On a dare, you enter a seemingly abandoned shack. It’s quiet. Almost too quiet. You fidget with the screen of your phone, and suddenly hear something shuffling around high above you. Tentatively, you look up, and nearly drop your source of dim light as you take a step back in alarm. Half a dozen pairs of nearly-glowing eyes stare back at you from various angles.

From deeper within the dilapidated lean-to, you hear a hoarse and muffled bark of a laugh. A lantern flickers to life, and you realize that you are very much not alone. The orange lamplight illuminates the many barn owls perched on the rafters above you, and you can make out some aspects of the stranger at the far end of the shack, including a brown jacket of some sort, as well as something dark leaning against a wall behind them. There are no distinctive facial features to speak of — at least none that are visible in the relative gloom. For a moment, you wonder if this person chose their avian companions on account of both having somewhat disturbing visages, or the lack thereof.

Before you can muster up a proper greeting, the figure pats a spot on the ground next to them; it’s covered in bits of straw and a smattering of pebbles, but thankfully void of owl pellets.

“The night is long. Come, sit with me a while.”