In Inexia, no one looked forward to Christmas. Every year, one of the doors in the neighborhood would dawn with a gift wrapped in shiny gold paper.

That morning, Selene found hers on the doormat: a tiny hourglass. Her pulse quickened as she watched the black sand falling, slowly but steadily, between the opaque glass. She squeezed it in her tiny hands, feeling the cold glass chilling her to the bone. On one end of the watch, a registration stood out: "Every gift has a price".

Her mother faked a smile at the sight of the watch. She didn't care how pale her daughter's face looked. She told her not to worry, that it was a simple gift. Selene didn't believe her. The legend that ran in the neighborhood announced the opposite: every gift announced how and when the person who received it would die.

The days passed, and the steady, unstoppable rhythm of the clock began to resonate in Selene's head like a distant drum. Every time she turned her gaze to the clock, the sand seemed to fall faster. She tried to hide it deep in her closet, but to no avail. Every night, when she returned to her room, she would find it back on the table, with the sand always a little closer to the end.

Christmas day came, and with it, the cough. First, mild. Then, heartbreaking. Her mother bent over in bed, her skin pale and sweaty, unable to get up. Selene looked for financial aid, but when she returned, silence took over status. The clock lay beside the bed, and the black sand had finished falling.

Selene looked at the empty watch in her hands. She understood all at once with a shudder that ran through her: the gift had not been for her. It had been for her mother, all along.