The Walk-In & The Hollow Bone

They met at the edge of something neither could name.

He knew her before this moment —
not her name,
not this skin,
but the light she used to carry.
He remembered it like a scar remembers fire.

She didn’t know him. Not yet.
But her bones tilted slightly when he spoke,
like a tree leaning into a familiar wind.

She was still learning how to hollow herself out —
how to get out of the way of what wanted to pass through her.
Still fragile with remembering,
still unsure where her old self ended and the vessel began.

He said nothing. That was part of the code.
Walk-ins don’t announce themselves.
They wait. They witness.
They carry what was agreed to long before
this world began whispering rules.

There was a stillness in him, ancient and contained.
And in the depth of his eyes,
she saw something she could not name —
not longing, not desire,
but a memory that pulsed just out of reach.

It unsettled her. Sacredly.
Like she’d buried a message in herself long ago,
and his presence made it vibrate just beneath the skin.

They spoke of nothing important.
But the energy that hummed between them
held the resemblance of a thousand echoes.
And somewhere, in the unmarked sky,
the universe turned a page.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai