A small introduction

It was well past noon-around 1600, to give a time- when the Hall's bell tolled, once, twice, three times, before falling silent once more. 

Robert Dinero couldn't recall a time that it had rang such, not even when he was a child. Looking out, he squinted and saw a crowd flooding the roads, swift and cautious. The cautious part, Robert understood. For years, long before he himself was born, the small city had been under the tyrannical rule of a shady figure whose identity remained a mystery. Said tyrant had also assumed control of the neighboring cities, and perhaps the entire continent, if the rumors were to be believed. 

Words, soft and quick, were passed on the streets below. Robert overheard some, such as "hide," and "come." The words turned into phrases, and Robert decided he didn't like the phrases much. 

"Are you stupid? We've got to go!"

Robert drew his gaze from the scene below to face Reanna, his dearest friend, and the closest thing he had to a sister. 

"Why? What's going on?" 

Reanna rolled her eyes. "They're coming, obviously." 

Robert stared at her blankly. 

"You know, them. The head honchos. The people that own us." 

Robert continued to stare, slack jawed. "We're witnessing history." 

"No shit, but we need to go. All citizens must attend." 

Attend what? Was on the tip of his tongue, but he held it back, albeit reluctantly. 

Reanna tugged on Robert's sleeve, urging him to follow her down the stairs and out onto the streets. 

During Robert's eighteen years of life-he assumed he was around eighteen, but never really counted- he had seen several of them. No one knew exactly what they were, but they obviously weren't human. They were too slender, too angular, too perfect to be human. And what Robert had witnessed of them, they knew it, and acted superior to humans. 

Robert knew that any given person in the city longed to wring their slender, unblemished throats. He knew that he was big enough, strong enough, to break them in half without much of a fight, but fear held him back. Fear held them all back. Fear as to what they would do in retaliation. 

Reaching the square, Robert was swept up in the many anxious conversations being held amongst the people. It appeared that no one quite knew what was going on, and Robert had half a mind to ask Reanna how she knew. 

The words were on the tip of his tongue when everyone fell silent, and Robert knew, before he even turned around, that they had arrived. 

Unlike the ancient leaders and old monarchs, they didn't arrive in a show of power. That was the most eerie thing about them, Robert decided. They simply didn't act like one would expect them to, especially considering their attitude and momentous disdain for humans. 

Robert took the silence to observe his captors, and was notably unimpressed. They were all similar in height and build, with the tallest being several inches shorter than Robert himself, and Robert suspected that the majority of them were wearing heels. 

Robert might have been more impressed if they were a bit more imposing, didn't look like the faintest wind would topple them over, and weren't dressed like gaudy peacocks.

They stared out at the gathered crowd, faces unreadable. They might as well have been wearing death masks, for the amount of emotion displayed on their faces.

When it was growing apparent that the crowd was a heartbeat away from straight up leaving, the tallest of the creatures stepped forwards, body tense and jaw clenched.

"We are...quite surprised at your compliance thus far." The creature spoke slowly, deliberately, as if they were half afraid of mispronouncing the words that must have been foreign to them, if the slightly slurred speech was any indicator.

Robert snorted quietly.

"As you are hopefully aware by now, we have assumed the roles of your leaders and appreciate your willing surrender."

The crowd began to murmur again, and Robert saw Filho, his short tempered neighbour step forward.

Holding a hand up for silence, the creature continued. "This will come as a shock, but as of right now, we have decided to... step down. There is much we can learn from you-you humans are quite interesting, after all- but we fear that you would be less... interesting around your superiors. Some of my companions-" the creature shot a glare behind them at the other brightly dressed entities-"have treated you with less than your due respect. Hopefully we will amend this in the future..." They trailed off, leaving the last statement sound more like a question.

The crowd surged forward, out of frustration or to simply grab at those formerly untouchable figures, Robert did not know.

The creatures did not look alarmed whatsoever, and, with a wave of the speaker's hand, they disappeared into thin air, leaving nothing behind but the faint smell of rubber and the promise of freedom.