Tiny Dreams

Counting Down

Morning dawned on the lumalights, the lights of the tunnels turned on by Bolt who was, as usual, hyper and active. Skull was one of the first to wake up, doing his morning roundabout in town to make sure no one was harmed. Copper was also awake early, checking on his friends like Cube and Oil to see what they were doing this time of day. Aqua woke up to the sound of chatting, stretching her limbs, and wobbly getting up from the small bed of hers. A knock on the door alarmed her.

She opened it up to see Copper there with a neutral tired face from waking up so early, in his hands was a small cap of stolen caffeine, taking a sip before asking for Aqua to follow him into town. Not having any plans for the day, Aqua obliged, strolling through town to see everyone else there in a line. "In the early morning, we do attendance to see who is still here with us" Copper whispered to Aqua, leaving her at the end of the line. He went over to his clipboard and began.

He went down the checklist of people, using a lead of pencil to check off the names listed below. "First off, myself" Copper mumbled, checking himself off, and going through the other names. "Drill?" Copper replied, Drill saying "here" and everyone else repeating that as their names were called. "Flora" Copper called out, the lumalight with a flower dress hummed out. "Bolt," Copper said, Bolt shouting "present" while everyone else covered their ears. "Sorry" Bolt said giggling.

Many other names were called, and they all said either "here" or "present". Aqua was called before Skull, Copper checking off her name, and coming to the last name on the checklist. "Metal" Copper announced, no voice to say they were here. Copper looked up from his clipboard and looked at the line of lumalights, none of them wearing a cog head, and overalls that would indicate Metal was there. "Metal?" Copper asked everyone, observing their surroundings.

"Has anyone seen Metal?" Copper began worrying, everyone but one shaking their heads no, and murmuring amongst themselves. Mid rose his hand up, Copper pulling him aside to speak about the whereabouts of Metal. "What happened to him?" Copper whispered, Mid trying to recall his last memory of Metal. "Last night, I saw him take the elevator to the top of the building" Mid reminded himself, Copper calming everyone down to go check on the roof of the building.

Mid was told to stay in charge until Copper returned safely. Copper rushed to the elevator, and closed the gate of it, pressing the button to head up the lift. As he reached the top, Copper ran off and searched around for his dear friend. "Metal! Where are you!?" Copper shouted, checking every corner of the roof before seeing something shiny at one of the edges. He looked over the edge, the flag pole that dangled on the side holding something at the hook of it.

Copper took out his own miniature telescope to further inspect it, laying his eyes on the worst of all cases. Another dead lumalight. Not just any lumalight, his beloved best friend, Metal. The hook was stabbed through his little stomach, Metal's hand clutched on to a note that had smears of ink on top. Copper slid down the side of a pole that was near the flag and took the note in his pockets. "I'm so sorry, I wish I knew you were here before" Copper silently sobbed, climbing up.

When Copper arrived to see the others, everyone waited to hear if Metal was fine. Aqua of all spirits was the most concerned with Metal's whereabouts. "Well? Is Metal still here with us?" Cube questioned, Oil getting restless as well as Skull who just wanted to hear "yes" even if it was a lie. Copper didn't respond, and rather he opened the note he found, reading it aloud to himself. On the crumpled up paper, in choppy handwriting was "It wasn't me", Copper scared and confused.

"Copper, what's on that note?" Grass quizzed, Copper not wanting to share the news. Windy used his wind powers to force Copper to let go of the note, it flying over to Windy, and him grabbing it tightly. "It wasn't me? What is this, Copper?" Windy retorted, the spirits putting pressure on Copper, and making Copper feel very stressed and attacked. Aqua wanted to step in and help Copper, but everyone was ganged upon him. "Don't tell me Metal died" Skull groaned, the others stressed.

They were all pushing his buttons, waiting to hear his response, but nothing came out. Mid felt responsible in some way as if he should have followed Aqua to see what the two were doing. "Didn't Mid see where Metal went?" Fire reminded everyone, all of them redirecting their anger on Mid. He was now the center of attention, being bombarded by questions. "He must have killed Metal!" Oil assumed, the others agreeing with what Oil declared.

"Hey! We don't know that for sure!" Copper intervened, trying to split up everyone from fighting before someone else accidentally died. Aqua couldn't handle seeing everyone arguing, so she joined Copper in defense, and stood up for Mid. "Mid had nothing to do with Metal's death!" Aqua shouted, the spirits pausing their rambling. Cube listened to Aqua, Oil just about to punch Mid in the face, but held back. "I was the last one who saw him, not Mid" Aqua confessed, everyone shocked.

"Did you kill Metal?" Skull questioned, Aqua shaking her head no, and staying behind Copper for safety in case they decided to jump her. "I talked to him last night, and he wanted to tell me something important to him, but after I told him how I felt, he seemed gloomy, and not so happy," Aqua told the lumalights, them thinking that it must have been an act of suicide. "But the note said 'It wasn't me" Windy repeated, Aqua shushing him up. "I know, but I didn't do it" Aqua protested.

They were at a loss of words. They knew they could trust Aqua, she was new in the world. She couldn't have possibly known what Metal's weakness was at the time. Cube was even the most trusting of Aqua since they were both in the same family of lumalights. Copper decided that it was time to stay at home and reflect on the poor behavior each one of them exposed to the light. Grass, Oil, and Skull felt the most ashamed for leaping into conclusions, regretting their words.

Windy, Fire, Cube, and Mid felt sympathy for Metal and felt a great pain in their tiny little hearts. Copper was the most heartbroken, him having to deal with four weeks of a built-up friendship destroyed. Aqua sat by Copper, comforting him as best as possible with little knowledge of how this came to be. In the end, Aqua never understood the misfortune of Metal's death, and she wanted to seek the answer as to why it happened.