A Morning Like Any Other

The CMC Fortress rose high above Coloring Book City like a bouquet of giant crayons — towers of red, yellow, green, and every shade in between, gleaming under a sky so blue it almost hummed.

Inside the tallest tower, Crayon Mother Cat stood at the wide window, her orange fur bright in the morning light, her green eyes sweeping over the city she loved.

Below, the streets buzzed. Sheep in knitted scarves trotted past cat merchants arranging colorful fruit stalls. Human children chased each other between lampposts painted like candy canes. Every wall, every cobblestone, every awning was painted in bold, joyful color — as if the whole city had been drawn by someone who could never get enough of the crayon box.

"Perfect," she said softly, tail flicking with quiet satisfaction.

Behind her, small footsteps pattered across the floor.

"CMC! CMC!" A little lamb in a bright yellow coat scrambled through the doorway, wide-eyed and slightly out of breath. "Something's wrong on Pigment Street — the paint shop's sign… it went gray!"

What the Parrot Said

CMC grabbed her cape from the hook by the window and stepped out onto the rooftop launchpad — a flat platform on top of the fortress's tallest crayon tower, wide enough for landing and nothing else.

Below, Pigment Street was already different from how it had looked ten minutes ago.

Not just one sign. Every sign on the whole street had gone gray.

The wool awnings, the painted window frames, the bright banners strung between buildings — all of it, flat and colorless, like someone had draped wet ash over everything.

"CMC!" a voice croaked.

A large green parrot — Pixel, the city's only news-broadcast bird, who wore a tiny press badge clipped to his feathers — landed hard on the railing beside her.

"It's not just Pigment Street," he panted. "It's spreading. Fast. Baker's Row, the market square — gone gray in the last five minutes."

He shoved a small printed photograph against her paw. Someone had taken a picture just minutes ago.

In the photo, the market square's fountain — always painted in twelve bright colors — was completely white.