An hour later, he stood just inside of the radio station, nervously remembering the insane radiation levels that he had read the last time he was there. An intern was sitting at an empty desk this time, idly twirling a long stone knife in his left hand. Carlos could tell from a glance that he wasn't the same intern as the one who had escorted him up the last time. Chad had been pale, nearly green, while this boy had rich brown skin and red eyes.
Even so, he seemed to be wearing the same name tag. "Chad" had been crossed out and "Jerry" scrawled on top. Jerry nodded at him, raising his eyebrows. "Salutations. You are Carlos, the scientist? Cecil remarked you would be stopping by. He seemed rather... enthusiastic, if you catch my meaning."

Carlos nodded, already too accustomed to the fact that Cecil had a crush on him to be overly embarrassed. "I could see that."

"Cecil ascended to begin his recording session not too long ago, but he usually takes a transitory break while the music plays between the introduction and the news sections of the broadcast. I can direct you up to his booth if you so desire, and you two can socialize as you wish."

The young man stuck the knife into the desk, standing up and motioning for the scientist to join him. The path seemed a little different than the last time that he had been that way. There were more stairs circling both upwards and downwards, shorter hallways; Station management's wails seemed distant. Finally, they were in front of Cecil's booth, where he was just finishing adjusting the buttons. He didn't seem to notice them, and flipped a button, lighting up the "On Air" sign. Carlos noticed for the first time that Cecil seemed to change somewhat as he picked up his microphone and turned it on. His third eye glowed, his skin became paler, and his tattoos seemed to become... less attached. It almost looked like they were floating just above his arms like murky tendrils of purple light. Carlos shivered. There was something very wrong with this guy. "The desert seems vast, even endless, but scientists tell us that somewhere, even now, there is snow. Welcome- to Night Vale."

He flipped another switch, and the strange music, which seemed to be the theme song, started playing. Pushing his chair back, he pressed a few more buttons, and stood up, waving at Carlos and Jerry through the glass wall. The moment he put his microphone down, his eye dimmed and his tattoos fastened back to his arms, still swirling. "I recorded the announcement about Radon Canyon beforehand, so we'll have more time to look at the cat. I'm still deciding on a name. Maybe..." He ran his hand through his hair. "Khoshekh."

Carlos raised his eyebrows, trying not to formulate theories about Cecil's tattoos and focus on the conversation.

"Do you like the name?" he asked eagerly.

"Sure. Where did you say he was... floating?"

"In the men's bathroom, near the sink."

It never really occurred to him to think that Cecil was lying. Something about his way of deep, calm way of speaking or his complete transparency on the public radio.

Upon entering the restroom, Carlos' attention was immediately drawn to the cat, next to the sink.

Wait. Was that a cat?

It was a bit too large, and a greyish blue color. Spikes the color of its shaggy fur projected from its back along its backbone, and it's tail was far too long. Two bowls of water, some kind of ground meat, and a litter box were balanced on top of stacks of cassette tapes right next to it. Cecil smiled. "He's so cute! Watch out for the spine ridges, they're poisoned. Of course, you knew that. You're a scientist!"

Carlos shrugged, only knowing that all the cats he had seen so far in his life did not have spine ridges.

Khoshekh opened his glowing yellow eyes, blinking sleepily a few times before turning around in midair and yawning, revealing a mouthful of needle sharp teeth. Looking between the scientist, newscaster, and intern, it shook out its fur and let out a shrieking roar. Carlos jumped back, but Cecil patted it carefully and put a few more scoops of the unidentified meat into the cat bowl. Khosheck spun around in the air once more so he faced the bowl, then stretched out his neck and began to gulp down the food. Curious but hesitant, Carlos passed a hand several inches above it's back, than beneath the cat's stomach.

There was nothing at all holding him up.

The air was a little warm and made his fingers tingle ever so slightly, but there were no ropes, no invisible barriers, nothing.

Just a floating cat... thing.

He took several steps back, trying to suppress his panic. Occasionally it flared up, and it would take a long time to beat back down again. "That's... cool. Okay. Um... yeah. Thanks for showing me, I guess?"

Cecil nodded, still staring at him. "Yeah. Oh, I forgot!" He pulled a damp paper package out of his pocket and handed it to the scientist. Carlos stared at it in mild suspicion as Cecil bounced on his heels, excited. "It's for you."

Carlos slowly unwrapped the package and removed a small, smooth rock. It was almost completely round, and easily fit in the palm of his hand. It did not look like a normal rock, however. Red swirls ran through jet black.

And it oozed blood.

