Ace stared at themself in the mirror, clearly lost in their own thoughts. They were trying their best not to look at their eyes, but it was too tempting. The images and visions that appeared whenever they looked in the mirror gave them chills that ran right to their bones, but it was unavoidable.

In the mirror, past their pale reflection, lay a corpse. A corpse with platinum blond hair and dead grey eyes. Whenever they looked into their own eyes, all they could see was their future self. It was a grim sight to see that made Ace want to avoid mirrors. 

However, having to see themself in mirrors was completely unavoidable in Ace's life. Currently, they were facing a mirror as a makeup artist was preparing their makeup, making sure Ace looked presentable for the first show of the tour.

Although Ace had just arrived in Australia from America a few hours ago, their first show was set to start in under an hour. Luckily this was the only show of the day, so they had the rest of the day free.

Ace knew exactly what they were going to do when the show finished. They were going to find the person who couldn't stay out of their dreams. At least once a night, the image of a bright haired individual flashed in his brain, and Ace was convinced that this person was the key to finding out who this stalker was and solving the mystery once and for all.

"I'm done with your makeup now, Mx Akemi." The makeup artist told Ace, snapping Ace out of their thoughts."

"Thanks Trisha, I'll see you around." Ace gave a slight smile to Trisha before she walked off.

It was best to get the show out of the way before worrying about the rest of the day. 

________________________________________________________________________________

Ace sat inside a cafe by the beach. Waves lapped peacefully onto the golden shore, with children playing and adults sunbathing near the water. Australia really was the dream holiday destination Ace had heard about, people just had to look in the right places. They could see why their bright haired person would want to come here, the cafe provided the perfect view for drinking coffee.

If Ace was being completely honest with themself, they weren't sure if this person was going to show up at this cafe. The list of possibilities for the places they could be was so large, that Ace was forced to take a random leap of faith and hope that they had chosen the right spot. Frankly, the main reason they had chosen this cafe is because it was close to their guest house.

Someone entered the cafe and closed the door behind them. Ace snapped their eyes up to where the door was, but was utterly disappointed when it turned out that it wasn't the person they needed. They had been there for a couple of hours already, and they were starting to lose hope.

When the door opened again, Ace didn't even look up. There was no point. Only when they heard the sound of footsteps travelling towards them did Ace look up.

"Hey, are you waiting for anyone?"

A person with an Australian accent, indigo-coloured hair and vibrant eyes gazed back at them. For a moment, Ace's brain malfunctioned due to shock; they couldn't believe that out of the hundreds of places this person could be, they turned up here despite it not being the highest possibility.

"Oh, um, no. I'm here on my own." Ace pulled themself together, they were perfectly adept at social interaction.

The person smiled at Ace and took the seat across from them. "Great!" They lowered their voice slightly. "You're Ace Akemi, the famous magician, aren't you?"

"That's me, who's asking?" Ace replied with confidence. The fact that this person had approached him without Ace's intervention was a very good sign.

"Oh, I'm Indigo Periérgeia! I'm a journalist and reporter, it's a pleasure to meet you!"

To Ace, them being a reporter made perfect sense. A reporter is the perfect person to find out information and to solve this mystery. Indigo just had that look in their eyes, that hunger for more information and knowledge that couldn't be seen in many people.

When looking at Indigo, Ace couldn't tell if what their gender was, or if they even had a gender. Indigo's face was generally slender, with freckles spotted under their eyes and above their cheeks. Much like their name, their hair was coloured Indigo and was parted to one side. Ace would say that Indigo's age was close to their own, despite the childlike demeanor they displayed.

"May I ask what your pronouns are?" Ace didn't want to misgender Indigo like they had been many times in the past. 

"Oh, I go by he/him, thanks for asking! A lot of people assume and sometimes they get it wrong since I have a slightly feminine appearance. You pronouns are they/them, right?"

"Yes, they are. I'm presuming you want to ask me questions for an article. What agency do you work at?"

Indigo laughed, more nervously than anything. "Umm, well I'm not actually working for anyone yet, I'm still trying to write something that will catch their attention so I can stop writing for these small blogs. I've always wanted to interview you though, and I couldn't not approach you when I saw you just sitting here by yourself, no security guards or anything!"

Now everything was starting to add up. The boy's personality and motivation made perfect sense when put in line with Ace's goals. They were both looking for each other, and somehow they had both arrived at the same place at the same time on Ace's first day in Australia. The timing was unparalleled.

"So what questions do you want to ask?" Ace could use this opportunity to get him on board. 

"Hang on, let me go order a coffee if we're gonna chat. I'll be right back!" He left his bag on his chair as he left to place his order. 

