Star catcher

Anne stood by the door, her coat buttoned tight against the chill of the morning, her bag slung over one shoulder. The clock on the wall read 7:52 a.m., and the world outside her apartment was waking up—cars rumbling, a distant siren wailing, the faint chatter of neighbors heading to their own daily grind. She'd slept again last night, another eight hours of deep, dreamless rest, and the clarity it brought felt like a lifeline. She could face work today, patch things up with Gerald, prove she wasn't the walking corpse she'd been for weeks. But there was one problem staring her in the face: Deon.He lounged on the couch, one leg slung over the armrest, flipping through The Secret Garden with a lazy grin. He looked too comfortable, too at home, his green jacket draped over a chair and his boots leaving faint smudges on her floor. She still didn't know what he was—human, hallucination, something else entirely—but leaving him alone in her apartment felt like handing a toddler a box of matches."I'm going to work," she said, her voice firm despite the knot in her stomach. "I'll be back by six. Don't… don't break anything, okay?"Deon glanced up, his sky-blue eyes catching the light. "You sure you want me unsupervised? I might throw a wild party. Invite the pillow dragons."She didn't smile, though the corner of her mouth twitched. "I'm serious, Deon. I don't know what you'll do, and I can't afford to come home to a mess."He sat up, the book falling shut in his lap. "I'll be fine, Anne. I'm not a kid anymore—well, not completely. Go do your thing. I'll figure out mine."That was the problem: she didn't know what his "thing" was. He didn't eat much beyond the toast he'd tried yesterday, didn't seem to sleep, didn't have a job or a life beyond trailing her like a shadow. But she couldn't stay home to babysit him—she had to salvage her own life first. With a final glance, she nodded and slipped out the door, locking it behind her. The click felt final, like she was sealing him in—or herself out.The walk to the bus stop was brisk, the air biting at her cheeks. She tried to focus on the day ahead—deadlines, edits, Gerald's inevitable lecture—but her mind kept drifting back to Deon. What would he do all day? Stare at the walls? Raid her fridge? Disappear into whatever void he'd come from? She shook her head, shoving the thoughts aside as the bus rattled up. She had to trust he'd behave. Or at least not burn the place down.Deon watched the door close, the sound of Anne's footsteps fading down the hall. The apartment settled into a hush, broken only by the hum of the fridge and the occasional drip from the kitchen sink. He leaned back, staring at the ceiling—those familiar cracks Anne had traced in her sleepless nights—and felt a restlessness creep into his bones. He'd never been alone like this—not in the real world, anyway. Back when he was hers, her imaginary shadow, he'd existed only when she needed him, flickering in and out with her whims. Now he was here, solid and stuck, with hours stretching out like an empty page."Boring," he muttered, tossing the book onto the coffee table. It landed with a thud, and he stood, stretching his arms over his head. His joints popped, a sensation that still startled him. Being real was strange—every creak of his body, every brush of fabric against his skin felt new, a little too loud against the quiet.He wandered to the window, peering through the blinds at the gray street below. People hustled past, heads down, hands shoved into pockets. A world he didn't belong to, not yet. He could go out there, maybe—test how far this solidity stretched—but something told him he shouldn't. Not without Anne. She was his anchor, the thread that had pulled him into being. Straying too far felt risky, like a kite tugging at its string.So he turned back to the apartment, hands on his hips. "Alright, Deon," he said to himself. "What now?"He started with the obvious: exploration. Anne's place was small but cluttered, a patchwork of her life in objects. The kitchen held mismatched mugs and a stack of takeout menus; the living room overflowed with books, their spines cracked and pages dog-eared. He ran his fingers over them, smiling at the titles he recognized—stories she'd read to him in her treehouse, her voice weaving worlds he'd lived in. But there were new ones too, adult books with dense text and no pictures, their covers sleek and serious. He picked up a few, flipping through, but the words swam together, too dry to hold his interest.Next, he tried the TV, fumbling with the remote until it flickered to life. A cooking show blared, all bright lights and chattering hosts, but the noise grated on him. He clicked it off, the silence rushing back like a relief. He wasn't made for sitting still—he'd been Anne's knight, her adventurer, always moving, always doing. This idleness itched.He drifted to her desk, a narrow slab of wood shoved against the wall, piled with papers and a battered laptop. The screen was dark, but a notebook lay open beside it, Anne's handwriting scrawled across the page—notes about commas and dangling modifiers, edits for some manuscript she'd been wrestling with. He sat, the chair creaking under him, and picked up a pen, twirling it between his fingers. Writing. She'd always loved it, even as a kid—scribbling tales of pirates and secret kingdoms, reading them to him under the oak tree. He'd been her audience, her muse, soaking up every word."What if…" he murmured, tapping the pen against the desk. An idea sparked, faint but bright, like a match struck in the dark. What if he wrote something? Not for her, not this time—for himself. To see what he could do.He grabbed a blank sheet from the stack, smoothing it out, and stared at it. The emptiness was daunting, a challenge he hadn't faced before. Back then, Anne had done the creating—he'd just lived it. But he wasn't that boy anymore, not entirely. He was more, grown in the shadows of her mind, and maybe he had stories of his own.He started small, the pen scratching hesitantly: The air smelled of pine and secrets, a forest stretching endless under a sky that never slept. He paused, rereading it, then kept going, the words spilling faster now. I walked