Melinda occupied her usual spot at the mouth of the alleyway between the 24 hour corner shop and the bank. There was an ATM set against the front of the bank and just across the street was the Old Scholar Statue, both of which brought about plenty of footfall.
When the mood struck her, Melinda had no compunctions about asking people directly for spare change. Pride was a terrible thing. And from what she observed, most people spent most of their money on useless things, so some of it may as well go towards feeding her.
But today, she had plenty of food, so she sat with her cup between her feet and her dog, Shaggy, snuggled into her lap.
People continued to drop coins into her cup, but not at the same volume as if she was advertising, so she thanked them kindly and extended blessings from God and all the usual sort of stuff that they'd expect.
Even though she had never been the same since the night of the attack, had never been able to access the thoughts and memories that hid behind that opaque grey cloth, she still enjoyed living. Even though she struggled to hold down work, to take care of herself, and often even hold a conversation due to that fog, she still had good days.
Everything pointed towards today being one of her better days.
Then the sky changed.
It transformed from a dark curtain of speckled stars into a melding thing of warped colours, of violets and blues. The citizens of Willow Town continued about their business, totally unseeing, oblivious, to the strange wonder above.
How could they not see?
A bald man approached her and was about to deposit a handful of change, when Melinda bounded upward, knocking her cup over and spilling dozens of twinkling silver and bronze coins in the process. She pushed past the bald man, who uttered some horrible slur at her, which entered one ear and passed through the other, undigested by her mind.
Many of the oblivious citizens finally stopped, not to watch the sky, but rather to watch her as she wandered out into the middle of the busy road.
The vehicles honked and had to swerve around her as she raised her hands towards the violet curtain.
Then she cried, at the top of her lungs. "It has come. It has finally come. It is the first sign of the Reckoning. It is the beginning of the End. It has come."
-
Gerald Tunny had done little since arriving home from Willow Wood Secondary School. He had few hobbies or interests beyond his work, and even that sparked little passion from his heart anymore.
Now he stood in front of his bedroom mirror, wondering how he'd become this frail man descending deep into his twilight years, when in his mind, he still sometimes thought of himself as the charming young athlete, handsome, smart, in the prime of his life.
He attempted to minimise the discrepancies between reality and delusion by trimming his beard, his nostril hairs, and yes, even his eyebrows.
After that, he applied a minimal dollop of wax and water to his hair, before combing it neatly to the side. That effectively hid some of the thinness, or so he liked to believe. It wasn't quite like rolling back the clock, but at least it was a temporary step back towards the peak, before gravity won out, dragging him down the rest of the hill and dumping him into the six foot deep hole that waited at the bottom.
In truth, he had nobody to look good for and hadn't for some time. His family was estranged. His friends had filtered out of his life like ground coffee leavings. He could not even remember his last date.
But it was part of his routine to dress himself up for Friday night dinner. He supposed, the best way he could explain it, was that it was like a child playing pretend. Like a tea party.
Or perhaps, and this was a much more unsettling thought, it was an echo of something forgotten. He felt that way about much of his daily habits now, that they were all simply a continuation in an attempt to clear murky waters.
There was so much missing from his past, so much grey space where there should be images and sounds.
Even though he wasn't sure of the origins of this particular routine, he knew that it was as much set in stone as the walls that made up his flat, and he could no more break it than he could batter through that thick concrete.
Upon glancing out the window, he saw something that brought him to stillness.
Amid a life full of grey murk, here was something clear. It was like he'd lived in a world of pins and needles, of numbness, and now that was fading away.
Gerald Tunny watched the violet shimmer in the sky move like an ocean.
No, not an ocean. It was less predictable than that. It was more like the wind, although he knew that was not the force that moved these seemingly random patterns either. He knew it the same way that his lungs knew how to breathe or his eyes knew how to blink.
He moved his limbs, matching the rhythm of the colours as best he could. The better he matched it, the better he felt. To an external observer, it might have passed for a dance.
Soon, he found the perfect rhythm, and that feeling of clarity hummed through him in a way that he had never imagined possible.
