HAZARDOUS WEATHER EVACUATION NOTICE: BOARD GOVERNMENT-PROVIDED EVACUATION SHIPS IN A QUICK BUT ORDERLY FASHION. 

The TV that Azer often spent his time watching blared this message over and over—with bold red text on black, the Zystinian government’s insignia was faintly visible in the background. 

“Already?” Grif said, coming into the room. “I didn’t think they were evacuating us until the afternoon!” 

“I don’t think they can risk it,” Azer replied. “Imagine being that person piloting one of the spaceships and you realize someone’s been left behind.” 

“Yeesh.” Grif screwed up his face. “Though I wouldn’t want to be one of the people left behind, either.” 

“I thought that hasn’t happened since Haise?”

“Eh. Still.” 

Azer made his way out of the house, not exactly knowing why; did he want to see his surroundings one last time before he evacuated? Did he still feel troubled by the events at the library a few days ago? Was it because the sky was still so clear, the weather still so nice? He didn’t feel like an unsurvivable meteorological event was approaching, in fact, just the opposite—today felt more welcoming and beautiful than ever. It felt as if nature itself was winking at Azer happily. 

He sat on the front steps, letting the sun warm his unnaturally gray, dark skin, before Grif opened the door. 

“Enjoying it while it lasts, I assume?” Grif asked, reading Azer’s thoughts. 

“Yup. Hard to believe what’s about to come. Are they sure that The Shades is happening today? I don’t see a single cloud.” 

Grif frowned. “Me either. Maybe they’re just evacuating early?” 

“You’d think we’d at least see some difference in the sky though, right?” 

“Let’s just get to the school—it’s not worth worrying about.” 

They’d been instructed—more times than they could count—to attend school normally and on time today; the Battle Academy would take charge in making sure everyone there was evacuated properly. That’s where the evacuation ships would be. Azer and Grif got to the bus, full of anticipation and anxiousness. 

When they arrived at their homeroom class, it was buzzing with excitement. Their classmates and their classmates’ parents had gathered, filling the room. One wall of the room was occupied by fingerprint-scanning machines adorned with the Zystinian insignia. Azer and Grif checked themselves in by scanning their thumbs. Azer found himself wondering if Haise had checked herself before disappearing ten years ago during the last Shades.

Waiting in the classroom disheartened Azer. Every student had at least one parent or guardian present with them, ensuring their safety and ready and excited to spend the next day with them on an orbiting spaceship. Neither he nor Grif had parents, making Azer feel even more distant from his classmates. But he didn’t need a parent to make sure he got on, anyway—he could take care of himself. Azer and Grif talked with one another as a voice on the PA called classes to be evacuated by grade, counting down. When their year was called, the mass of people began to flow out of the classroom, Azer and Grif with them. 

“Wait for me, Kovaki.” 

The raspy voice inside the classroom made Azer and Grif stop in their tracks. They turned back around, leaving the flow of evacuees, only to see nobody inside. 

Except for a symbol-encrusted journal lying in the middle of the classroom. 

Azer rushed over to Haise’s journal, picking it up and flipping through the pages in disbelief. He hadn’t seen the thing in over three years. Grif appeared next to him, in a state of wordless shock. 

“How did this get here?” Grif asked as if Azer knew. “I thought it was locked in the-”

“The teacher’s office. I know. We haven’t seen this since we broke into the school. Why the hell is it here now?!”

Azer flipped through the pages again, reconfirming he was holding the real thing. It was still worn and old, made of blackish leather and with the gold-encrusted Nova Noctis symbol on its front. It was undoubtedly real. 

Or it was, until it began to dissolve into a thin gray dust between his fingers. 

The door to the classroom closed, and a tiny click told them someone had just locked it.

The two started pounding on the door, shouting for help, but the figures of their classmates had already receded down the hall. 

“HEY!” Grif bellowed. “LET US OUT!” 

“What do we do?!” Azer asked, panicked. 

