A great breeze swept the forest, drawing clouds over the moon and rattling the pines and ginkgos all around. The earth trembled, and then a flash of light cleaved the world into monochrome. Time seemed to stop, the clouds stifling the sky, the leaves frozen in a flurried dance, the first droplets of rain suspended in the air, shimmering like tiny, tinted glass jewels. And then they fell.
