Greg had just found out that his favourite hunter, who he often watched online was in fact a Plant.

No, not the type of plant with leaves and a stem, but the type of plant that was put there with ulterior motives.

Specifically, His favourite hunter, Cal who was famed for his incredible fire-breathing abilities, turned out to be an agent of the Wyrm races who were from a nearby realm.

The Wyrm are a type of long slender lizard, not unlike a dragon. But where dragons have legs and horns, Wyrms have a body more akin to a snake, without any legs or horns.

After the Fall, when the various realms and worlds combined, a few brave humans ventured out to the edge of what could still be called earth.

What they found, in this alien territory were numerous strange and unfamiliar species of plants and animals. Giant structures, created seemingly without humans in mind.

These buildings had no stairs or doorway, only giant platforms like helicopter landing pads at the top.

It was in these buildings that humans first met the Wyrm race.

Luckily, due to a force known only as the system, all creatures with intelligence were granted the ability to understand and read all the different languages of the universe.

This left everyone who had ever studied a language at any level extremely frustrated because they wasted their time.

It also made communication between alien races much more convenient.

Humans learned that Wyrms had a natural ability to manipulate ether and that instead of eating meat or plants, they ate precious minerals and coal, allowing them to breathe fire.

Wyrms learned that Earth had an abundance of said minerals and coal.

Then, before any stupid decisions that could not be taken back were made. A clever human decided that they should fireworks display to welcome the Wyrms to Earth.

That, if the rumours are to be believed is how earth lost the island nation of Hawaii.

After some particularly clever humans decided that instead of normal fireworks, they should atomic bombs to welcome their new neighbours.

Not long after this event, word spread around the nearby realms, that bunch of monkeys with enough firepower to delete everything within 10000 miles had become their new neighbours.

To put a long story short, the Wyrm people were not satisfied with dropping their pursuit of Earth’s natural resources altogether and they came up with various other tactics after researching the recent history of humanity.

One of these tactics that worked best was pro Wyrm propaganda and subtle brainwashing, this was, unfortunately, being delivered by Greg’s favourite hunter, Cal.

Since he was in a poor mood, he didn’t have much heart to sell weapons today. Or do anything really.

He didn’t look both ways when he crossed the road, in fact, he didn’t even look a single way, choosing to saunter across at his own pace.

Not that it mattered whether or not a car was coming, they would drive straight through him as they always did.

The long walk around the park to work seemed to get longer every single time he did it.

‘Am I getting unfit?’ Greg wondered glumly.

He looked up and saw a small raincloud following him like a Black sheep in the sky.

He stepped to the side, out from beneath the raincloud.

The little black cloud followed him.

“Huh?” He remarked casually, having seen a lot of strange things lately, Greg was no longer prone to outbursts.

Even if he were to wake up tomorrow morning with an extra hand, the most he could muster would be a raised eyebrow and a confused look on his face.

One thing Greg hated was getting his hair wet, especially, if he was about to work a long, boring shift.

It never looked good wet, he didn’t look like one of those shampoo models, instead resembling a drowned rat.

He sped up his pace, deciding he would simply outrun the raincloud.

But ever faithfully, the raincloud followed him, like a little black sheep trailing doggedly after its shepherd.

“Damn it! It’s catching up,” Greg cursed. “ I guess I’ll have to take drastic measures,” he said grimly.

Greg darted between pedestrians on the pavement and bolted straight towards a sheltered bus stop, the cloud hot on his tail.

Or cold on his tail, since the rain was making his feet and the back of his legs wet.

He ducked under the bus shelter and whipped his head around, glaring at the cloud that had come to stop just above the bus shelter.

Not that it had a face, but from where Greg was standing, the little cloud almost looked disappointed.

And yet, this confirmed his suspicions.

Because the cloud had stopped raining.

Greg poked one foot outside the bus shelter and the cloud burst into a downpour, drenching his shoe.

He pulled the foot back, and the rain stopped again.

This gave him some food for thought and so he sat down at the bus stop beside an old woman who looked like she had just seen a ghost.

Greg turned to, as though her shock was a mere afterthought and shrugged helplessly, “Terrible weather we’ve been having today,” He said candidly.

The old woman frowned, looking just past the sky directly above the bus stop where the cloud was waiting in ambush on a beautiful summer day.

Then she looked back at Greg, who had lost interest in the conversation and was busy staring begrudgingly at the cloud.

After her initial shock, the old woman was deeply curious. What was going with this weird young man? She wondered.

“Does this happen often?” She asked curiously.

Greg turned to her, half surprised she hadn’t run off and gave a half-hearted smile. “It’s my first time being haunted by a cloud. I’m Greg by the way,”

The old woman smiled, revealing dimples that were usually hidden beneath many layers of wrinkles. “My name’s Mary, it’s lovely to meet you,” she said kindly.

“Hold on a second, I might be able to help you out,” Mary said, digging through the seemingly bottomless handbag that all old women have.

Ignoring the sweets that were still there from when her grandchildren were young and the many packets of tissues that she always kept, ‘Just in case,’ Mary fished out a white umbrella with red polka dots decorating it.

She passed the umbrella to Greg, who accepted it, although seemed more than a little confused.

He held up the umbrella in his hand, staring at it thoughtfully before turning back to look at the smiling old woman who had handed it to him.

It had been a while since someone had shown him such a genuine act of kindness and he felt warmth spread from his chest to his damp extremities.

“Thank you,” He said sincerely.

Mary laughed, a rasping sound that soon turned into a hacking cough. When the wheezing finally ended, she got up from the bus stop seat and cleared her throat.

“Don’t worry about it Greg, you need it more than I do,” she said peacefully.

Greg frowned, “No, I’m not going to keep it! I need to give it back to you,”

Mary gave a wry smile, holding out her hand to stop the bus that was coming. “Give it back to me next time you see me,” she said, stepping onto the bus that had stopped.

After Mary left, Greg, whose mood had improved slightly, looked up and saw that the cloud was no longer black and stormy but grey and ominous. An obvious improvement on what it had previously been.

He wondered what could have changed but didn’t have time to think about it. Putting up the umbrella, he pointed it towards the cloud and began a mad dash to work.

Greg arrived 5 minutes before the shop opened.

Just in time to see Paul, who was balancing, or to be more precise, clinging on for dear life at the top of a rickety ladder Simon was holding for him.

The pair were shouting at each other outside the shop. Paul in particular was gesturing wildly with a hammer in one hand.

“What’s going on?” Greg shouted as walked up to them.

“This weakling can’t hold the damn ladder steady!” Paul cursed.

“Yeah well maybe if there wasn’t a whale at the top of it, the ladder would be easier to hold!” Simon, a skinny teenager who had just started working at the store shouted back.

Greg winced and looked up to see Paul had gone scarily quiet.

He laughed awkwardly before quickly trying to change the subject. “What are you doing on top of the ladder?” He asked quickly.

“Hanging up the new shop sign,” Paul said in a scarily even tone.

“Oh, Paul, you aren’t thinking of jumping off that ladder, are you?” Greg asked, nervous at the almost serene look on Paul’s sweaty face.

“No…” Paul said, his voice trailing off unconvincingly.

“Good, because you wouldn’t even die at a height like that,” Greg replied.

Strangely enough, this seemed to talk Paul down, who after a few moments, hammered the final nail into the new sign.