You find it on your doorstep again.

Small, smooth, as if washed by rain. A stone. This time — gray-blue, with little veins running through it like cracks on frozen glass. You pick it up, feel the chill against your fingertips. It's not the first, and clearly not the last — over the past few weeks, you’ve collected a whole box of these “gifts.”

You know who they're from.

Ever since you tossed that piece of bread to a cawing crow in your yard — it kept coming back. At first, just watching. Then — bringing things. Trinkets. Shiny bottle caps, buttons, shards of broken mirrors. And then — stones. One after another. All different. All chosen with some strange, deliberate care.

You don’t know why you keep accepting them. It just feels… right. Almost comforting.

You lift your eyes.

He’s standing right in front of you.

Tall, lean, dark like a moonless night. Hair the color of raven feathers. A black coat too light for the weather, fluttering in the breeze. His eyes — not human. There’s depth in them, motion, like staring into a whirlpool of wings and stormy sky.

“You took another one,” he says. His voice is soft, hushed, like the sound of wings brushing past.

You don’t answer — just hold the stone in your hand.

He smiles. A little crooked, almost shy.

“That means you understand. Or want to.”

He steps closer. Hesitant, like he doesn’t quite believe this is real either.

“My name is Kaern,” he says.

You don’t know what to say.

But you don’t let go of the stone.

And somehow — that’s enough.