“Wait- I’m sure someone’s gonna find us. HEY! HEY!” he resumed yelling, his mouth by the ground, trying to reach his voice through the spot between the door and the floor. 

They waited for a moment, looking frantically down each side of the hall for someone to come rescue them, when- 

“Boo.” 

Azer and Grif jumped at the voice behind them. Azer could have sworn he’d launched himself several feet in the air with the shock. 

They both heard a familiar, cackling laugh from behind them. It was Copycat, almost in tears from amusement. 

“You- eh- you two were so funny… Oh man…” 

“Copycat, I SWEAR!” Grif roared over Copycat’s laughter. “Don’t do that! This isn’t even close to the time or place!” 

After his laugh ebbed away slightly, Copycat spoke again. 

“You guys- you guys actually thought you were gonna get left behind!” 

“Let us out already or we will be!” Grif yelled. 

“Okay, okay. Yeah, I’ll let us out.” He pulled a key from his pocket and put it in the door. It creaked open. 

“Where’d you get that?” Azer asked. “The key?” 

“Stole it,” Copycat said nonchalantly. “Couldn’t pass up an opportunity to scare you like this. I’d have done it with a clone, but I had to see it in person. Totally worth it.” 

“I swear,” Azer mumbled, “you’re such a lying, stealing little prick…” 

“Hey, you want me to lock you back in? I just let you out. It’s done, okay?” 

They walked the halls of the Battle Academy towards the exits, Azer’s ebbing adrenaline being replaced by shame and anger. 

“How did you like my journal trick? I knew it would freak you guys out,” Copycat boasted. 

“How did you know about Haise?” Azer asked. “That was supposed to be-”

“A secret? Yeah. You two aren’t that sneaky. You already broke open the lock three years ago. I read the notebook and see why you guys were so eager to find it. That’s some spooky shit.” 

“Aren’t you supposed to be with your dad? Students were supposed to be evacuated with their parents so they wouldn’t get left behind.” 

Copycat didn’t reply, instead giving Azer a contemptuous look before staring straight ahead. 

“Which evacuation ship is ours?” Grif asked. 

“We had number 26, but I just made us miss that. I’m not trying to kill us, don’t worry. We’ll just hop on number 27 instead, let them know we got on the wrong ship. It’ll be fine.” 

They reached the end of the hall and stepped outside. The weather still looked flawless. However, Azer noticed, there were no other people around. Grif seemed to notice, too, as he gazed around with a frown. 

“The evacuation ships should be that way-” Copycat pointed past the school, an area a ways away that was blocked by tall trees. 

Azer’s worry was growing. He trusted Copycat to guide them back, but something was off. He was longing to hear the sound of another voice, but no such sound was anywhere. 

They turned the corner, passing a small brick building, and moved past the towering trees, only to find an empty, very large field surrounded by more trees. The grass, in many rectangular, house-sized shapes, was flattened down, and scorch marks were visible in large clumps of blackened foliage. 

“I- it’s fine,” Copycat reassured, but his own voice was tainted with worry now. “I know that’s not all of them, I’m sure of it. There’s some more evacuation ships by the parking lot–” 

The three boys looked up. Dark, silvery-gray spaceships littered the sky, putting black spots on the white clouds. They were receding into the atmosphere, away from view. 

Grif let out a roar, grabbing Copycat by the collar and slamming him against a wall of the small brick building. 

“YOU IDIOT!” he half-yelled, half-screamed. 

“I’M SORRY!” Copycat cried, utter terror struck across his face. “I DIDN’T THINK-”

“YOU DIDN’T THINK WHAT? HUH? WAS KILLING US YOUR GRAND PLAN? YOUR NEW SICK PRANK?!”

Copycat didn’t say anything; he seemed to be lost for words. Tears filled his eyes. 

“THE SHADES IS COMING!” Grif screamed in Copycat’s face. “AND YOU’VE JUST STUCK US HERE!” 

