Painted in Fate

Chapter 1: The First Dream

Babe Tanatat had always been an artist of few words, but his paintings spoke volumes. Every stroke of his brush brought life to the blank canvas, yet recently, they had become dominated by a single face—one he had never seen in real life.

It all started with the dreams.

The first time it happened, Babe thought it was nothing more than a strange coincidence. A man, strikingly handsome, had appeared in his dream, standing in the middle of a misty field. His features were so vivid, every detail etched into Babe's mind as if the dream was a memory. But that wasn't what unsettled him—it was the feeling that accompanied it.

In the dream, he felt an overwhelming rush of emotions: love, betrayal, and a heartache so deep it left him breathless. When he woke up, tears streamed down his face, and his chest ached as though he had lived through something he couldn't explain. But who was this man, and why did he feel as though he knew him?

The dreams didn't stop. Every night, the man would return, always the same, his presence pulling Babe deeper into an obsession that he couldn't control. Soon, Babe's studio became filled with paintings of the man's face—dark, intense eyes, strong jawline, and a gaze that seemed to hold the weight of a thousand untold stories.

Babe had tried to brush it off, telling himself it was just his artistic mind playing tricks on him. But the more he painted, the more real it felt. This wasn't just some figment of his imagination. There was something more to it—something he couldn't shake.

The man's face haunted him. Even when he wasn't painting, Babe would catch himself sketching the man in the corners of his notebooks, his mind always drifting back to the same haunting image.

Why did he feel so connected to a man he had never met?

One afternoon, as Babe sat in front of yet another unfinished portrait of the mysterious man, he felt a wave of frustration. His brush hovered over the canvas, his hand frozen in mid-air. He had painted this face a hundred times, yet it never felt complete. There was something missing, something he couldn't grasp.

He put down his brush and stared at the painting, as if waiting for it to give him answers. But the painting remained silent, just as it always had.

"Who are you?" Babe whispered, the question hanging in the still air of his studio.

He knew he was losing it. No sane person would be this obsessed with a face from a dream. But he couldn't stop. Every time he closed his eyes, the man was there, waiting for him.

The only thing Babe knew for certain was that his life had changed the moment the dreams began. And until he found out who this man was—if he even existed at all—he would never find peace.

Little did he know, his answers were closer than he thought.