Carlos nearly dropped it, holding it out away from his lab coat. It was only Tuesday; he couldn't get his Monday-through-Wednesday lab coat messy and covered in blood yet. Cecil beamed. "It's a bloodstone! I noticed you didn't have one earlier, and you'll probably need it, living here and all."

Carlos shuddered inwardly as a thin trail of blood made its way from the rock through one of the lines in his palm. "Thank you, I guess. What should I, um, how should I transport it?"

"Oh, just stick it in your pocket, it won't bleed unless you're holding it in your hand."

Carlos did so, quickly rinsing his hand in the sink he stood next to. This was a bit much; Cecil was really weird. The broadcaster grinned at him. "Your hair looks nice today. It always looks nice, of course, but-"

Jerry rolled his eyes and walked up behind his employer. "I do believe that you are being unintentionally intimidating, sir. It is nearly time for you to resume your broadcast, so, if you would be so kind as to excuse me, I will accompany Dr. Carlos back to the front of the building."

Cecil looked disappointed, but nodded. "Okay. Come back soon."

Carlos followed on Jerry's heels, guiltily anxious to get away. "I might. Thanks for letting me stop by, and for the... bloodstone. You sound probably get back to your radio show."

Cecil's third eye suddenly flared with an intense purple light, and his two normal eyes became unfocused. "I probably should," he said in a deep, distant voice. "Important things will happen today."

He turned and slowly walked out of the bathroom, back towards his booth. Jerry watched him for a moment, then shrugged and switched his knife to his other hand. "If you so desire, we can slide to the front entrance. Stairs can be inefficient as modes of transportation, at times."

Without waiting for an answer, he blinked his red eyes several times and the floor disappeared beneath them. Carlos yelped, but there was nothing to grab onto and they were shooting down a long, thick tube. Then, it was gone, and they were standing in front of the entrance door once more. Jerry sat back down at the desk, putting his two knives from his hands into his belt and gathering the several knives stuck in the desk in his arms. "Good day, sir. It was a pleasure to meet you, and I hope that sometime in the near future we will further our acquaintance," said Jerry, bowing. Slightly dizzy, Carlos could only nod before pushing the door open.

At first, he didn't quite set what was going on. One of the first things he noticed was the music. Other than that, it was silent, and it didn't seem like music that would normally be playing in a busy street. It sounded like someone whistling Rondo Alla Turka by Mozart really, really well. Glancing around, he saw most of the people in his view were looking upwards, murmuring quietly.

Carlos looked up.

And he saw it.

A large, glowing cloud was rolling over town. It seemed to hang pretty low, and was enormous. The colors were vibrant, looking somewhat like methane blue stain and pure chlorophyll extract, always swirling and never mixing.

"Color of blood on smooth pavement," muttered a nearby young woman. "Absolutely beautiful."

The man standing next to her tilted his head. "Mmm, not really. More like children's teeth plated in a gold medallion."

Carlos repressed a shudder at the unpleasant mental image, trying to figure out if the thickness of retinas or nerve endings could affect the color people see.

He couldn't really think of anything.

After a few seconds of hesitation on the sidewalk, he turned and headed back towards the lab, formulating a plan.

Strolling back into the lab, he saw Travis inside, glaring at the slides and tweezers Carlos had left scattered near his microscope earlier.

"Where have you been?" he asked, exasperated. They had got almost nothing done in nearly two weeks and it was starting to irritate him.

"Out and about," answered Carlos, placing the bloodstone in his station. He would examine it later. Strolling over to a row of boxes with scientific instruments, he took several out. His radiation detector, a radar transmitter, a thermometer, and a small device to measure air composition.

Travis raised an eyebrow. "What are you planning on doing with that interesting selection of equipment?"

Placing his things in a small duffel bag, he grabbed cotton swabs in protective cases, just in case. "Going to go check out the glowing cloud. I think it's coming over the town."

Travis stared at him like he was an idiot. "A cloud. You're going to go examine a cloud."

Carlos shrugged. "You never know, right?"

Quickly exiting the lab, he rushed out on the street, noticing that the cloud had moved closer, and was nearing the middle of the town. Pulling out his air composition measurer, he started scanning the area around him when he noticed one of the "secret" police leaning against Big Rico's Pizza, surrounded by a small group of listeners. "Nah, the Glow Cloud isn't dangerous! What are you talking about? There's only been like, what, maybe one death that might be attributed to it. Don't run away! Why would you want to do that? You know what I personally suggest? Why don't you try running directly at the Cloud, shrieking and waving your arms. You know, just to see what it does."