He threw back his head and laughed. He laughed so hard that streams fell down either side of his cheeks. To an external observer, it might have seemed like he was weeping, hysterically.
-
The Shadow Watcher's teeth clenched painfully together as he spied the violet anomaly off in the distance. It was like a bubble in the way that it moved, expanded, and contained within it more colours, every colour, if one observed closely enough.
And a bubble was an apt metaphor for the nature of the thing, the way it grew and encased and trapped.
A leaden weight fell in his stomach. He wanted to roar, to scream bloody anguish until his throat was torn to shreds.
There it was, concentrated above the Slate Woods. He had known it was going to happen, but here it was, happening much too soon, far sooner than he could have ever predicted.
How could it be that he'd sensed the ancient power flaring up in Old Willow Town, had pursued it, and now it was happening in another part of the city, miles and miles away? Had his sense betrayed him? Or was it possible for it to shift like that?
Nothing about this made sense. He didn't like this one bit. How could it be there in the forest?
Something was terribly wrong.
The Shadow Watcher allowed his sleeve to fall back. It revealed his right hand, which was gnarled, wrinkled, and speckled with liver spots. Despite appearances, the hand was still strong. Its fingers strayed until they found the hilt of the iron dagger hidden under the folds of the cloak. Safe, powerful iron. They curled around it, so tightly that the knuckles cracked.
Then he ran.
He ran as hard and as fast as he could. He tasted bile and blood as his feet punched concrete and his knees ached, but he knew that it would all be to no avail.
He was simply too far away. Whatever was to happen, would happen long before he could reach it. He just hoped and prayed that all would not be lost.
-
Once the band stopped playing, the fireworks began. They fizzed up from the boat and popped in the rainy sky in a thunderous display of wonderful colour.
That was when Hannah felt Alex's hand squeeze hers.
The entire crowd marvelled.
One after another, the rockets exploded. A particularly promising firework, that was perhaps intended to usher in the beginning of the climax, snaked upwards.
Just when the moment of anticipation became nearly unbearable, it stopped.
"Huh?" Hannah said.
She watched the static, colourful line in utter bewilderment, wondering how the organisers had managed something like this. She had never seen nor heard of such a firework.
Far behind the frozen rocket, in the sky, was movement. There appeared to be a strange violet and blue swirl, like so many shampoos mixed together in a sink. It hung just above the woods.
Next, Hannah noticed that the crowd had stilled. Was this a sort of mass choreography she hadn't been told about?
"What's going on?" she hissed at Joe.
But he didn't answer. His face was set, his eyes unblinking.
The rest of her friends were the same. She waved her hand in front of Stick's face, but there was nothing. She pinched Jasmine's side, but there was no reaction from her either.
She was in the middle of wondering what else she could try, when everyone, all together, raised one foot and slammed them down in unison. Having thousands of them do it all at once caused such a thunderous clap that it almost startled Hannah into falling back. However, she managed to catch herself.
"What the h-"
As one, everyone shifted their bodies clockwise, all while still wearing the same, unblinking expressions. They began to sway.
It took a minute for it to dawn on Hannah that it was a perfect match for what was happening in the sky, with that swirling violet and blue mass.
When the mass changed its cycle, everyone spun anti-clockwise.
"What's going on? What-"
The words died on her tongue as she saw it.
Just above where she stood were a murder of crows. Exactly like the firework, they were all frozen. Despite the fact that their wings were perfectly still, they remained in place.
Before she could question this further, a pain shot right through her head, doubling her over. It was a ferocious stab, mostly concentrated behind her eyes.
After that, something both unlike a voice and unlike intuition, but in between those things, bypassed her ears and spoke directly into her head. It was booming, powerful, and totally encompassing of all thought and attention as it roared, "Something terrible is going to happen. Something terrible is going to happen. Something terrible is going to happen."
It was like an alarm.
She pressed her hands to her ears, wanting to silence it. But it rang on.
"Something terrible is happening."
"Something terrible is happening."
"Something terrible is happening."