Azer’s heart dropped straight through his body. His stomach was now filled to the brim with nauseating fear. Distilled dread pumped through his heart, now beating madly. This had to be a dream. This is a dream, he told himself, his head spinning violently. 

But the sun on his skin—the heavy breathing of Grif nearby—the tear-filled gasps of Copycat—they all felt too real. The clouds in the sky, the evacuation ships passing through and over them now, felt too real. The empty field felt too real. 

They were going to die. 

The dread filling every atom in Azer’s body began to weaken his legs. He felt like he was going to pass out, fall over, scream in terror. But he couldn’t—he was just stuck there, paralyzed with fear. 

The three boys stood there for a moment, processing what had happened. Their breathing slowed. Grif was the first to speak. 

“We need to hide. We need to do something. We need to get away,” he ordered, his voice shaking. 

And then it felt like Azer had never run faster. The three sprinted away to the neighborhoods, where the windows were boarded and the walls were reinforced. The beautiful, flawless sky felt taunting now, the absence of looming storm clouds somehow more terrifying than seeing them. He looked desperately into the sky for the source of the storm, just so he’d know from where it’d come. Every small breeze put him yet more on edge and doubled his panic. Every cell of his being was anticipating the storm. 

By the time they reached the neighborhood, Azer noticed something off about the air. It was eerily darker, and a tension was palpable in the atmosphere, as if something invisible covering the whole planet was about to snap in two. It gave Azer a deep-seated feeling of unignorable anxiety. 

Azer, Grif, and Copycat reached a neighbor’s house, its windows and doors covered with thick metal plates. They stepped up to the porch and, without hesitation, Grif said: 

“Break it open.” 

Azer gripped the steel handle and focused his spinning mind. His S.R. made his skin begin to burn. With an enormous tug, he ripped the steel door off of its bolts and bust down the wooden door behind. They stepped in the house and gathered themselves, sitting down in heaps. 

“Okay,” Grif said, pacing, his eyes full of fear and his face dripping with sweat. “Nobody’s ever survived The Shades. Nobody’s ever had their bodies found.” His voice was breaking now. “But we’re not gonna go out like that. I’m not going out like that. If we’re gonna die, we’re gonna go out fighting.” 

“Azer,” Grif said, turning his face to Azer’s missing one. “That girl Haise was the last one stuck down here during The Shades, right?” 

“Yeah…” 

“We’re not going quietly with whatever Haise saw or was seeking out. And I know for sure that nobody who’s been stuck down here has been half as determined as we are to stay alive. We’re gonna survive, or we’re gonna die trying.” 

The boys listened to Grif, and determination began to slowly replace the panic. Grif was right. There was no point in cowering in fear. 

“I- I’ll go outside.” Azer said. “We should go outside for now before the storm starts. I want to at least see what’s coming. I want to face it.” 

Steely determination began to appear in Copycat’s eyes as well. They silently followed Azer outside and looked up at the sky. 

The air was still tense, but, feeling the breeze on his skin, Azer noticed something else different about it. A moist coldness was in the air, prickling and poking at his exposed hands and neck. The sun no longer felt warm and comforting—its distorted light only served to make him feel colder somehow. 

And, as if reading his thoughts, a powerful breeze of cool air blew over them. The wind was unfittingly cold, as if it had been delivered from somewhere far away, an icy essence in the breeze. 

Above the nearby houses and trees, inside the darkening, distorted blue sky, thick clouds began to poke out. Azer walked further up the hill to get a better look. 

It was as if there was an impossibly tall, black-gray barrier, stretching to the top of the atmosphere and wide enough to swallow the entire town a hundred times over. The dark clouds, an eerie green tinting their edges, were forming a wall that layered on top of itself, over and over, approaching them slowly. The clouds had a dense weight to them, as if whatever got in the way of their expanding path of sluggish destruction would get annihilated. 

Azer realized immediately that what he had thought before was wrong—this was far worse than the unsettling silence and suspiciously good weather. He much preferred the quiet to the dark, rumbling hum of the wall of clouds above. Distant thunder echoed across the entire town like a voice. 

