The alpaca steps through the city, its wool shifting colors like clouded opal—sometimes white, sometimes deep indigo, sometimes stitched from stars. It does not walk so much as glide, its hooves never quite touching the ground, yet leaving behind hoofprints that sprout tiny glass sculptures—each one a perfect miniature of something lost: a key, a violin, a face that no one remembers but feels familiar. Its eyes hold entire landscapes, spinning like galaxies, and when people stare too long, they forget where they were going. The baker once swore he saw his childhood home inside one eye, the doorway still ajar. The mayor’s reflection appeared in the other, except she was laughing in reverse, her mouth unspooling words no one could hear. At midnight, the alpaca hums—a deep, resonant vibration that bends the air. The streetlights flicker, their glow curling into soft tendrils that float upward like jellyfish. A second moon, smaller and silver, peels away from the real one, hovering low over the rooftops like a lost balloon. The cathedral clock melts slightly, its hands twisting into symbols no clock should have. Somewhere, a woman wakes from a dream where the alpaca whispered a secret into her palm. When she opens her hand, there is a small, pulsing star resting in her lifeline. It winks once, then sinks into her skin. Outside, the alpaca turns a corner, vanishing into a doorway too small for its body—but it does not matter. It was never really here, was it?