At night, the colorful marks of endings were dark as dried blood, and the ghosts shifted and moaned in hidden places. Char slipped through the gloom with a practiced ease, stepping over spalls of concrete as if they’d memorized their places. Their size had once made them careful around people who elbowed and scowled, and those skills had gone on being useful long after all the people had gone.

Well, not all of them. Char had met a few dozen people who hadn’t popped, including Maya, who lived in an old Victorian that made for a welcome pit stop during scavenging runs. Nobody was a better scavenger than Char, but they had a tendency to lose track of time. Staying with Maya would mean that they wouldn’t have to risk going all the way back home in the dark, when thieves and worse came out of the splattered buildings and looked for people heading home with their hauls.

At this time of night three years ago, the crows would have been gathering in this part of the city, settling down to roost, but crows were smarter than Char was. They had moved on to places where no one lurked in the darkness, and eventually all the other birds had followed. Char missed the sounds of sparrows and finches, and wished they knew where all the birds had gone. Perhaps they’d gone through the splashes of color, which looked in places like human-shaped holes to colorful new landscapes.

Music and light poured out of Maya’s place. The hum of diesel generators backed the thudding beats with their low voices, and filled Char’s skull with their fumes. Char’s head ached as they went past the bouncer, Kody, who let them pass with a friendly nod. Char had known Maya since the beginning, Kody almost as long.

Despite the loud music, the mood inside was subdued. People stood in tight knots or sat elbow to elbow on plush, aged velvet couches. Chipped cups of moonshine were clutched in unsteady hands. Few people spoke, and nobody danced. The place had the atmosphere of a funeral. Char passed through quickly, not wanting to listen to the latest sad story of someone disappearing into the growing forest outside town. They just wanted to rest.

Maya usually held court over a small group of her favorites in the big bedroom upstairs, but Char found her alone, looking into a cup of whiskey that smelled like paint thinner.

“Maya?” Only one thing could dampen the nightly party at Maya’s.

“Leon went Chromate yesterday.” Maya’s voice was barely audible over the noise from below. Leon had been one of her favorites, a skinny little man who could pick any lock. “They tried to get him out of the city, but it was too late. He started popping people and they had to put him down.”

“Oh, Maya.” Char dropped her heavy sack of parts by the door.

“At least, if he’d gotten out of the city, he might have lived. They say Oracles live out there. That it’s the city that makes them dangerous.” Maya didn’t look up, lost in whiskey and what could have been.

“I know.” Char wanted to believe it. Believing that meant that maybe there was some hope that people who had gone Chromate could recover, or that those who had vanished were still alive. But there was no proof, and false hope seemed worse than none.

“I’m tired, Char. I try not to show it, because people come here to forget their troubles. But I’m tired.”

Char knew. They could tell by her eyes, which looked through people before looking at them. They could tell by her voice, growing quieter every day. They could tell by her body, once lush as Char’s own, which had eaten away at its own curves and curled inward like a pillbug trying to save itself from a bird’s beak.

This new world swallowed people whole.

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” Maya said. She put her cup down, the fringe on her leather jacket dipping in the amber liquor.

“That’s okay.” Char crossed to her, helped her take off the old jacket, buttery soft from years of wear. It smelled like smoke. “You don’t have to.”

“Where will everyone go?” Maya asked. “Where will people sleep if not here?”

“You can think about that later, all right? Other people can help. You know I will.” They fixed Maya’s long, dark hair, which was caught in her earrings, twin waterfalls of silver leaves that tinkled when she moved. People always brought her earrings in exchange for shelter and sweet forgetfulness. “Do you want to rest for a while? You look like you haven’t slept.”

“I’ve been awake since I heard about Leon. I tried to sleep, but I had nightmares. I used to dream in black and white, but now I dream in color. Only bad dreams, though. It seems like all I have now are nightmares.” Maya rubbed her eyes wearily.

“Come on. Put some other music on and I’ll rub your back.”