“Let’s go inside,” Copycat said, his voice sounding like all the moisture in his mouth had evaporated. 

On the way in, the breeze began to grow, cold wisps of watery air rushing by at an increasing speed. The sun was shining as bright as before, but the sunlight on his skin was chilling. 

They slammed what was left of the wooden door behind them, and the three immediately split up. Grif was finding flashlights and emergency equipment, Copycat was attempting to fix the door, and Azer found an unboarded window through which to watch the storm. 

Although the tempest was horrifying to watch, it was mesmerizing in a hypnotic way. The way the rolling clouds toppled over each other, the way the sunlight progressively diminished. Azer watched for a while, chin on the windowsill, while the clattering of Copycat and Grif filled the room behind him. 

And soon, the soft patter of rain on the window joined the sounds of clatter. Thick, clear drops of water left splattering circular mist on the glass where they hit. Darkness was spreading outside, sunlight slowly blocked by dense clouds. 

After less than a minute, everything went dark. It was as if someone had flipped a switch and turned day to night. The lights in the house were the only thing warding off the impending darkness now. 

The rain intensified, the drops hitting the window at increasingly higher speeds. Copycat and Grif were more attentive now, taking occasional glances out of the rain-splattered window where Azer sat. 

“With all that wind,” Grif started, his voice low and serious, “we should be careful. Azer, let us know if anything happens.” 

And Grif was right—the wind was intensifying, great sheets of rain falling and being pushed around, forming fabric-like patterns on the street as they fell. The water pouring out of the sky bounced and dissipated as it hit the neighboring roofs and pounded harder on the window. This went on for a while, the wind speeds growing higher and higher, until, at last, a bright yellow-white light filled the sky for an instant. 

“Lightning,” Azer said out loud, half announcing and half surprised. Copycat and Grif looked up from what they were doing, flashlights and emergency supplies in hand, and stared out the window warily. 

Only a few seconds later, a great shaking of thunder rattled the outside of the house, and the window’s glass wobbled. The dread in Azer’s heart seemed to double. 

The storm, with lighting now dotting the pour of rain, continued to intensify, seemingly exponentially. The wind roared and slammed yet bigger drops of water against the window, a constant thumping in the room. 

Trees, lining the front of yards and standing behind the houses, swayed uncontrollably. They leaned and leaned, far further than Azer thought possible. It was peaceful in an eerie way, watching the chaos outside while safe and dry inside. 

Though the window was fogging and the hazy rain was turning everything cloudy and blue, Azer saw something approaching. Something, a dark blue-gray mass on the horizon, was growing larger and coming closer down the street. Though it was moving incredibly fast, it almost looked like a person. 

But as it got closer, Azer realized it wasn’t a person at all. It was a colossal tree branch, tumbling and flying down the street, riding the torrent like a sail. And it was headed straight for Azer’s window. 

“GET OUT!” Azer bellowed as loud as his body would allow. “RUN! GET OOOOUT!” 

Copycat and Grif sprinted out of the door, frantic and as shocked by Azer’s yelling as if they’d been struck by thelightning. 

“GET OU-” 

With a deafening crash, the massive branch ripped open the wall in an explosion of destruction, shooting all the way through the house and embedding itself halfway through the other side. Whipping wind and rain tore open the newly-made wounds in the walls, and the storm blasted through freely. Drywall and furniture lay in shambles all over the tattered house. 

The three boys were outside on the front steps now, fully in the elements. The storm was no longer something to be watched in the distance—The Shades was here. The wind was deafeningly loud, and the rain was hitting them so fast that the drops were painful to the skin. They had to lean almost all of their weight against the wind. 

“We’ve got to get to shelter!” Grif roared over the wind. “Stick together!” 

They sprinted as fast as they could through the rain-filled streets and put their arms up to block the incoming debris, stumbling, the gusts threatening to push them over. Azer was filled with adrenaline, and the chaos felt as hyper-real as if he were using his S.R.

