"Why is the sky purple?"
Jon wakes up to a hand on his shoulder, shaking him violently, and a voice uttering complete nonsense he's not sure he's hearing right. "Jon? Why the hell is the sky purple?"
"It's blue, now go away," he mumbles, feeling like an idiot for answering something he didn't even hear properly.
"No it's not, wake up and see!" the voice begs, and he opens his eyes, staring up at the bewildered and terrified face of his best friend Karyn. The first thing he notices is that her hair is red again, but before he can comment she points out the window and he lifts his head up to look outside.
Everything is unbelievably bright, bathed in a soft, almost liquid light that makes everything stand out as if the world were suddenly switched to a higher resolution. The sky is indeed purple, a blinding iridescent film with every shade of purple imaginable, shifting and twisting and roiling endlessly like the sea.
Jon sits up, wide awake and gripped with a panic, but unlike Karyn, he knows exactly why the sky is purple. It started in the previous week, in which they didn't see one another for more than five minutes, and he's no longer sure his foolish third wish is entirely responsible.
