I wake an indeterminable time later, my eyes heavy with sleep. I feel compelled to rise, and do so. The curtains are open, and I glance out into the street, but the sky is bright with fire and I quickly look away. My feet stick on the floorboards as I pad downstairs, the sound echoing in the deathly silence. The hallway seems to twist around me, spiralling out of control, and I stumble to stay upright.
The sitting room is filled with feathers, a sea of them, brown and white and red, sticking to the sofa, to the walls, to the ceiling. I rub one between my fingers, and it leaves a smear of watery blood. Wiping my hands on the fabric of the nightdress I'm wearing - when did I get changed? - I push open the door opposite.
It leads to a small kitchen, reminding me of the one at my home. A long wooden table is set against one wall, with four large chairs. One of them is slightly uneven, tilting on a splintered leg. The floor is of pale tiles, swept clean.
I walk to the centre of the room, looking around me. I blink, and when I open my eyes again, the room is dripping with egg. Clear whites hang from the light above, golden yolk pooling on the floor, slippery beneath my bare feet. At a sound from behind me, I turn, my feet crunching on sharp, thick shells.
Novo is standing in the doorway, silent now, and so still that he could be carved from stone. He stares straight at me, small eyes bright and flickering from side to side. I try to speak to him, to ask him what's going on, but my tongue sticks in my mouth. I gag, and at my movement, Novo begins to crumble.
His face falls apart, chunks of rock crashing to the floor. His body soon follows, the scaly plates that cover him falling away whole to smash apart against the tiles.
I spin on my heel, but before I can stop myself, I'm falling. I see my hands, instinctively stretched before me to save myself, but I go straight through the tiles. Darkness flashes across my vision, and then I'm back in the sitting room, but right inside this time, rather than standing in the doorway. I'm swimming in the feathers, choking on them, the coppery tang of blood filling my mouth when they brush against my lips. I wade to the doorway, and they fall from my body like water from a duck. I shed them behind me as I open the front door and walk into the street.
The sky is bright and strangely beautiful, glowing with fire. The houses are ablaze, all of them, flames flickering across the roofs and arching over the street, creating a tunnel of fire that stretches into the distance as far as I can see. It reaches for me, encasing me, and in a flash of dull pain, the flames are gone.
The sky still sparks and flickers, bathing the street in a hellish glow. Bodies lie twisted and broken around me, arms stretching towards me, eyes fixed on my face. Most seem hazy, the faces blurred, but several stand out to me in crisp detail. Kea, wings tangled and broken. Novo, the armour plates over his back torn away, hanging loose and bloody. A girl with long pale hair, spreading over and around her, tangled and dirty. A woman, dressed in a simple dress that I think used to be white, her hands curled into grasping claws.
I stumble backwards, and they follow me, moving in jerking stutters, an action so fundamentally wrong that a wave of freezing cold washes through me. The eyes are still fixed on me, blank and filmed.
A shadow races down the street, extinguishing the burning sky. I glance upward, and the crows dive, hundreds of them, as black as the darkest night. Gleaming, iridescent feathers surround me, and when they lift, the bodies are gone.
The sky is clear again, pale lilac, diamond stars glittering. One by one they fall, shattering on the street, and wherever they hit, the area disappears. In what seems like a second, the whole street is gone, the houses with it, the sky fading with the last star. I'm left, surrounded by darkness, not knowing if I'm standing or plummeting through the pitch black.
With an awful, twisting jolt, I wake up.
My heart is thumping like it's trying to break free of my ribcage, my fists clenched tight. I'm not, as I dreamed, wearing a white nightdress. Rather, I'm still in the clothes I crashed in – a t-shirt, hoodie and jeans, trainers unlaced by the side of the bed.
The sun shines through the open curtains, and I glance out of the window. A sky sparking with fire springs to my mind, but I'm not entirely sure from where.
My feet pad on the floorboards as I walk downstairs in my socks. The door to the sitting room is open, a single brown and white feather resting on the threshold. I pick it up before letting it float to the floor again. I have a sudden urge to check my fingers, but when I do, they are clean.
Kea is sprawled across the sofa, dark hair falling over his face. A woollen blanket lies on the floor beside him, like he kicked it away in the night, wrapping himself in his wings instead. He is soundly asleep, so I leave him be, backing away slowly.
