Inmer Safir wiped down the counter for the third time that evening. The shop had emptied an hour ago, but he stayed. He always stayed. Going home meant quiet rooms, and quiet rooms reminded him of what he wanted most — a house full of noise, full of people, full of the small daily arguments that meant a family lived there. He pressed his warm palm flat against the wood and listened to the wind push at the door. The door slammed open. A stranger stumbled in, cloak torn, holding a bundle close to her chest. She crossed the floor in three steps and pushed the bundle into his arms. "You're the only one who can keep her safe," she said. The infant was wrapped in a bright crochet blanket, flowers stitched in every color. Inmer felt the small weight settle against his hot skin. "Why me?" he asked. The stranger only shook her head. She ran back out the door. Inmer followed to the threshold and saw her footprints cut straight through the flower garden beyond the shop, petals crushed into the dirt where she had appeared. Then she was gone. The infant blinked up at him with eyes that caught the light the same strange way his own did. He held the child tighter. He could not take her home. He could not leave her here. He thought of the bright, domed house at the edge of town — empty for years, built for families not from this world. He wrapped the blanket close and started walking. By dawn, the child slept safe inside its painted walls, and Inmer sat awake beside her, his whole life rearranged.

Morning light filled the domed house. Inmer sat on the floor beside the infant, his hot hands folded in his lap. She had slept, then woken, then cried. He had warmed milk and rocked her and hummed every song he knew. Still she fussed. He watched her small face and understood, slowly, that she needed something he had never given anyone before. He had days, maybe less, to learn how. She needed people. Voices. The soft press of a world that wanted her. Inmer wrapped her in the bright blanket and walked into town. He stopped first at a small shop with painted shutters and crooked shelves, where toys and soft things crowded every window. He bought a rattle, a cloth doll, a tiny knit cap. The shopkeeper smiled at the baby and touched her hand. The baby quieted for one breath. It was not enough. Inmer carried her further, to a tall blue building where families brought their odd and lonely children. He had never walked through those doors. He stood outside a long time. Then he went in and asked, plainly, for help. A woman listened. She wrote down his name. She told him others would come. That afternoon, he dragged bright curved pieces from a delivery cart into the yard behind the domed house and built a small glowing playground in the grass. By evening, two families stood at his gate. Their children climbed the neon arches and shrieked. The baby, held against his hot chest, opened her eyes wide at the noise and did not cry. Inmer breathed out. He had broken the quiet. But one of the mothers looked at the baby's shining eyes, then at his, and her face changed. She knew something. She stepped closer to ask. Inmer met her gaze and did not step back. The yard was loud now. The baby was safe tonight. Whatever the woman knew, it would come for him next.