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Once upon a time, there was a city where sleeplessness was dangerous.

Because once upon a time, the sun and moon fought a battle.



"You're kidding me, right?"

"I swear to God, that's the truth!" Aysel sputtered, red in the face. It <i>was</i> kind of hard to make someone else believe you when you barely believed it yourself. "He had cat ears and a tail! Ears and a tail, I tell you!" she reiterated, gesturing wildly.

Faith rolled her eyes, shaking her head. "You know, I think maybe you should have just gone back to bed after waking up from that dream."

Meiah was a little more receptive. "A real cat burglar, huh?" The pun was terrible, but the thought made her giggle.

"You guys, freaking <i>believe</i> me!" Though deep inside, she couldn't blame them. It was a little ridiculous. Not to mention that Faith never believed anything <i>anyone</i> said.

"Just sit down," said a tired-sounding voice. "You're disturbing my rest. Keep it quiet." He buried himself into his folded arms, leaving only a golden yellow head of hair to stick out in tufts.

"Sleep outside of class, Conradin," Faith sneered, slamming a hand down on his desk. Conradin acknowledged her by pulling his hood over his head, and turning the other way. No longer amused by him, she headed elsewhere.

"You know, I'd really be more concerned with the homework for last night. Did you guys understand <i>any</i> of it? Freaking trig, drives me— Ays, what are you doing?" She quirked an eyebrow, watching the papers fly.

Aysel looked up at them and laughed nervously.

"Well, you see, it's the homework. It's not that I didn't <i>get</i> it...it's just that I didn't <i>get around</i> to it."

"God, Ays..." Faith rolled her eyes again, and Meiah giggled.

Conradin frowned.



10:09 pm, proclaimed the glowing digits on her alarm clock. Time to finish your homework, before I have to go off again.

Aysel shook her head, wiping drowsiness and stray strands of hair from her face. No, no good. Still couldn't concentrate at all. So away went the books, back into their comfortable bookbag. History was just memorization anyway. There was no point in even looking at the material if she couldn't keep a single thought in her head. The stray end of a cheap mechanical pencil found its way into her mouth, and she idly chewed on the plastic. More than the theft, the <i>boy</i> had occupied her thoughts. It was probably a disguise of some sorts, now that she'd taken some time out to mull over it. Probably.

She hadn't told her mother about it. Mother would have had the police swarming the area, armed to the gills. Mother would have hauled in the five'o'clock news.

Oh, yes. Mother would have also told her to stop gnawing on that pencil, because it was a 'nasty habit'. Good thing Mother wasn't present. Giving the doorway a quick check confirmed that. She must have had to work late or something.i

</i>It was probably a disguise, but it still irritated her to no end. Cat's ears and a tail! Trying to pass himself off as cute and innocent. Who in the world did that kid think he was?

And it wasn't the bracelet that was so important. It wasn't worth that much, and nobody special had given it to her. It was being stolen from that ruffled her nerves.

The more she considered the subject, the more common sense seemed to fade into the background. Until the clock read 10:27, and the pencil dropped from her mouth as she came to a decision.

Forget those stupid rumors. Aysel would pursue him, night or no. And when she found him, she'd— ! She'd... She stopped for a second, coat half-on. There was a very minor flaw in her otherwise seamless logic.

She hadn't quite figured out just what she was going to do when she got there.

Not that a lack of any formal plan had ever stopped her before.

She cut off the kitchen light, and pulled the door shut behind herself, stepping out onto the sidewalk.



Ten minutes later found her wandering past buildings she no longer remembered. No, she hadn't been out much, and yes, things looked a little different at night, but this much of a change seemed improbable. "Since when did it ever get so built-up around here...?" The moon shone as bright as day, yet the shadows drilled black holes into the asphalt. Something was wrong, very very wrong, and not even every logical bone in her body could prevent her feet from turning and running back. Eyes followed her footsteps, watching a growing panic wear her weary.

Soon.

Very soon.



If this had been another time of day, Aysel would have been approximately seven feet in front of the house next door.

As things were now, she stood at the wrong end of a darkened alley, swathed in the night.

And if this were a different night, she might have been alone.