Carlos moved away as the crowd started murmuring, daring each other to do what the person suggested, heading in the direction of the Glow Cloud and pointing his device up at it. There had to be something special about it. As he began to move near the cloud, it seemed to move closer to the center of the town. The small device in his hand beeped, and he looked at the reading. It seemed mostly normal, perhaps the level of argon was a little high. He continued to move closer to the cloud, and the cloud moved closer to him. It was moving quite quickly now, and a lot bigger than he had first thought. He scanned the air consistency again, noticing that the argon was normal again, but there was more nitrogen. Argon, nitrogen, argon, nitrogen, almost like the cloud was... breathing. Shivering, he tested the radiation. Surprisingly, it was actually a lot lower than what it had been last time he checked, almost a normal reading.

That was unusual.

He walked forward slowly, ready to run at the first sign of anything strange.

Anything stranger, that is, than a brightly glowing cloud that was seen as a different color by every person and was humming classical music.

Carlos walked even closer, noticing that the people underneath the cloud were either ducking and running around, staring up with a confused expression.

Then, he felt something very heavy hit his shoulder.

Stumbling from the sudden impact, he nearly dropped the delicate instrument in his hand as he tried to figure out what happened.

A dead armadillo was lying on the ground next him.

It wasn't until then when he noticed that the road in front of him was littered with small, dead animals, ranging in size from mice to German Shepherds. Another thing landed in his hair and he yelped, jumping back and shaking his head. A large lizard, quite dead.

How in the world could a dead lizard fall from a glowing cloud?

Animals ranging from about one to thirty pounds began to fall more heavily as the cloud came directly over them, and Carlos ran to a nearby doorway for shelter- an ice cream shop that had seen many better days. The door was propped open, and he could hear Cecil's voice coming from a radio, partially blurred by the frantic, blaring tune of Rondo Alla Turka coming from above.

"-Cloud has doubled in size, enveloping all of Night Vale in its weird light and humming song. Little League administration has announced they will be going ahead with the game, although there will be an awning built over the field, due to the increase in size of the animal corpses being dropped."

Carlos let out a quiet, incredulous laugh. Cecil was so insanely unconcerned about all the crazy, illogical things that happened that it was borderline ridiculous. A woman who had ducked in the shop for shelter came back out, holding a table over her head, looking quite annoyed. "Of all days to leave my standard heavyweight umbrella at home," she grumbled, stepping out into the downpour of bodies. Carlos didn't move, until-

CRUNCH!

He jumped back as the ceiling of the ice cream shop cracked, trying to see what had hit the roof while avoiding being hit by the dead animals, quickly growing in size. A full-grown male lion, awkwardly twisted from its fall, lay sprawled across the roof, oozing blood.

A woman with a color-splotched white apron rushed out and craned her neck to see the top of the store. "What happened?"

"It looks like a dead African lion fell on top of your store, ma'am."

He honestly never thought he'd be saying those words out loud to another human being.

The woman sighed and looked at the small group of people under the banister. "Does anyone know how to get it off?"

"-fell on top of the White Sand Ice Cream Shop. The shop is offering a free dipped cone to anyone who can figure out how to get the thing off."

The woman shrugged. "Sure, why not Cecil."

Carlos raised his eyebrows as a group of black-clad Secret Police ran past them, holding boards of plywood over their heads, towards the middle of the Cloud. The thing now stretched as far as he could see in all directions, covering the entire town. Still holding the boards, one of the Police poked its head out.

"What are you? Why are you dropping dead animals on us? What do you want?"

Two well-aimed elephants shot down from the cloud, and the Police leaped out of the way. All of a sudden, the Cloud turned a dark, violent red. The apparent owner of the ice cream shop frowned, stumbling a little. One or two people around Carlos crumpled to the ground, their eyes rolling back into their heads while they held their hands over their ears or curled into the fetal position. Carlos began to feel woozy. His head spun and his knees felt weak and his vision began to blur. Cecil's voice seemed to become deeper and slower and more menacing as the people all around him dropped to the ground, dead or unconscious he couldn't tell.

"It does not feel as we tiny humans feel. It has no need for thoughts or feelings of love. The Glow Cloud simply is. All hail the mighty Glow Cloud. Alllll hailllll..."

Carlos stumbled, everything going black.

***
"Sorry, listeners. Not sure what happened in that earlier section of the broadcast." Cecil's voice. Back to normal. And nothing else. Carlos opened his eyes, swaying as he realized he was still standing up. Only a few other people were standing; one or two were rising to their feet. Most people were laying among the dead animals, still unconscious. The Glow Cloud was just bright blue and green speck in the distance, and it was nearing twilight. The odd smell of vanilla was just barely masking the stench of animal bodies rotting from exposure to desert sun. Stepping over a pink version of Khosheck, he walked into the White Sand Ice Cream Shop and over to the radio. "I actually don't remember what happened." Cecil's voice seemed friendlier and less distantly professional than usual as Carlos sat down, interested. "I tried to play back the tapes, but they're all blank, and smell faintly of... vanilla."