“But everyone—”

“Everyone is standing around feeling sad about Leon. They’ll like something quieter, too.” Char said.

Maya fiddled with her computer, ancient and held together with electrical tape, and the thudding drum kick stopped. Something atmospheric took its place, and a tightness Char hadn’t noticed forming in their chest faded out, returned as she listened for the sound of ghosts, faded again. The generators and music were still too loud to hear the spirits.

They followed Maya into her bedroom, which she usually shared with more than one of her favorites. The antique four-poster was empty and unmade, the mismatched dressers open, Maya’s clothes hanging out everywhere. While Maya changed into pajamas, Char straightened up, afraid the highboy would tip over with its top drawer open.

Maya’s shoulders were knotted tight, unwilling to give an inch against Char’s kneading fingers. Slowly, so slowly, Maya relaxed, and Char felt her breathing slow. They took their hands away as gently as they could, not wanting to wake her. She stirred, rolling onto her side, and Char’s breath snagged in the back of her throat. A green smear of color gleamed on Maya’s lips.

Char hurried to the bathroom to wash their hands, heart throwing itself at their sternum. Their own terrified face looked back at them in the mirror for thirty seconds as they counted down a long enough handwashing. What were they supposed to do? Someone had to get Maya’s guests out before her visions started. The worse a Chromate’s visions were, the more dangerous. How long had Leon been an Oracle before he’d killed fifty? How long ago had Maya been exposed?

Maya didn’t move when Char crept past her bed, down the stairs. Their stomach churned, every muscle in their body aching from trying not to run. The night air burned their lungs when they stepped outside, and they realized they’d been holding their breath. They leaned against the doorjamb, trying to breathe deep.

“Is she okay?” Kody’s voice made Char jump so hard that something twinged in their neck.

“No.” They rubbed the sore, twitching muscle, trying to massage the pain out. “She wants everyone out.”

“What? At this time of night?”

“She’s really upset,” Char said. Their eye was drawn to the gun at Kody’s hip; an old revolver taken from his dad’s house after he’d popped with most everyone else. There was still a blue stain on the grip. If Kody knew, he’d kill Maya. Char had to make sure she was alone and couldn’t hurt anyone, get her into the forest somehow. She’d have a better chance of survival out there than she would in her own home.

“I’m gonna go talk to her.” Kody took a step toward Char, and they instinctively grabbed his arm. He looked past them rather than at them. A silence more restless and sickly than the whispers fell over the room.

When Char turned, Maya stood at the bottom of the stairs, her hand on the bannister.

“Maya?” Char said. Maya didn’t respond. “It’s time to go back to bed.”

“These tongues are burned,” Maya said. Her voice was all wrong, shivery in a way that scrambled Char’s stomach contents. “They can speak, but the taste is all blood and blister. Do you taste it?”

“Yes,” Char asked, not knowing what Maya wanted. Maya turned to look at her, a kelly green tear running down her cheek. Fear blossomed across the guests’ faces like paint clouding water, but none of them moved.

“No, you don’t.” Maya placed a hand on Char’s shoulder. “But you will.”

“Everyone get out.” Char’s throat was too tight for anything more. “Go!” It was as if Char had cracked a whip over the guests’ heads. They moved as one, pushing toward the back door in terrified silence. The only sounds in the room were ambient music and shuffling feet.

“These hands rake up shadows. Do you feel it?” Maya asked. Her eyes were green all around now, swirling and pearlescent.

“No.” Char tried to jerk away, but Maya was too strong, now. All thoughts of getting her somewhere safe had fled. “I just want to go home, Maya.”

“You are going home. The doors are opening.”

“Maya, I don’t want to fight you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

The house had emptied out. Char didn’t know how to reason with an Oracle. How could they? Maya was seeing things beyond them, beyond the fragile world that had begun to crumble when half the people in it exploded into rainbows of color and more went Chromate every day.

“Char, back away from her.” Kody drew his gun from its holster. Char made another attempt to pull away, and Maya’s fingers dug into their flesh.

