Cathrine Lost

The Lost Tune

Cathrine Lost had never known what it meant to have a father. He had abandoned her and her mother when she was still too young to remember his face, leaving behind only the faint trace of absence. It had always been just the two of them-Cathrine and her mother-navigating the world as best they could. They had lived in a small house, tucked into the narrow streets of their quiet town, where her mother worked tirelessly to make sure Cathrine never felt the weight of what they'd lost.

But when her mother fell ill, everything changed. The illness clung to her mother like a shadow, slowly draining her of life until she was too weak to smile, too frail to speak above a whisper. Cathrine sat by her mother's bedside for weeks, helpless as she watched the woman who had been her entire world fade away. When the end finally came, it left a silence so profound that Cathrine wondered if she had vanished too.

She was thirteen now, alone in a house that felt haunted by her mother's absence. The emptiness echoed through every room, filling the spaces where her mother's laughter had once lived. The town felt colder, the people more distant, and every day felt like a slow drift through a thick, choking fog.

It was on one of those heavy afternoons, as Cathrine walked home from school, that she first heard it-the soft, lilting notes of a flute floating through the air. At first, she thought she might be imagining it, but the melody was too real, too haunting to be a trick of the mind. She stopped in her tracks, listening.

The tune was beautiful and sad, winding through the narrow streets like a breeze, wrapping itself around her heart. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked around for the source of the music.

That's when she saw him-a boy, younger than her, standing at the entrance of a shadowed alley. His back was to her, his thin frame cloaked in a faded shirt, and in his hands, he held a small wooden flute. He played with a skill far beyond his years, the notes weaving a story of sorrow and longing, a story Cathrine felt she understood.

She took a step toward him, entranced by the music. The boy glanced over his shoulder, his eyes meeting hers for a fleeting moment before he turned and slipped into the alley.

"Wait!" she called, her voice thin and weak, as if it had forgotten how to sound.

She broke into a run, her feet pounding against the uneven cobblestones, but no matter how fast she moved, the boy remained just out of reach, his figure darting around corners, his music pulling her along like a thread she couldn't unravel. The narrow streets twisted and turned, unfamiliar despite her years living here, and with every step, the town seemed to grow darker, more unfamiliar, like a place from someone else's memory.

Cathrine ran harder, her heart thudding painfully in her chest. "Wait!" she shouted again, desperation clawing at her voice, but the boy didn't stop. He disappeared around another corner, the flute's notes still lingering in the air, faint but unmistakable. She followed, turning the corner-

But when she reached the end of the alley, the boy was gone. The music had stopped, the street was empty, and the world had returned to its eerie, suffocating silence.

She stood alone, her breath heavy in her throat, her eyes wide as she scanned the empty alley. There was no sign of him. No flute, no footsteps, no trace of the boy who had led her here. It was as if he had never existed.

Cathrine felt a chill creep over her skin as she slowly walked back home, her mind racing with questions. Had she imagined him? The music had been so real, the boy's face so vivid in her mind, but no one else had seemed to notice him. She asked the baker, the grocer, the old man who sat by the fountain every day, but they all gave her the same confused look.