Lune and just as the song began to roll out and into the air she turned her hearing aids off. Climbing up the ladder once more with her brush ready, she stared the white void down with keen eyes.

"Okay." She breathed. "Here we go." and she began to paint, letting only the beats of rhythm guide her.

⋆｡°✩

"Ominis! Quiet!"

Sebastian snapped over his shoulder at his blind friend who stumbled behind him, nearly loosing his balance over a miss placed stone.

"Sebastian, honestly, we are seventh years now. We shouldn't be doing things like this anymore."

Ominis replied as the two continued to sneak around some ancient ruins that Sebastian had found during his fifth year at Hogwarts.

"Stop complaining you're going to get us caught." Sebastian added.

"Watch out for that stone there- here." He helped to guide his friend around the remains of a pillar that had crumbled long ago.

"Who is going to hear us all the way out here?" Ominis replied and Sebastian quickly hushed him.

"Not who." He said. "But what." Sebastian said and quickly told him to duck behind the crumbling remains of a wall. Ominis couldn't see it but he could hear it. On the other side of that wall, which Sebastian could see, was another wall in ruins. But on that wall was a crack, a rip, that didn't look like it was meant to be there.

Light flickered through the crack in the wall and it seemed to be pulling things towards it, slowly of course as Sebastian and Ominis were perfectly stationary and not being pulled towards the odd crack in the wall. All the stones, the grass and trees, were slanted in the direction of the of the crack.

"What is it?" Ominis asked.

"I wish you could see this." Sebastian said as he peaked over the edge of the crumbled wall. The crack was mystifying. It bewitched him.

"Because otherwise you won't believe me." Sebastian added. Ominis scoffed.

"So dramatic." "Hush." Sebastian snapped. "It's a crack in the wall." "You dragged me all the way out here to see a crack in the wall of some ancient ruins, one of which I cannot even see." "It's not a normal crack, Ominis. It's glowing." "It's daylight. It's probably just the sunlight shining through it."

"It's glowing green." "Oh."