They approached another house, but nearby power lines were whipping around violently and sending sparks through the air. They struggled to the house next door, but a neighboring chimney had smashed into it, leaving a gaping hole in its side. 

The three stayed as close as possible to one another and searched desperately for a sheltered house through the blinding wind and rain. After finding yet another ruined house, Grif stopped in his tracks. 

“I HAVE AN IDEA!” he shouted over the deafening maelstrom, facing Azer and Copycat. “WE NEED TO GO TO OUR HOUSE!”

“WHY?!” Copycat yelled just as a bolt of lightning struck a ways away, illuminating everything with false daylight before decaying. 

“WE’RE- MORE- FAMILIAR- WITH- IT!” Grif enunciated as best as possible, while a powerful gust of wind made the three wobble and readjust their stances. “IT MIGHT BE SAFE!”

“WHAT?! NO! LET’S … WE HAVE TO GO TO THE SCHOOL INSTEAD!” Copycat roared angrily. 

“ARE YOU CRAZY?! IT’LL BE DEMOLISHED!” 

“COME WITH ME!” Copycat bellowed over the storm, now trudging off and beckoning for them to come. “IT’S GONNA BE SAFE!” 

“IT WON’T! YOU’VE SEEN! YOU’VE SEEN HOW MUCH DAMAGE IS BEING DONE!” 

“THEN WHY WILL YOUR HOUSE BE BETTER?!” 

Grif was growing increasingly frustrated. 

“BECAUSE WE KNOW THE AREA!”

“COPYCAT!” Azer yelled, joining in over the noise. “TRUST US! IT’LL BE SAFER!”

Copycat glared at the both of them with apparent distrust, water dripping down his soaked face. Then, without shouting, he said:

“Why do your ideas count more than mine? Why in the world are you just always right?!” 

Grif’s face contorted into disbelief. “You- what? Copycat, this isn’t the time! Just come with us! It’s safer where we’re going!” 

“WHAT ABOUT MY IDEA THEN, HUH?!” Copycat was back to shouting, rage mixed in with his panic. “WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS RIGHT BUT NOT ME?! WHAT MAKES YOU SO SPECIAL?!” 

“THIS ISN’T ABOUT BEING SPECIAL!” Grif bellowed, louder than ever. “THIS IS LIFE OR DEATH!” 

Copycat’s wet face went white. He looked at Azer and Grif with fury and muttered something under his breath. 

“You’re just like… hate you.” 

Then he sprinted off. 

“COPYCAT! COME BACK!” Grif shouted. “COPYCAT!”

“COPYCAT!” Azer yelled, joining Grif in the frantic shouts. After he had disappeared into the roaring wind and rain, they stopped. 

“Dammit!” Grif said, stomping a foot in the ground. But before he could say another word, another piece of wood shrapnel was hurling their way. 

Lightning wounded the sky with a snap and the two ran as fast as they could back home through the pandemonium. Every strike of sun-hot electricity illuminated the rain-filled air, filling it with fleeting light. Rain drops were now indistinguishable from the flying shrapnel; both were hitting the boys at such speed that they stung terribly, rippling their skin on impact. 

The clouds, shooting by, spun rapidly and formed bizarre formations. Some swirled into tornado-like shapes before inverting themselves and forming a depression in the storm. Some clouds seemed to be turning sideways, and others spun and stirred as if someone above was dipping their hands in. It was unlike anything that seemed real or possible, like a fever dream taken form. 

By the time Azer and Grif had made it into their neighborhood, the storm had fully evolved into this new, bizarre form. Wind roared in every possible direction, up, down, north, south, and the lightning arced and glowed in shapes they’d never seen before. They tore down the familiar streets, Azer trying as hard as he could not to look up at the sky. 

Then a thought entered his mind. Azer remembered Kovaki’s face, the pages of Haise’s notebook. Was God in the sky?