“I can’t.”

“Close your eyes. Cover your nose and mouth,” Kody said.

“Please don’t.” Tears stung Char’s eyes.

“If I don’t do it, someone else will. And they’ll have to put you down, too, if she hasn’t already popped you,” Kody said.

“Kody, please,” Char begged. “We can take her away from here, to be with the others.”

“You and I both know this is kinder.”

“Please.”

Kody cocked the revolver with a metallic snap.

“Kody, no!”

The shot was so loud that Char’s ears hurt, rang, buzzed. Kody slumped against the door jamb, clutching his head. He splattered, no scrap of flesh or bone left inside him. Only bright purple wetness and empty clothes remained, surrounded by the alien stink of a pop. Like something poisonous and green, like seawater steam. Like death. Not even gunpowder could cut through that smell.

“Char?” Maya’s voice shook. When Char looked at her, Maya’s expression was frightened, confused, but the eyes were still wrong. Her hand slipped from Char’s shoulder. “It’s happening, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Char breathed.

“I’m scared. Please.” Emerald tears streamed down her face, seeped from her nose and mouth. Char didn’t know what she was begging for, but Maya had sheltered them so many times. It was their turn to shelter her, regardless of the risk.

“I won’t leave you,” they said.

Maya let out a wrenching sob, crumpling to the ground. Char knelt next to her, drawing her into their arms. She shook, murmuring so low that Char couldn’t understand her.

Maya’s shivers were contagious, working their way into Char’s chest until they could barely breathe. They coughed, and red came up. Not blood, but fluid filled with that stink of forest rot.

The visions came on hard and fast, Char’s head spinning out into busy dreams of angels with mouths full of hot blood and hands streaming with darkness. Roots reaching deep, they sucked up water and life until their perfect heads burst into swarms of bent-winged cicadas, sending shards of halo slicing through the air.

The insects took to the sky, and Char felt the overwhelming urge to join the swarm. If they could fly, carry Maya away from people who would hurt her, to go to the safe place where the crows and sparrows and finches had gone, maybe everything would go all right. Maya’s hand was in theirs. They leapt, their feet finding the soft, mossy earth of the stump of a neck. There, the bone and marrow between Maya and Char, the whole world spread out before them beneath a sky as violet as what remained of Kody.

“Thank you for coming on this journey with me.” Maya’s smile shone brighter than the shimmering chitin of the cicadas humming around them.

Char, spellbound, could only smile back. They and Maya were becoming, two nebulae condensing into stars. The colors were deep in their bones, dragging their consciousness down into the nourishing soil. Char wanted nothing more than to sleep, with no concern for all of the slowly fading constructions of humanity, but she and Maya weren’t safe until they flew.

Roots had already tangled around Char’s ankles, trying to pull her down into the rich earth and moss, but they dragged their legs free. Hot streaks of pressure bit into their flesh, and they knew they were bleeding, but they couldn’t bring themself to care as they broke for the edge. Maya’s hand nearly slipped from Char’s as they fell into the electric purple sky together, the city vanishing into trees standing tall as angels. Cool air bathed them, feverish anxiety and pain washing away into the night. Since the first pops had splattered the city, Char’s dreams were restless, full of searing color and wild movement. The dark stillness was a relief, and for the first time in a thousand nights, they could rest easy.

When Char woke, they were soaking wet, weak after a broken fever. They wiped their face with their hand, and it came away pink, the red fluid diluted by sweat. They lay somewhere soft, looking at the ceiling of a rough wooden shelter with bright blue sky peeking through the cracks.

Their legs almost gave out when they stood, but it wasn’t weakness that nearly made them fall. Outside the little wooden house, sunshine bathed more crude structures, surrounded by verdant forest. Instead of the moans of ghosts, the air just outside rang with birdsong. They laughed, giddy with exhaustion and something beyond hope. A warm hand touched their clammy one, and they turned to meet brown eyes brimming with relief and joy.

“Welcome back,” Maya whispered. “It’s been a while.”