The Tallest Place in the City

Art Gallery City hummed with its usual morning energy — tram bells clanging, vendors calling out, humanoid deer and humans moving side by side along painted sidewalks. At the very center of it all stood Crayon Deer Tower, tall enough to poke the low clouds, its four bronze deer statues frozen mid-leap at each corner of the base.

Up on the 40th floor, Crayon Mother Deer stood at the wide window with a mug of chamomile. Her blue-and-black dress was still slightly wrinkled from sleep. Beside her, her two small daughters — Pip and Lola — pressed their noses flat against the glass.

"Mama, can you see the harbor from up here?" Pip asked.

"Only on clear days," she said. "Today the city's wearing clouds."

Lola pointed at something below. "The mural on the Civic Tower changed again. It looks different."

Crayon Mother Deer leaned in, squinting. She wasn't sure the mural had changed. But Lola was never wrong about colors.

Static in the Signal

Lola was still pointing at the Civic Tower mural when a sound hit.

Not loud — more like a pressure. A low, flat hum that came through the windows and the floor all at once, as if the whole building had swallowed something it couldn't quite digest.

Pip grabbed Crayon Mother Deer's sleeve. "What was that?"

Before she could answer, every screen in the room flickered on by itself — the kitchen monitor, the small tablet on the counter, the big display panel on the far wall. All of them showed the same image: Art Gallery City, but broken. Buildings cracked. Tram lines twisted into knots. The big fountain in Central Plaza, dry and split in two.

And then, in the corner of every screen, a timestamp blinked.

Tomorrow. 6:47 a.m.

Crayon Mother Deer stepped closer to the display panel. The image didn't move. It wasn't a video. It was more like a photograph of something that hadn't happened yet.

"Mama," Lola said quietly. "That's the mural wall. From the Civic Tower."

In the image, it was gone.