The urge and curiosity couldn’t be withheld any longer, and Azer gazed up. The sky was spinning, giving the sickening sensation that the whole world was rotating and falling away. 

Azer tripped, dazed by the storm, and splashed into the flooding street. Hot pain swam in his mind. His knee had been terribly injured. He turned behind him to see blood seeping into the flood water—a fracture. Grif, unaware of Azer’s injury, continued to run. 

“GRIF!” Azer shouted as loud as he could, pain welling up in his body. 

Grif, faintly hearing Azer’s cry, stopped in his tracks, slipping slightly in the ever-pouring rain that filled the streets. Fear igniting his eyes, he began running back towards Azer. 

But as he did, something strange began to happen. Blue light sparked out of the ends of whipping, mangled power lines and the remaining metal gutters of nearby houses. Azer could only watch, too distracted by the sight to notice that his soaked hair began to try and stand on end, and too focused on his pain to feel and hear the crackling of electricity all around him. 

Grif, however, knew these were telltale signs of an imminent lightning strike right over them. He sprinted faster towards his fallen friend, and as the impossibly bright glow of lightning began to pierce the clouds overhead, Grif stopped, braced his stance, and threw his arm into the air. The lightning struck. 

In an instant, blinding white light filled the town, nature’s primordial force of electricity exploding the atmosphere apart. Millions of volts coursed into his hand, down his wrist, into his arm—the 50,000 degree heat of the coin-sized charge instantly vaporizing the beads of sweat and rain on Grif’s skin into steam in explosions that tore apart his sleeve. It ran through his body, passing through his internal organs, before finally entering his left leg and traveling out of his soaked sneaker, breaking the sole apart as the charge grounded. 

The air shook and rumbled across the town, the strike having expanded and contracted the atmosphere at supersonic speed. The flash left as quickly as it came, and Grif’s body was left in the same position as before he was hit, now smoking. His sleeve began to catch fire, but the relentless rain halted its spread. 

His body used to withstanding and producing electricity, Grif was spared from the worse effects of the lightning strike, his muscles and brain unharmed. But the burns against his skin screamed with pain, and the deafening boom left him dizzy. His consciousness slipped for a moment. About to fall, Grif slammed his injured foot into the rain-filled streets, stabilizing himself. He approached Azer and leaned down, his burnt hand outstretched. 

Wordlessly, Azer took it. Both teetered on their feet, Grif’s head still spinning and his burns still scorched, Azer’s broken leg begging not to be upright. But within the endless maelstrom, the chaos of nature’s finest weapon, they could do nothing but proceed further, into safety—to their home, should it still stand. 

Azer and Grif, hardly able, trudged their way through floodwater, wires, and shrapnel, further and further into their neighborhood, until their house was in sight. 

The turbulently swirling clouds crowned their home, now glowing with endless shades of colors. Behind the veil of thick, dark water vapor shone green light, a flash of red, and a low, droning blue. It was impossible to take in all of the sights at once. It was faint before, but now, finally, The Shades was beginning to show its true colors. 

Nearly every house around Azer and Grif’s was in tatters, the only pieces still standing being brick walls or the skeletal remains of plumbing. They walked up the rain-sodden steps of their home and stepped inside with relief, only to notice a horrible sight—the wall across their front door was torn open, rainy wind rushing by at high speed, ripped drywall hanging on by threads. Whether by exhaustion or a sense of desolation at the sight, Grif fell to his knees. 

“He was right,” Grif resounded. The remaining shelter quieted the tempest outside enough for him to be audible. “Who was I kidding? Our house can’t withstand The Shades. Nowhere’s safe. The Battle Academy was probably our only choice.” 

Azer didn’t know what to say at first. 

“Our- our house is still a lot safer! Grif, our house is the only one still standing in the whole neighborhood! It’s our only chance!” 

Grif looked at Azer, defeat in his eyes, until he suddenly focused on something behind him, horror filling his face. Azer turned around to see what was happening. 

