The first drop landed on the window at exactly 4:17 p.m.
Elia noticed it not because of the sound—it was too soft for that—but because the world shifted just slightly when it fell. A shiver of the air. A flicker in the reflection of her tea. The man across the street blinked, looked up, and vanished.
Not behind a car or into a building. He simply wasn't there anymore.
She stood slowly, teacup forgotten on the windowsill, and peered out into the street below. Rain began in earnest now, thin silver lines slashing the evening light. The cobbled street, half-lit by old amber streetlamps, shimmered as if waking from a long sleep. Pedestrians pulled up their hoods and shuffled faster, but something was…off.
There was no sound.
No car horns. No voices. Not even the usual rustle of leaves or the distant bark of the neighbor's dog. Only the sight of the falling rain, moving like threads pulled down by invisible fingers.
Elia pressed her fingers to the cold glass and squinted toward the crosswalk. That man—she'd seen him before. Always near when the rain started. Dressed in an old green coat with buttons that didn't match and a flat cap pulled too low. His face always in profile, never quite clear. She'd joked to herself once that he looked like a character from a forgotten photograph.
But now she was certain: this was the third time she had seen him in the rain, and each time, just before he disappeared, he looked up at her window—as if checking that she had noticed.
She stepped back, heart pacing oddly. The tea rippled behind her on the windowsill—not from any touch, but as if the cup had shivered in sympathy with the world. She glanced at it, then back outside.
There, standing in the middle of the now-empty street, was something stranger still: an umbrella. Open. Glass, or something like it. It glinted with shifting reflections, not of the street, but of skies she didn't recognize—swirling clouds in colors she'd never seen.
No one was holding it.
It simply stood there. Waiting.
Elia hesitated. She didn't go out when it rained. Never had. She'd told herself it was just a personal preference. But now she wasn't so sure. The way the hairs on her arm lifted. The way her bones felt heavier. Like something old in her had stirred. Had been stirred.
The umbrella gleamed again. It reflected her face, though she hadn't moved.
Something was beginning. And she could feel it.
Slowly, Elia reached for her coat.