When the gong rang, Audrey moved fast. She wanted a good spot to see from and, since she wasn't the tallest, that meant getting close to the lake before anyone else. The crowds were already pretty thick, and she had to settle for climbing on top of the steel cage around a public garbage can that was bolted to the pavement near the shore.
She loved the mysticism of the ritual, including the massive crowd of lanterns that were released. It was such a symbolic spectacle, and it brought the community - already pretty tight - closer together.
Next came Freyja with her dance and her bell. The drums seemed to vibrate right in her chest, and she clasped the lamp post tightly as the bell rang... and then everything went
wrong. Not in a traditional sense, Freyja tripping on her robe, or the bell falling into the lake or something. But wrong in the sense that it was out of place. Bizarre. Not right at all.
And nobody seemed to be reacting to it. Not at first, but looking over the heads of the frozen crowd, Audrey saw a handful of others rushing in towards the lake. And didn't she want to as well? Didn't she hear the song, in a multitude of voices, calling her to join Freyja in the riotously colorful water?
Yes, she did. And that was alarming to some other part of her. The part that was wary when a strange man approached her, or she got a phone call from a number that wasn't saved in her contacts. This was wrong too, and she watched as it drew others in, and they were swallowed by the lake. Poor Odaya, her brother trying hard to save her. And that fool Brown, getting undressed for the occasion.
Audrey jumped down from the garbage can, meaning to run in the other direction. But she didn't, of course. She charged boldly up to the lake, and held out a hand, as every fiber of caution she possessed screamed not to. The lake took her hand with a tendril of strange water, and pulled her in.
She awoke in shallow water, looking up at a starry sky. That was expected, it was night time. But it wasn't lanterns crowding the air, here. It was fireworks. And through them, though at a merciful distance, a dragon flew. No point being coy, that's what she saw. And she gawked, mouth agape and uncharacteristically speechless.
She looked around and it took her a moment to recognize the people crowding the pool. But she did, odd and changed they may be, but she knew all of them. All of them, except for that man on the bridge. Audrey took a step toward him, but was sorely distracted by the sight of her own hands.
At first, she thought she was seeing colors reflected from the fireworks in the sky, but no. Her skin was smooth and shiny, and was in bright blue and black patterns, round and organic. She pulled at the sodden sleeve of her jacket, saw that the pattern extended up as far as she could see, then pulled up her shirt so that her belly was out. It was a vivid blue as well. It reminded her of pictures she had seen of poison dart frogs.
"I don't look like much," the colors said,
"But you'll regret it if you try to fuck with me, yes sir." She glanced down at her reflection in the pool, shifting though it was with every movement of the poor bedraggled bunch. Her face was likewise unspared the change, and in addition to being blue with dots and globs of black, she saw that her eyes were completely black, and when she blinked, it was with a set of double eyelids.
In the midst of her distress, she caught Brown's joke about Weasel, and somehow Audrey found it in herself to laugh.
"Look who's talking, Cheese, she cut in,
"Who else would become a book?"
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