Originally posted at thehorriblewolf blog for the March 2016 Flash Fiction Challenge.

I finally got my March piece written.  Again, it is from the same world as my WIP.

Tick Tick

Oliver looked up, but all he saw was a shadow flit across his window.  It looked really big.  He put down the comic book he had been reading and went across the room.  His bedroom was on the second floor so it must have been a bird.

He looked out at the bright sunlit afternoon.  Summer was waning and soon her would be back in school, but for now the scorching heat ruled and air conditions was the reason for living.  He looked at the narrow sill on the other side of the glass.  A shiny black pebble sat there.  It had not been there this morning, he knew that because he had crawled out the same window just before the sun came up so he could listen to strange silence that always fell at that time of day.

It was one of his favorite things to do, sit on the roof outside his room, and listen to the nothing and wait for the first rays of the sun to come up. Then the mosquitoes came back out and he was forced to crawl back through his little window and shut out the world before everything else woke up.  There had been no black stone there then. He was sure of it.

He open the window and felt the blast of hot humid air as it rushed in to the air conditioned space.  It almost felt like a living thing.  He grabbed the stone and quickly pushed the glass back into place. The stone lay cool in his palm.

How was it still cool?  It was at least 100 degrees outside and the late afternoon sun beat down on his west facing window mercilessly.  He turned it over in his fingers.  It was not much larger than a quarter, it had round edges and an almost glittery quality.  If he stared at it long enough it was like looking at a faraway galaxy, with an almost imperceptible ebb and flow of light.

CAW!

 Startled, Oliver almost dropped his new prize. Outside, on the tree branch closest to his window sat the largest crow he had ever seen.