The Fortress on a Quiet Night

Canvas Forest City never truly slept on Saturdays.

The streets outside CCD Fortress glowed soft and golden, and the four crayon towers — red, yellow, green, and electric blue — rose up into the night sky like beacons planted at the heart of the city. Every citizen of Canvas Forest City, deer of every kind, knew those towers. They meant one thing: Doe was home.

Inside the fortress, Creative Crayon Doe had finally kicked off her boots.

She stretched across her favorite chair, her light blue cape draped over the armrest, her blue mask still on — old habit — and her giant glowing crayon propped against the wall nearby. Saturday snuggle night. Her one quiet ritual.

The city outside hummed. Somewhere a radio played. Doe closed her bright blue eyes.

Then — three slow, uncertain knocks at the fortress door.

Not the confident kind. The kind someone makes when they almost didn't come at all.

The Knock That Almost Wasn't

Doe opened her eyes.

She sat up slowly and looked at the door. The knocks had stopped. Whoever was out there had gone quiet.

She pulled on her boots, crossed the front room, and opened the door.

A deer stood on the step — small, with soft grey fur and round dark eyes that blinked fast in the fortress light. She wore a blue-and-black housecoat, hugged tight around herself, and held a battered handheld recorder like the kind journalists carry. Her antler nubs were barely the size of thumbs.

"Hi," Doe said.

The grey deer flinched like the word was a starting pistol. Then she pressed play on the recorder.

A voice came out of it. Not hers — an older voice, scratchy and urgent, like someone talking through a bad connection.

*"The city's water drones — all forty of them — they've been reprogrammed. By tomorrow night, every tap in Canvas Forest City will run dry. Every single one."*

The recorder clicked off.

The grey deer looked up at Doe with enormous eyes, waiting.