The tapes were blank? How was that possible?

"The Glow Cloud, meanwhile, has moved on. It is now just a glowing spot in the distance. Humming east to destinations unknown."

The woman in the white apron joined him by the radio, rubbing her temples and looking anxious and confused.
"We may never fully understand, or understand at all what is was or why it dumped a bunch of dead animals on our community."

Other people were waking up too. Without any exceptions, they all neared the radio, or flipped on their own personal radios and sat down.

"But- and I'm going to get a little personal here- that's the essence of life, isn't it? Sometimes you go through things that seem huge at the time, like a mysterious glowing cloud devouring your entire community, while they're happening, they feel like the only thing that matters and you can hardly imagine that there's a world out there that might have anything else going on. And then the Glow Cloud moves on. And you move on. And the event is behind you. And you may find, as time passes, that you remember less and less, or maybe not at all, in my case. And you are left with nothing but a powerful wonder at the fleeting nature of even the most important things in life, and the faint, but pretty, smell of vanilla." Carlos sighed. Things didn't make any sense. He was tired. Before he slipped out, he glanced back in the shop at about ten people clustered around the radio, brought together by Cecil's broadcast.

People did listen to Cecil, then. If he could only get the broadcaster to relay accurate information about science, then he might actually be able to get something done.

Getting back to the lab, he was pretty surprised to see everyone milling about as usual. Fredrick was writing percentages across the blackboard, Bethany was dissecting a dead lizard, Delaney was organizing boxes, and Travis was holding a twisted, charred piece of metal and yelling at a smirking Neal. Setting a box down, Delaney strolled over to him.

"What did you think?"

Carlos ran a hand through his hair as he glanced down. His lab coat was splattered with blood from the dead animals, and his hands were shaking slightly.

"Kind of weird that people just started collapsing in the streets. If the Glow Cloud was sentient, I guess it might have sent out some sort of telepathic wave..."

She raised her eyebrows, looking confused. "What? We came in when rodents and lizards started falling from the sky, and heard that Cecil guy go nuts on the radio. People were collapsing? Is everyone okay?"

Travis had apparently overheard the exchange, as he dropped the piece of metal on a table and rushed over to them. "What did you just say?"

Carlos blinked. "Kind of weird that people just started collapsing in the streets. If the Glow Cloud was sentient, it mi-"

Travis stamped his foot. "How the hell could a cloud be sentient? You're a scientist, use your head for once!"

Carlos felt irritation surge inside of him. "How could a cloud be sentient? How could this town exist? We've only been here two weeks and I've seen angels, floating hooded figures, previously unknown species of animals, cats that float in midair, people with extra body parts living perfectly normal lives, people who don't believe in mountains, and almost every law of physics broken besides. Why shouldn't a Glow Cloud be sentient and be able to send out telepathy waves?"

He glared at his team leader, and the rest of the scientists half-watched them awkwardly. Finally, after several tense seconds, Travis threw his hands up in the air. "You know what, think whatever you want to think. I don't care."

He obviously did care, however, as he stormed to the other side of the laboratory and began setting up a series of scientific equipment with unnecessary force. Carlos watched him for a moment, his arms crossed, and the rest of the team slowly began doing their stuff again.

"Hey Carlos," Bethany piped up cautiously. "Come look at this." She was looking into a small machine which sat next to a foul-smelling cup over a Bunsen burner. "I extracted some DNA from the specimen." She nodded towards the lizard stretched out on the tray. "In every respect, it looks like a Gila Monster. A perfect specimen, probably died from suffocation. Anyway, I put the DNA sample under the scanner to check if it is correct. And, well, the scanner doesn't recognize it. The lizard isn't made of lizard DNA. It's not made of any kind of recognizable DNA, and from what I can tell, the DNA is a weird pinkish gold, just like the Cloud. It's almost like it was part of the Cloud. Is that... possible?"

Carlos sighed quietly. The first week he had been here, he had wanted to run through the town screaming questions and demanding answers. He no longer really felt like that. Yes, he wanted answers. Desperately. But he was starting to wonder if he would never get them. Shrugging at his coworker, he shot her a small half-smile. "You never know, do you? You never know."

A/N- Sorry about the wait. Technical difficulties and school and all that. If I were Joseph Fink, I would be working Kevin back into the plot of the podcast instead of writing fanfiction. Reviews are appreciated, and have a good day