The door opposite, leading to a kitchen, is also open, Novo standing at the stove holding an egg the size of a rugby ball. He cracks it over a giant frying pan, and drops the shell into a bucket by his side.
The kitchen is small, reminding me of the one at my home. A long wooden table is set against one wall, plates and cutlery laid out, with four large chairs. One of them is slightly uneven, tilting on a splintered leg. The floor is of pale tiles, swept clean.
Novo must hear me, as he turns, wide mouth curving into an inviting smile. 'Ah, good morning! Kea is still asleep, I believe. When he has a roof over his head, he tends to take advantage of it. Please sit down.'
I slide onto one of the chairs, dwarfed by it, my head only just reaching over the back. I sit sideways, facing Novo, watching him cook.
He stands back, and clicks his thick fingers. I notice, for the first time, that he only has four fingers on each hand.
A fire bursts to life in the space beneath the hobs, flickering blue with heat, and for a split second I see it spreading, but the vision goes when I blink.
'Do you not have electricity here?' I ask him.
'Ah yes – I heard from the last human I had that your species is relatively technologically advanced. In answer, yes, we do have electricity, but mostly in the larger cities. Small towns like this run more on magic. Magic is actually quite a recent development in this world, with our first magic user coming through only around fifty years ago, and the larger cities are having trouble integrating it into their lives. We never had so much technology anyway, so we switched over completely. Most places became hybrids.'
'Everyone I've met has been very knowledgeable of the goings on in this world – admittedly, I've only met you and Kea, but you both know an awful lot. Far more than I know about my world. I don't even know who started the first World War, and that's a pretty bloody major event.'
'Kea, as I told you, finds a lot of people like you. Because of that, he found it necessary to know the answers to the first questions they would have. I'm the second one most of them meet, and I made it my mission to know whatever else they may need. I regard myself as somewhat of a scholar, so for those that are willing to tell me, I record their stories. I'm hoping that you will tell me yours? Up until the moment you met Kea. He can handle what happened after that.'
'I'll do my best.'
'Maybe during breakfast, then. Are you hungry?'
'A little.'
He slides the massive fried egg onto a plate, cutting it into slices and placing it in the centre of the table. 'Help yourself.'
I take a piece. The white is thick and creamy, with a strange tang.
Novo sits opposite me, and although he tries to be patient, I can tell that he is eager for me to start talking.
I eat slowly, mulling over how I should tell my story. I don't think he is interested in emotion, so I should whittle it down to the bare facts, but I'm not entirely sure what is important and what isn't.
As if he's reading my mind, he says, 'I'm most interested in the culture of your world. I would like to know how it has changed in the years since I last had a human here.'
Finishing my egg, I begin to speak.
It takes far longer than I thought it would – I keep having to backtrack, add new details, retell sections in ways that make more sense. Soon after I started, Novo leaves the room, returning with a thick pad of yellow paper and a pencil.
He's on his third page on notes when the alarm goes off.
A wailing klaxon blares throughout the town, rattling my brain, freezing me with that instinctive fear most feel when faced with a loud alarm. Novo seems similarly frozen, but soon jolts back into motion, taking my arm and dragging me to the door. I've never seen him move so fast. Kea is standing outside in the street already, one arm over his eyes as he stares into the sky.
A massive pillar of dark smoke stains the lavender sky, twisting and curling like a tornado. I gasp, and Kea groans.
'Again? Please don't tell me Silva is back.' He says, turning to Novo.
Novo's face twists into something halfway between a smile and a grimace. 'Indeed, Silva is back.'
Kea turns to me. 'Now, I think, is as good a time as any to take you to meet the mechanic who will undoubtedly be working on your ship. She'll want to be out of town for a time now. Follow me.'
The klaxon shuts off, although the smoke is still pouring from behind the houses.
Kea heads off down a small alleyway. I glance to Novo, who raises a clawed hand to wave. I feel almost like I should stay longer, like I need to justify my leaving. 'I've told you all I can,' I tell him, and he nods.
'It's alright. You can go.'
I thank him, and follow quickly behind Kea, my trainers catching on the cobbles.