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asleep before my head hits the pillow.
     
     
     
     
    6.
     
    He waits a few minutes, just to make sure, th en pushes the shutters wide as his sister had moments before. Traylor isn't stupid; he knows Juno has a stash of Forerunner objects up on the roof. After all, it's what he would do if he were tasked with cleaning up the garbage on that beach. The loss of Thomas Whiskeyjack still weighs heavy on his heart, but the pain recedes to a dull throb in the back of his mind as the excitement of finding out what Juno and Jude found yesterday overtakes it. Other than Thomas' death, he'd thought about little else all day.
    Traylor climbs onto the window ledge and grasps the eave, swinging his legs up with more grace than Juno had formerly exhibited. He barely makes a sound. He waits another moment to be sure no one sees him, then darts up the sloped roof toward the ancient chimney. He's there is seconds, lifting the wooden panel away. Juno really should be more careful with this stuff , he thinks, clambering into the hole himself. He pulls the blanket away, revealing a trove of stuff he's seen plenty of times before, and one thing he's never seen.
    "What is this?" he grumbles to himself in amazem ent. It looks like a simple box; pure, silvery metal, perfectly made.
    "There must be a way to open it."  
    Traylor reaches out with his right hand and, as his skin makes contact, an electric shock jolts through him like a snakebite. "Ow!" he snarls, pulling his hand up to his mouth. That really hurt! Anger boils within him.
    Anger over Thomas' death.
    Traylor feels like he's had so little control over his life lately, and here is this stupid box, an inanimate object, taunting him.
    "I will get you open," he vows, reaching over to the box again. This time, he wraps the blanket around his hands, picking the object up directly. It vibrates in his grasp, but it can't shock him through the material. "Ha!" Traylor laughs, triumphant. "Now, how do I open–"
    But it's too late.
    With a flash of skin searing light, the box opens by itself, and Traylor remembers no more.
     
     
     
     
    7.
     
    One Month Later.
    A cloaked figure moves about the streets of Krakelyn at night. We call it night in Eversummer, but there is actually nothing to distinguish it from day because the sun never leaves the sky. We call it night, because it’s the time when everyone usually sleeps. Sleeping hours, we call them more often than not. But lately, people haven't been sleeping so well. Of course, it doesn’t help that over half of Krakelyn is dead. 
    Suicides mostly.
    The cloak I'm wearing is oversized–it was my Father's–but that's kind of the point. It covers my face and body completely. I'm not the only one who goes about like this these days, though we're fast becoming a minority. I've been in hiding since the Final Judgment–that's what people are calling the day that Traylor opened the Box–but since my return to Krakelyn, I've been hearing rumors of a gang that doesn't take too kindly to people masking their deformities. Children of Mutanity they call themselves. A play on the words ‘mutant’ and ‘humanity’, I guess.
    I've yet to see them for myself.
    If the rumors are true, then this supposed gang would sure be anathema to all that the people of Eversummer previously stood for. It makes sense though, in a twisted sort of way. After all, after centuries of believing we were doing the will of the gods by weeding out the imperfections in our bloodlines–the True Body Plan–the gods turn around and do this to us. What are people supposed to think? Perhaps we had the TBP all wrong. Maybe mutations are the will of the gods, and what we think of as perfection is actually ugly and evil.
    Maybe, but I don't believe it.
    I'm angling my way toward the Manse, taking an indirect route so it’s not as obvious as to where I'm headed. Just in case. Our house has been at the center of a lot of hatred and violence since the Final Judgment. People want