As things were now, the acrid breath of something not quite human sent an unpleasant warmth down the back of her spine.

It was a thin, spindly-looking creature, with hard, ribbed skin that might have felt like sandpaper to the touch. Two round coals, still radiating heat, stared down at her from deeply-inset sockets. Its half-open mouth oozed acidic saliva that dripped to the ground.

But what really impressed itself upon her mind the most were the double rows of sharpened teeth that lay therein.

Her mouth opened, but nothing would issue forth. Not a scream, not a whimper, not even a sound. Swallowing hard, she slid two shaking steps backwards, until one of her heels hit the wall. There were too many things running through her head to do anything else— her physical senses had utterly overwhelmed her capability to process thought. Which was why the shout registered so clearly.



"Get down, and cover your ears!"

Aysel obeyed, falling to her knees and squeezing her eyes almost shut.

Through her eyelashes, through the dark, she could barely see something swift and small take its place in front of her. In front of that <i>thing</i>, whatever it may have been. Even now, its skeletal form towered over him, rows of daggered teeth dripping venom.

An inhuman growl, and the eyes were shut for good. Cowardice? What was so bad about being a coward? Shots hurt less when you don't look. Being eaten had to work the same way, she reasoned.

Any further thought of her own demise was halted by an unearthly tenor...the likes of which she'd never heard before. The sound seeped through her tightly-closed fingers and seared through her brain.

<i>That boy is singing,</i> she realized. Yet it seemed like a perfectly logical thing to do. Of <i>course</i> he was singing! Why not? It wasn't as if there was anything better to be done, other than perhaps run away.

The monster seemed to agree, having stopped in its tracks. Still he kept singing, arms spread and palms to the sky. She know it had lyrics, but knew down to her very bones that she wasn't meant to hear them.



He sang a dirge, and it painted the inside of her mind jet-black.



It fell to the concrete with a wet <i>flop</i>, and he sighed heavily, shoulders slumping.

"God, the <i>newbies</i>..." Wandering fingers caught the hair at the back of his neck as he glared over his shoulder. "Next time, watch it!"

His gaze was cold steel. And much as they looked alike otherwise, those eyes threw her off.

He was always sleeping. He barely stayed conscious for lunch, and there was no way he sang. Even if he did, there was no way he sang like <i>that</i>.

But the resemblance plagued her, until her voice found its way back to her throat.

"Conradin?!"

He jolted ramrod straight as he recognized her face. "<i>s**t!</i>" he yelped, throwing an elbow over his nose and mouth. As if that would help now! Now sure of his identity, she grabbed his other arm with a vengeance, threatening to tear it off if he didn't stop to listen.

"What is this?! Where are we?!" she hissed. For a moment, she surprised him. More malice poured her than from the mouth of any monster.

"Geez, where was that bravery when that skeleton jumped you?!" he replied, frowning. This was the right response; Aysel paled, loosening her fingers just enough for him to pull away. He shook out his arm, noting the indents her fingernails dug into the cotton with some disgust. That'd be stretched forever, and it was his <i>favorite</i> hoodie!

"You didn't answer me."

Again, he avoided the question. "You know, you're shaking. Maybe we should just— "

This didn't make any sense. Beasts skulking through alleyways. Getting lost five minutes away from her house. Perhaps this could be attributed to the the rumors that flew about 'night' and 'the city'. The sighting of vicious monsters was nothing new, however far away it seemed in the news. And perhaps the cat-burglar who robbed her in broad daylight really <i>had</i> been wearing a disguise...though more and more, this seemed unlikely.

All of these things could have happened before, in another place and time. But nothing, absolutely <i>nothing</i> could explain how Conradin sang...and that was the loop she would work into a hole.

"Conradin," Aysel said, evenly. "I want <i>the truth</i>."

He flexed his fingertips, eventually returning to the comfort zone on the back of his neck. This was going to be a tad bit more difficult than he'd first imagined. Not to mention that there was most likely another set of baddies lying in wait only a few paces away— and oh, they'd be royally <i>pissed</i> at the dead carcass lying on the ground. Though they were too far out of range to be affected, they had surely heard him.

He sighed again, staring up at the sky.

"Aw, man..."