alone, boots sinking into the needles, chasing a sound I couldn't name—a voice, maybe, or a memory calling me back. It wasn't Anne's forest from the dream, not quite—this was his, born from the nowhere he'd waited in, the half-formed pieces of himself he'd clung to all those years.The sentences grew, weaving into paragraphs, then pages. He wrote about a wanderer lost between worlds, a figure stitched from shadows and longing, searching for a tether to hold him real. It wasn't perfect—his grammar wobbled, his spelling tripped over itself—but it felt alive, pulsing with a rhythm he hadn't known he could make. Hours slipped by, the light shifting across the room, and he didn't notice. The restlessness faded, replaced by a quiet thrill, a sense of purpose he'd never tasted before.By the time he stopped, the page was full, front and back, ink smudged where his hand had dragged across it. He leaned back, grinning at the mess. "Not bad," he said aloud, then laughed. Not bad at all.But it was raw, unpolished—Anne would've circled half the words in red, muttering about clarity and structure. He glanced at her laptop, its dark screen a silent dare. She'd left it open yesterday, the manuscript files still glowing on the desktop. He'd watched her type, her fingers flying as she fixed other people's words. Maybe he could do that too—clean his own up, make them sharp.He powered it on, fumbling with the password—he'd seen her type it once, "oaktreeshadow," a relic of their past. It worked, and the screen flared to life. He opened a blank document, transcribing his scribbles, then started tweaking. Commas appeared, sentences tightened, the wanderer's voice grew clearer. It wasn't just a story now—it was an article, a piece about being lost and found, wrapped in the kind of vivid, punchy prose he'd seen in the magazines on Anne's shelf.When he finished, he titled it: "The Man Who Walked Out of Nothing." Simple, but it fit. He saved it, then printed it, the clunky old printer wheezing out a single sheet. He held it up, the ink still warm, and felt a surge of something new—pride, maybe, or possibility. He could do this. He could make something real, not just live in Anne's shadow.The clock read 5:47 p.m. Anne would be back soon. Deon stood, stretching again, and tucked the article into the notebook, leaving it open on the desk. He didn't know if she'd read it, didn't know what she'd think, but it was there—a piece of him, offered up like the toy soldiers he'd once handed her in their make-believe wars.Anne stepped through the door at 6:03 p.m., her shoulders aching from hunching over her desk all day. Work had been a slog—Gerald had accepted her apology with a grunt, piling her with extra pages to make up for lost time—but she'd survived. Her mind felt sharp again, her eyes clear, and the relief of it carried her home. She half-expected to find chaos waiting: Deon sprawled on the floor, the TV blaring, her books scattered like confetti. Instead, the apartment was quiet, almost too quiet."Deon?" she called, dropping her bag by the door."In here," he replied from the living room. She rounded the corner and found him on the couch again, Peter Pan back in his hands, his grin wider than usual."You didn't burn the place down," she said, peeling off her coat. "I'm impressed.""Told you I'd be fine." He closed the book, watching her with that same curious intensity. "How was work?""Fine. Busy." She kicked off her shoes, then paused, catching a faint hum from her desk. The laptop was on, its fan whirring softly. "Did you touch my computer?"Deon's grin turned sheepish. "Maybe. I got bored."Her stomach dropped. "What did you do?""Nothing bad!" he said quickly, holding up his hands. "I just… wrote something. It's on the desk if you want to see."She frowned, crossing to the desk. The notebook lay open, a printed page tucked inside, its edges slightly curled. She picked it up, scanning the title—"The Man Who Walked Out of Nothing"—then the first few lines. Her breath caught. The words were rough around the edges, sure, but they flowed with a raw, vivid energy she hadn't expected. Pine and secrets, a wanderer stitched from shadows—it was haunting, strange, and oddly beautiful."You wrote this?" she asked, turning to him."Yeah." He rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous tic she was starting to recognize. "I didn't know what else to do. You were gone, and I figured… why not try?"She read on, her editor's eye kicking in—spotting a misplaced comma, a clunky phrase—but beneath the flaws was something real, something that pulled her in. It wasn't just a story; it was him, spilling onto the page, a piece of the nowhere he'd come from shaped into words."This is good," she said finally, her voice softer than she meant it to be. "Really good, Deon."His grin widened, lighting up his face. "You think so?""Yeah. It needs work—structure, polish—but the bones are there. You've got a voice." She set the page down, meeting his eyes. "Where'd you learn to do this?"He shrugged, but his gaze held hers. "From you, I guess. All those stories you told me—I listened. And today, I just… let it out."Anne didn't know what to say. She'd spent the day fighting to reclaim her own work, her own life, and here he was, carving out a piece of his own. It shifted something in her, a flicker of warmth she hadn't expected. He wasn't just a burden, a price she'd paid—he was starting to be something more."Keep writing," she said, turning to the kitchen to hide the flush creeping up her neck. "You're better at it than you think."Deon laughed, a sound that followed her like a breeze. "Maybe I'll write about you next. The brave one who faced the dark."She shot him a look over her shoulder, but there was no bite in it. "Don't push your luck."He didn't, but as she started dinner—pasta this time, something simple—the quiet between them felt different. Less strained, more companionable. She'd left him alone, expecting trouble, and instead he'd surprised her. And as she stirred the pot, the faint scratch of his pen against paper started up again from the living room, a sound that settled into her bones like a promise.Anne Baker had wanted sleep. She'd gotten it—and now, it seemed, she'd gotten a writer too.