Through the gaping hole in the house, the sky had changed again. The clouds no longer flowed and swirled rapidly; instead, they had stabilized into a flat shape at the base of the storm. The winds were slowing down dramatically, the rain slowly thinning to a drizzle. The glowing colors in the clouds had dulled, becoming desaturated, slowly fading to a low white radiance. 

Nearly invisible divots and lumps dotted the canopy of clouds, each divot made of wind spinning at incomprehensible speed. The infinite pockets of revolving air at the cloud’s base slowly began to descend, each breaking off of the main cloud with a tiny, brief glow of colored light, like a farewell. The shapes of air and vapor, spinning blindingly fast, descended en masse from the planet-coating cloud, falling in a staggered, slow-moving rain. 

The endless movement and turbulence in the clouds had all been concentrated and condensed into these spinning shapes, about to reach the ground. 

And as they approached, their shape changed further. No longer were they indiscernible blobs. As they fell softly out of the sky, they thinned or expanded, steadily morphing into a familiar form: almost human. 

Cylinders became arms, thinning and splitting into an imitation of detached, floating fingers, ambiguous and ethereal. The top of the shape pinched and split, floating just barely above the body, becoming edged, diamond, or pyramidal, or something in-between. The almost-limbs floated apart from each other, connected by some unseen force. When each being was finally formed, it glowed with a remnant of the colored light that had once existed in the now-dormant storm. 

But they were the storm. 

They were The Shades. 

When each of the countless Shades made landfall, the water and mist on the ground vaporized and swirled around it. Now that they were inside the remains of the town, Azer could see their staggering size. Each Shade was easily more than ten feet tall, some more than a dozen. They gazed around with hazy eyes. 

The Shades began to roam the ruined town, floating inches off the ground, hovering around the land slowly but with purpose. Seemingly meaningless things would prompt them to extend a swirling arm towards an object and run their fingers over it, or turn something over without touching it, or stop abruptly before continuing their bizarre journey. Despite their aimlessness, no Shade came into contact with another, no path ever crossing, no patch of passed earth ever revisited. 

Azer and Grif watched the spectacle with dumbfounded awe and terror. The living yet inanimate creatures appeared not to have noticed them yet. They could only wait in their ruined house helplessly and watch. 

 After a few moments of watching the creatures roam, the two came to another terrifying realization. When a Shade touched something with its ghostly limbs, whatever was touched would be completely erased. A Shade passing by their house came across a rumbling generator. It stopped briefly before continuing along its path. As it passed through the generator, with a sharp and high-pitched noise, the generator was reduced to atoms, ripped apart by the torrential winds that made up the Shade’s body. It then turned and began to glide towards Azer and Grif. 

Azer heard a shout, followed by scattered sounds of movement. Trudging through the rubble, only a hundred feet from the boys, was the cult leader Kovaki, deeply injured but with a look of wonder on her face. Her arm was severed and was hanging over her shoulder, but she hardly seemed to care. She was fixed on the Shade’s presence. 

“I knew I was right!” she shouted. “Haise! You’ve led me to salvation!”

When Kovaki began to move towards the Shade, it abruptly halted in its path. 

“Take me, my lord! Take me from this wo-” 

When Kovaki moved again, in an abrupt movement, the Shade swung its detached arm through Kovaki, leaving her instantly and utterly erased.

Gathering will and energy, fighting past his terror, Azer uttered to Grif in a whisper. 

“We can’t move,” he said, the Shade growing closer and larger. “It- senses- movement. Only movement. Everything that moves is… gone…” 

He let his voice grow quieter as the Shade began to steadily occupy the space in front of Azer and Grif’s gaping wall. It approached with purpose. Azer froze, fear paralyzing him as much as it protected him. 

