I hummed a little song to myself as I skipped along the cracked pavement, lugging two shopping bags filled with various supplies and food. It was late, and I was almost at my apartment. It had finally stopped raining, but the air was still foggy and damp.

"Mommy, I'm home!" I called once I arrived, nudging open the door with my shoulder and setting the bags inside the darkened room.

"Oh, are you still sleeping?" I giggled while turning on the lights, lost in a joke that nobody else would understand. I slid the deadbolt closed and poured out the groceries onto the counter. Laughed again.

I did that a lot these days. Nothing was funny, really. But sometimes I just felt the impulse, the giddiness rising up in me, and I had to, even though most of the time there was nobody around me to hear it.

A bag of coffee beans, a few apples, and other random food items I could never eat tumbled out of the bag.

I sighed and reached into the next one. Unlike the other, it was made of flimsy white plastic, with a logo printed in red in the front. Inside lay a tiny bottle of craft glue and a packet of rhinestones along with a charm strung on a thin chain.

With one quick motion, I snapped the cheap charm off, leaving just the chain. I smiled. "I was running out of room to keep all these," I mumbled to myself, pulling out my necklace from underneath my shirt. The charms hung from it, glinting in the dim light, behind each one a story. Then slowly, I unclipped the ends, letting them fall one by one into my open palm.

They chimed against one another softly.

Then I strung them onto the new chain, watching as they fell into place.

"Perfect," I said to myself once I was done. I ran into my room to fetch my mask.

Sitting down on my bed, I strung the chain over one of my mask's horns, clasping it to the material so that it wouldn't slide off. When I was done, one horn had an assortment of trinkets loosely hanging off the side.

I tried it on with a grin, shifting my head from side to side in the dirtied mirror. There were no lights on, the only thing illuminating the room being the slants of murky light streaming in through the torn blinds and tinted glass.

Maybe I should test it out tonight, I was just thinking when suddenly a sharp knock sounded.

Knock knock knock.

I inhaled sharply, running out into the entryway and stashing my mask in its usual hiding spot.

The knocking persisted. I grabbed a stool from the kitchen and used it to stand on and look through the little hole in the door.

My eyes widened. I almost lost balance on the chair.

Doves.

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