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On the fourth night of the aurora, it changes from dancing lights to a strange, swirling maelstrom. A cold wind picks up, swirling wildly. Near midnight, the wind is strong enough to topple lighter bushes and knock branches from trees. No major damage has been done, but it is still a storm no one wants to be out in. Suddenly, the colors in the sky seem to explode. A distant echo, like thunder, rolls through the town. The aurora is gone, and so is its strange spell. The only thing that lingers are the small, colorful beads that fall from the sky like hail. They sparkle in all colors of the aurora and are never any larger than a marble. Most of them seem safe, but if you hold too many at one time you are met with the same sleepless affliction the town was suffering under the aurora.
Safe in his drug-induced coma, Caleb thought the worst of it was finally over. Many others in Destiny City had the same idea - chemical sleep aids would be the only way around this damned White Moon act of terrorism. Tonight was only the third night of relief and already the redhead was feeling ten thousand percent better than the past few days. Caleb needed his beauty sleep and White Moon be damned if they were going to keep him from it. Skin and body needed rest and relaxation to look its best.
The crack of thunder and intense wind banging wayward branches against his window jolted him out of bed like a bat out of hell, the redhead nearly falling from his plush blanket cocoon and onto the floor. Outside his thick and dark curtains, a rainbow of color burst ever brighter. Against his better judgment, Caleb stumbled to the window and peeled open the curtains to see if White Moon Hell was raining from the sky in an effort to purify the city to pave the way for a hostile alien takeover.
His emerald eyes were greeted to a scene that resembled his worst nightmare - the aurora exploding in the sky, depositing a pulsing sea of every color imaginable that washed over the city. The sudden and violent wind was tearing down loose branches and tossing less anchored bushes from manicured parks and green spaces, depositing them yards away from their usual positions in chaotic abandon. Power lines swayed like strings in the powerful wind. Was this a tornado!? Could Destiny City experience such a thing?
Then again, it did experience a technicolor aurora this far south of the frozen poles, so...
The distinctive clink, clink, clink of hail started soon after, the aurora having blessedly dissipated from the sky. Would the good people of Destiny City be able to get some damned shuteye now that the spell was over? Caleb remembered a few reports rolling into the Negaverse from agents positioned all around the city, trying to decipher the mechanism and origin of the aurora. The Negaverse's contacts in major media were downplaying it in case the White Moon had something to do with its creation, and to prevent the mundane person from panicking. It seemed to work, all things considered, and the redhead was thankful for his position in the organization. They knew what was really going on in this city.
Clink!
A piece of hail had landed on Caleb's windowsill, and he glared at it from a moment. First an aurora, then thunder, then incredible winds, now hail? Maybe he needed to move away from the city at some point, open a shop in a nearby town... Squinting down at the piece of hail, the redhead noted it didn't melt immediately on contact. In fact, it looked plastic.
Against his better judgment, and the Unisom still in his system, Caleb gingerly opened the window just enough to snatch the tiny thing in manicured hands. Indeed, it wasn't hail, it was some kind of bead. With a sigh, and closing the window and drawing the curtains, Caleb deposited the bead into a cup on his bedside table meant for late night drinks of water. He'd report it to the higher-ups later. For now, the beautiful man needed his beauty sleep.
WC: 553
