Before the Morning Smells Wrong

The morning inside Crayon Wolf Cave smelled like pine needles and fresh paint — the best combination in the world, according to Crayon She Wolf.

She stood at her workbench, her blue-and-black supersuit still unzipped at the collar, her giant glowing crayon propped against the wall like a best friend waiting to go outside. She was finishing a painting of Artwork Forest — the tall amber trees, the violet meadow near the brook, the way sunlight came down in wide, warm columns between the branches.

"Not bad," she said to herself, tilting her head.

A knock rattled the cave entrance.

"Come in!" she called, dabbing one last stroke of yellow onto the canvas.

Mira the deer stepped inside, her long spotted ears pressed flat against her head. She twisted her scarf between her hooves and glanced back over her shoulder at the tree line.

"Have you been outside yet this morning?" Mira asked quietly.

What the Gray Swallowed First

Crayon She Wolf stepped outside.

She stopped.

The amber trees she had just painted — the ones with warm golden bark and violet shadows — were pale. Not autumn-pale. Not morning-pale. The color had been pulled right out of them, the way you drain water from a glass, leaving something thin and flat behind.

Mira the deer — her long spotted coat looking almost washed out too — pointed down the path.

"It started near the east brook," Mira said. "Around midnight. I heard this sound."

"What kind of sound?"

"Like a pencil scratching. Loud. Then everything just went quiet."

Crayon She Wolf walked to the nearest tree and pressed her palm against the trunk. The bark felt dry and strange, like old newspaper.

Then her tablet buzzed in her suit pocket. An alert she hadn't set.

She pulled it out. The screen showed a live feed from a small drone — Forest Watch Unit Three — that patrolled the eastern edge automatically every night.

The footage was dated 12:04 a.m.

And every single frame was completely gray.