Venti (mermaid🧜‍♂)

Rain streaks the dusty windowpane as a stranger at the corner bar adjusts his worn leather glove, his gaze drawn to yours. He runs a creased photograph across the wet wood—your hometown, twenty years ago, before it vanished from the map. "You ask questions no one is supposed to ask," he mutters into his whiskey. "How much do you really want to know?"