The Late Bird's Tale: A Tale of the Floating World

Part 1 || 9 | Ryder | A Rebel Reaper III, A Natural Disaster I

Written on 1/24/22. Winter Season, January 2022 edition (1st scene).
Written on 2/4/22. Winter Season, February 2022 edition (2nd scene).
Ryder Ellabellabelle (picture reference).

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Part 1 || 9 | Ryder

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A Tale of a Rebel Reaper III

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Friday just turned into Saturday at midnight, in which the bellies of low clouds hung illuminated over the city lights of Markham, Nevada. Yet secluded from the city glow in dim bedrooms, many late-night middle school users typed into internet conspiracy and paranormal forums and texted each other on their smartphones, churning up more rumors about the Rebel Reaper stealing across their household rooftops in search of the next victim amongst them. After the last comatose case on the previous weekend, they occupied themselves with who the next victim might be this week, daring each other to glance past their blinds, or their curtains, or the shutters of their bedroom windows to see if the Reaper was there.

But the Rebel Reaper, skipping from rooftop to rooftop, heard their voices and ignored the orange-yellow glow floating through the shingles of their roofs above their bedrooms. The Reaper ghosted those staying awake and those sleepers anticipating her arrival in their floating nightmares about her. She avoided entering their head-spaces, because she'd be typecast into whatever their sick minds would conjure up, from a scythe-wielding psychopath to a girl-defiling dominatrix from the more perverted ones among them.

Minutes passed, and she leaped from rooftop to rooftop across most of the houses in the subdivision, but she paused atop a two-story house with a green glow floating through the shingles. Beneath her feet was a sleeper dreaming of something happy and exciting, and she felt the warmth of this dreamer fluttering through her chest like butterflies, accompanied with concussive shocks in her sleep.

BOOM!

She felt the rumble of an explosion beneath her feet and heard girlish laughter erupting from someone's dream, so the Rebel Reaper closed her eyes. And in her mind's eye, she gazed at a happy middle school girl with little twin tails on her head throwing big cherry blossom buds at another girl.

Maybe she was her elder sister.

BOOM!

The Reaper saw another explosion of fluttering cherry blossoms and heard the girl laughing, while the girl's sister glared at her in a clearing full of daisies.

"Geez, Sakura, how many times do I have to tell you?" the older sister said, crossing her arms over her chest. "This is flower-tag, not blow-me-up!"

"But it's fun this way," Sakura said.

"Fun for you!" the sister said. "Wait, wait, WAIT!"

But Sakura didn't 'wait' for her sister at all, just kept manifesting more cherry blossom bombs and tossing them, while her older sister leaped and rolled and leaped and rolled and leaped and rolled (BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!) through the onslaught of fluttering daisies and cherry blossoms and tufts of grass flying through the air.

Now the older sister was breathing hard through shallow breaths with petals and blades of grass sticking to her limp hair and sweaty face and soiled sweatshirt and gym shorts. The older sister got up and brushed the petals and grass off of herself and said, "You suck!"

"And you suck 3,000 cherry bombs!" Sakura said, manifesting more cherry blossom bombs and tossing them like grenades, one after another.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!