The Shade entered the gap. It was close enough for the boys to take in its full appearance. Its ethereal limbs were well-defined, but the edges of its body seemed to fade into the background. Despite the unfathomably fast speed of the air spinning within and around it, the Shade remained quiet, with a low, almost voice-like hum ringing through the air. The acidic stench of ozone filled the room as it entered, only broken by the smell of the cold, clean wind and water that made up its being. Despite being opaque, the familiar colored glow resided inside it, pulsing, ebbing and flowing. Two fathom-deep eyes glowed with the same color, brighter and more pronounced. 

As the boys stood inanimate, the Shade reached out an arm towards them. 

The atmosphere itself began cutting at Azer’s skin, taking the thinnest layer of his body away. His body was being skimmed and disintegrated by the hypersonic spinning air, but Azer remained utterly still in The Shades’ presence, not daring to move a single cell in his body. 

Its fingers floated closer, and the sharp, encompassing stinging grew almost agonizing. The wind’s friction alone was atomizing the surface of his skin. He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to keep still any longer. 

And then as quickly as it started, the Shade floated away, the slicing air coming to a halt, floating away with a pulse of colored light. A few seconds later, it appeared to fade into nothing, rising into the air and becoming one with the wind. 

The rest of The Shades followed suit, each turning its near-infinite rotational energy back into the storm. And, with staggering speed, the storm began to return to strength. 

But something was different. No longer did the rain fall from the sky, but, instead, it came from pools of rushing water covering the ground. 

The raindrops fell up. 

A raindrop emerged from a nearby puddle and fell to the sky, then another, then another, increasing in rate and intensity until the reverse rain had fully restarted the storm. Even the winds whipped backwards. Thunder ripped through the town before converging on a spot where lightning struck backwards into the storm. The sickening motions of the clouds played back in an unnatural manner. 

The entire storm was playing in reverse. 

The intensity had increased a hundredfold, every gust of wind orders of magnitude stronger than before, whipping around, destroying the remaining bits of the town that had previously survived. Before them, Azer and Grif’s house was ripped and torn apart, the endless wind threatening to pick them up. Then Grif rose in the air, and in a moment of desperation, Azer dug his fingers into the concrete below, with the other hand clasped to Grif’s. His S.R., using up the last of his energy, flowed between Azer’s arms as he tried to keep his friend grounded to the earth as the sky tore the town away. He roared with exhaustion and desperation. 

“DON’T- LET- GO!” Azer screamed over the deafening scene around them. Grif’s tears were being sucked into the wind, he too clinging as hard as he could to Azer’s hand, to reality. 

They held on for what seemed like an eternity, Azer’s strength fading by the second, Grif whipping around in the wind. Azer’s body was secured only by his concrete-embedded fingers, the rest of him rising off the ground. Their house was gone, their town was gone. Azer felt as if he couldn’t hold on any longer. He cried for help, but his cry was only drowned by the infinite storm. Nobody heard him. 

The S.R. in his body, moved by his will, flowed out of his hands. The hot energy moved through his fingertips and into Grif’s. With a peculiar sensation, not unlike being struck by lightning again, the S.R. strengthened Grif’s resolve. Grif held on tighter, the S.R. strengthening his muscles, and even when Azer couldn’t, Grif continued to hold on. Energy spread through Grif’s body, if only for a moment, and gave him the strength to live. 

Neither would notice it in the mayhem, but the ground in which Azer’s hand was dug began to sprout with grass, flowers, and life. 

As the winds raged on, the reverse storm began to throw shrapnel back into the air. It stopped at where the houses used to stand, and, steadily, the town began to return to form, rebuilding itself from nothing. The reverse storm was undoing its damage, piece by piece. Azer and Grif’s belongings, previously lost to the sky, were now softly floating back into place, their house’s walls self-assembling by the aid of the wind. 

Before they knew it, the world had reassembled, and the wind began to die. Azer and Grif fell unconscious, falling to the ground on the street outside their home. The houses and buildings in their neighborhood, as if nothing had happened, loomed around them, unlit windows staring down on the boys. 

The last thing they saw and felt before exhaustion took them were light-gray clouds rolling away above them, and a soft drizzle falling down on their still bodies.