A Morning Without Shadows

Canvas Zoo City woke up loud and colorful every single morning — fruit sellers hollering from their orange-and-lime carts, painted trams rattling down rainbow-tiled streets, and every building wearing a shade bold enough to shout.

At the very heart of it all stood the Crayon Armadillo Fortress — a wide dome of polished white stone ringed by four tall crayon towers, each one a different brilliant color reaching into the blue sky like a declaration.

Inside, Ms. Crayon Armadillo stood at the kitchen counter, pouring herself a mug of chamomile tea. Her blue-and-black supersuit was already on — it always was by seven — and her giant blue crayon leaned against the counter like a faithful old friend.

She took a slow sip, gazed out the wide curved window, and tilted her head.

The street below looked... thinner, somehow. Not darker. Just less.

The Parrot Who Wouldn't Stop Talking

Ms. Crayon Armadillo — a humanoid armadillo in a sleek blue-and-black supersuit — set her mug down hard.

The street below wasn't just thinner. It was fading. The orange fruit cart looked like pale peach. The painted tram had gone almost white.

She grabbed her giant blue crayon and flew out the fortress window.

The air over Canvas Zoo City was sharp and cold, and the view from up high was worse. Whole blocks looked like paper left in the sun — washed out, bleached, barely there.

Then something landed on her shoulder.

It was a parrot — a humanoid one, small and scruffy, with patchy green-and-red feathers and a canvas-stitched satchel across his chest. He had tiny round spectacles and talked like he charged by the word.

"Oh good, you're flying, wonderful, yes! Name's Pip! I write a column for the City Squawk — and I've been documenting it!" He shoved a folded paper in her face. "Every color lost, every block, every minute — and Ms. Armadillo? It's speeding up."

She looked at the paper. Rows of neat, panicked handwriting. Maps with fading zones marked in thick ink.

The entire west quarter — gone gray in under an hour.