Before the Sky Changed Color

Canvas Metropolis was a city unlike any other.

The buildings curved like brushstrokes. The sidewalks shimmered with mosaic tiles. Even the streetlights were shaped like giant paintbrushes, glowing soft gold at dusk. Humanoid deer in scarves and jackets walked beside humans on the busy downtown blocks, chatting, laughing, carrying grocery bags.

Right in the heart of all of it stood the Art Zone Fortress — its towers shaped like enormous crayons and marker caps, pointing proudly at the sky.

Inside the highest tower, twelve-year-old Art Zone sat cross-legged on a hovering platform, sketching something fast and loose in a beat-up notebook.

"You've drawn that building three times today," said a voice below him.

Art Zone looked down. Deera — one of the city's humanoid deer officers — stood at the base of the platform with her arms folded and one tall ear tilted sideways.

"Four times," Art Zone corrected, grinning.

The Sky Writes First

Deera — the humanoid deer officer with tall, expressive ears — crossed her arms tighter.

"You've drawn it four times and you still can't get the east tower right," she said.

Art Zone opened his mouth to argue. Then a low hum rolled through the fortress walls — deep and slow, like a drum played underwater.

Both of them looked up at the same time.

Through the wide skylight window above, the sky over Canvas Metropolis was changing. Not clouds. Not rain. Something thick and dark was pouring down from above — heavy, moving like liquid smoke, swallowing the tops of the crayon towers block by block.

Art Zone jumped off the hovering platform and landed beside Deera. He pressed his face to the glass.

The ink — because that's exactly what it looked like, a massive wall of black ink — was spreading fast. It rolled over the mosaic rooftops and swallowed the golden paintbrush streetlights one by one.

His fortress comm-screen buzzed. An emergency alert blinked across it in red:

CITY SIGNAL LOST — SECTORS 4 THROUGH 9.