While he was gone, Ace couldn't help but wonder what Indigo had to do with their future. They had zero connections to each other and the stalker was sending anonymous notes while they were in a completely different country. Then again, the chances of them both being here were so low, there had to be something special about the aspiring reporter.

Indigo didn't take long to return: he came with a creamy coffee in tow and he took a sip when he sat down.

"Sorry about that, I can't come to a cafe without ordering some sort of drink!" He took a notebook and pen out and placed them on the table. "Anyways, tell me about your magic. How does it work?" 

"Well first of all, you won't understand if you don't understand time and how it works."

Indigo grabbed his pen and leaned on his elbow with his other arm, getting closer to Ace to show he was interested.

"Make me understand then. Explain to me how it works." 

Ace was slightly taken aback by Indigo's interest in the topic. They'd had other reporters in the past ask them about this, but never had any of them look as invested as Indigo, and Ace hadn't even started yet. This made Ace realise: Indigo wasn't as innocent as he played off. His curiosity had led him to learn how to manipulate people to want to answer his questions honestly. It was a perfect trait for a reporter.

They started their answer with "if you think about it, time is like a spider web."

Indigo cocked his head to the side. "A spider web...?"

"Yea. It all starts in one place and it spirals out from there, creating infinite possibilities. When the spider makes a decision, new webs are made. Sometimes two webs meet and lead to a new place, only to later split once again. But sometimes, no matter what web you take on the way, all the webs come to meet at the same place. That is what fate is."

Indigo waited a little while, to make sure Ace didn't have anything else to add, before saying "Sooo, everyone has their own spider web?"

"You could say that, hypothetically of course." 

Another silence. "So what was the point of telling me all this and explaining how time works?"

"What if I told you that I could see this 'spider web'?" Ace used their hands to put 'spider web' in quotation marks.

"So is that how you predict the future?" Indigo asked before leaning in closer to Ace.

"Well, not exactly, it's more complicated than that. I see time shadows of people and what they will do in the future. For example, the real you is sitting right here, but I can see about three shadows of you around the shop due to something happening to delay you. Basically, it's showing me what you are doing and what you will do  in parallel universes. If I look into someone's eyes, I can see glimpses of their future. I also have dreams that contain glimpses of the future occasionally."

Indigo smiled brightly at the magician sitting across from him, his eyes glistening with wonder. "Wow, you are so interesting and amazing!" After another short pause, Indigo asked another question. "So tell me about your upbringing, and how it was affected by your powers?"

"Well I never knew my parents, they both died when I was a baby. I was never told how, and I didn't really want to know. My grandparents raised me. And although they are no longer around, they raised me well and I love them very much. I think I was about thirteen or fourteen when one day I woke up and saw about 20 different mes walking around the room. It was horrible because it was impossible to filter. I saw things happen that really didn't, I could see people who were dead walking around alive and healthy, and I witnessed deaths that didn't even occur. It was difficult at first because I had no way to control it whatsoever, but in time I learnt to control it and master it, and unlock other elements of it like the dreams and the thing with eyes."

Indigo looked deeply into Ace's eyes, clearly fascinated by the individual sitting across from him. "Has anyone ever told you that you're really dreamy?"

"Yes, I do have a lot of fans who like to squeal over me, you're not the only one." Ace smirked at Indigo as his flattering had been turned against him, making the boy's cheeks tint slightly.

"I have one last question regarding your abilities." Indigo recovered just as quickly as he had been struck down.

"Shoot."

"Are there any other possible ways to enhance your abilities?"

"I have no idea what the limits of this strange power is, I have no doubt that I could achieve much greater heights. What sort of things were you thinking?"

"Something like... time travel?" 

"Who knows, maybe. I sure don't know how to do it now but that would be amazing to learn, as well as risky. The way the flow of time works, an entire new timeline would probably be created by the person going back in time and interfering with events, especially if it involved their past self. That's just my theory though, no guarantee that it's right." 

Indigo licked his lips as he closed his book. "Thanks for all the info, Ace. It was very informative and interesting!" 

Ace blinked in slight surprise. Indigo had written pages while they were talking, all without looking away from Ace once. They hadn't even noticed that Indigo was taking notes from this conversation. This boy was something else.

"You can't publish anything of what I just told you."

"Huhhh?" Indigo stood up in his attempt to stand his ground, clearly frustrated by the statement. "What do you mean? Why not?" 

"I'll let you publish on one condition."

"And what's in it for me? What's stopping me from walking out of here and publishing all this anyways?"

"You can find out even more valuable information than this."

Indigo's face lit up as he sat back down and once again leaned against his elbow on the table. 

"Tell me more, then."


Word Count: 2063 (excluding this line)

Total Word count: 2252