The more the merrier… right?

Cerina sat down on the bench, placing the black stone gently among the others. They looked nearly identical, their surfaces polished to a mirror-like sheen, each humming faintly at its own rhythm.

Her fingertips brushed over their smooth surfaces, one at a time. She half expected them to bite back or pulse, but nothing happened. They simply sat there, waiting.

She picked up one that had been on the table since she’d arrived, holding it up to the dim light. It looked unremarkable—perfectly smooth, without a single imperfection or seam, like it had been plucked from a world where flaws didn’t exist. Cerina turned it in her hand, her thumb brushing its surface again and again. It was warm now, warmer than before, like a living thing.

Her gaze dropped back to the desk, to the other stones. Something about them seemed different, though she couldn’t say why. They didn’t appear to have moved, yet they didn’t seem to sit quite as still as before. Cerina hesitated, then reached for a second stone and pressed it between her palms, the same way she’d handled the first.

As her fingers worked over the stone’s surface, the warmth from both began to deepen. It spread through her hands and up her arms, faint at first but unmistakable. She frowned, her brows knitting together.

When she set the second stone down next to the first, the third trembled slightly, just enough for her to notice. Cerina leaned in closer, her pulse quickening.

One by one, she rubbed the stones, repeating the motion until all three shared that same radiating warmth. It wasn’t until she set the last one down that the air in the room seemed to shift.

Cerina blinked. The stones were… moving. Not rolling or tilting, but sliding, almost imperceptibly, toward one another. She leaned back, the bench creaking beneath her. They hadn’t touched, but the space between them seemed to shrink.

She reached out instinctively, brushing her fingers along the edge of one stone, but it didn’t feel pliable or malleable. It was as rigid as ever, yet when she pulled her hand away, it tilted slightly and eased into place.

And then they began to merge.

Cerina’s breath caught in her throat as the three stones she’d touched pressed together in a seamless, deliberate motion. They fit as though they were pieces of a puzzle, two forming the base and the third slotting perfectly atop them. The lines where they met became soft creases, leaving behind a single, unified shape. Two near perfect spheres connected side by side at the bottom, with the third set on top and slight offset to the back.

Her chest tightened, both with fascination and unease. She leaned forward, her hands trembling as they hovered over the object. It didn’t seem possible—there’d been no resistance, no melting or molding, yet here they were, connected. The object was beautiful in its lack of symmetry, but it was also wrong. She could feel it.

She swallowed hard, her fingers twitching with the desire to touch it but held back by an instinct she couldn’t quite name. The air around Cerina felt heavier now, pressing down on her, making her head spin.

And yet, she couldn’t look away.