The early morning sun, warm and bright, shines on Nick’s face, forcing him to open his eyes and regain his conscious. He found himself lying, face flat, on the family room floor. He slowly got up as his head began to throb due to the sun’s brightness. His first glance went straight to the glass door, as it was widely opened. Was the last night’s occurrence just a weird dream? “No, it felt too real!” Nick said to himself, but it wasn’t making much sense to him. The second glance he took was at Uriel’s cage, which was shut with the parakeet inside it, pecking at his food; his breakfast, perhaps.

“Hmm, maybe it was all a dream,” he concluded as he walked over to Uriel cage to observe the beautiful bird.

As soon as his face was inches away from the cage, Uriel stepped closer to Nick and began chirping, as if it was trying to tell Nick something. He carefully watched Uriel do his little charade for a couple of seconds until he felt his stomach grumble: the sign of hunger.

Just as when he was about to retreat to go to the kitchen and get something to eat, Uriel began to chirp wilder, if birds could talk, Uriel would have screamed at Nick to not leave just yet. “What is it?” Nick asked in confusion as he began to open Uriel’s cage and ultimately taking him out to see if he was feeling fine.

Throughout that process, Uriel did not stop chirping. “Are you trying to tell me something?” Nick asked, somewhat feeling foolish that a bird may possibly be trying to say something to him and he can’t understand what it was about. “I guess it’s just your food’s effect on you, those seeds can take its toll, you know?” he chuckled while putting Uriel back into his cage and continuing his way to the kitchen.

He took one big step as he felt something stub him on the bottom of his right foot. “Ow!” he screeched as he looked down on the floor to see what it was that had pricked him.

A shine twinkled to what seemed to have come out of nowhere provided by the reflection of the sun outside. He knelt down and picked up a silver chain with a teardrop-style diamond pendant. It was simple but elegant, but who could have it belonged to?

Nick stared at the necklace that was lying now on the palm of his hand for a minute. “Riley doesn’t wear jewellery,” he said softly while curling his brows, trying to think. “It can’t be Janine’s, that girl only likes big rocks!”

Nick got up from his position and laid the necklace on top of the entertainment system cabinet and left for the kitchen. Midway through, he heard Uriel chirping even more bewildered than the last and would not stop.

Somewhat annoyed at the screeching sound Uriel was making, he walked back to the family room, in hopes of calming the bird down and spending his morning in silence so that he could contemplate whether last night’s occurrence was in fact a dream, or not.

Reaching inside the room, Nick stood frozen at the doorway as he saw Uriel holding the necklace in his beak. “How…how did that…I put it right here,” he said while pointing at the top of the cabinet. “And…and I closed your cage…I vividly remember closing your cage…how…” Nick walked quickly to the cage to see if the lock of the cage was broken: it was fine.

Uriel began to hop wildly inside his cage, he wanted Nick to open the cage, and so Nick did. Uriel flew out of the cage and stopped to settle on top of the cabinet and looked back at the shocked Nick, whom was watching him. He chirped at Nick, signalling him to follow his trail, and so he did.

Uriel led Nick inside Riley’s bedroom. It had been a while since Nick has been inside Riley’s room. Nothing was changed or touched; it was left the way it had always been since Riley’s death. A strike of pain hit Nick right in the heart, and it ached for him to be inside there, it was a reminiscent strike of reality that tells Nick that she really was gone for good, forever. The bird signalled Nick to open Riley’s cabinet door. At first, Nick hesitated but Uriel persistent twitter did not leave him much choice. He reached his arm out and opened the closet door. As soon as access inside was attained, Uriel hopped in and stood on top of a small picture box. He danced around it for a couple of seconds and signalled Nick to take the picture box and look inside.

Nick reached in and took the box with him, with Uriel was still positioned on top of it. He laid it on top of Riley’s bed, where he also settled himself. Before opening the box, he took one deep breath, as an unsettled feeling ran through his entire body. He grabbed hold of the cover of the picture box and slowly opened it.

Once it was opened, Nick looked down only to find something that allowed a small gasp to escape his mouth.