For the second time in thirty years, the entire world has fallen asleep...
Thirty years after the Greymen caused the decimation of her people, high school drop out Rain Collins spends her days learning to pickpocket and hold her booze. Yet she long...
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"How?" I said, looking up at my Greyman, who was now green. "Why?"
It looked down at me. Unlike its skin, its eyes hadn't changed. Still cloudy and red, they danced with an eerie light that gave some sort of form to the haze within. Hypnotized, I watched the clouds in its eyes. The longer I stared, the clearer the light became. Beyond the hazy red cloud, the light formed definite figures.
They danced and swayed, somewhere between formless and man-shaped. As they danced, the lights flickered, fading to nothing. Soon, a single light danced alone. It flickered, but persisted in its dance. I could feel its desperation as it faded away.
Before the last light danced itself to nothingness, another light began to pulse somewhere in the distance. Closer and closer it pulsed and, as the new light came closer, the old light grew brighter. Finally, they touched.
Thousands of man-shaped lights spilled forth, dancing and swaying with a manic glee. The pulsing light flashed again and the man-shaped lights stopped dancing, their liquid forms unnaturally still. Another pulse and the lights formed ranks, an unnatural organization for their quivering forms. They longed to dance again, I could feel it. But they stayed still as the pulsing light passed between them, and the man-shaped lights multiplied as the pulsing light touched them, dancing at first, then joining the ranks after another pulse.
After the cycle repeated what felt like a million times as I stared into my green Greyman's eyes, another light appeared far in the distance. It pulsed, too, but with to a different rhythm. This pulse was more random, more free. The free pulse floated in the distance for some time, quietly ignored by the other lights.
The first pulse hovered over a group of organized lights, which shot off into the distance, toward the free pulsing light. The cloudy, red eyes followed these lights to the free pulse.
The organized lights stood at attention under the free pulse, quivering with an instinct lost to time. As the free pulse shook, the organized lights surrounded it. They sucked at its light, shrinking the free pulse as they fed on it. It faded, flickering.
An organized light broke off of the group as the free pulse collided with its regiment. The now independent organized light tried to maintain its position, rushing toward the ranks, but the free pulse blocked its way. As they collided again, the free pulse flashed. The independent organized light floated from the free pulse, shivering. It shook and shook, then, wildly and with abandon, the formerly organized light danced. Something that felt like laughter quivered from it, sending a wave over the organized lights.
The free pulse bounced, dancing like the formerly organized light. It bounced between the ranks, sending shaking quivers through the lights. The organized ranks broke, shimmering as they joined the wild dance.
I laughed out loud.
The cloudy, red eyes shifted again. The original pulse appeared again, with its constant rhythm, pulsing over hundreds of organized lights.
The clouds grew thicker and the lights dimmer, until the vision faded altogether and my green Greyman's eyes were an indistinct blur of red once more. It tilted its head, staring at me.
I nodded, trying to show that I understood. That was the story of their people. Of their Masters. How they came to our planet. How we helped them, changed them. It was showing me that it trusted me. It was asking me to trust it.
"What happened to my mother?" I said.
It closed its eyes and looked away from me. When it looked back, the clouds in its eyes whirled furiously. A light appeared in the clouds, a tall and regal form. Another light, this one fluid, danced circles around the regal light. The two lights zipped through the clouds, dancing together.
A flash, like a bolt of lightning, struck the fluid light and it disappeared. A moment later, another bolt struck the regal light, snuffing it out.
"Bad Masters," my green Greyman said.
I nodded, trying to accept this for an explanation. My mother had been a Dreamcaller. Something killed her Greyman, then her. It was a better explanation than I'd ever received before, with stories of a quiet, peaceful passing in her bed.
"I trust you," it said, voice echoing with familiarity.
I smiled at it. "I trust you, too," I said.
My green Greyman was gone. The Green City was gone. I smelled the worst smell I had ever smelled in my life.
"Rain?" my father said. "Rain? Get up! It's over!"
I sat up. I was in my bed, surrounded in a pile of my own waste. I coughed and leaned over the edge of my bed, retching and emptying whatever was left in my stomach onto the floor. It landed with a splash onto a pile of more human waste.
I felt my father's arms wrap around me, lifting me from my bed. I clung to his neck, closing my eyes to shut out sight of the room, but I couldn't ignore the smell. It permeated everything.
My father was running. I felt a breeze on my face and the intensity of the smell was slightly alleviated by fresh air. My father's arms released me and I toppled to the grass. I heard his footsteps bang on the deck as he ran back into the house, then bang back out a moment later, accompanied by Beth's crying voice.
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