Once in a reality either too far or too close approaching,

                the world had endless nights.

                The world was always covered in pitch black darkness, and people never knew what a sun is, let alone see it; it's only the stars and the moon that they know and see, for these are the only things that show up in the ever-night sky, always had and will be.

                But despite the sky being lit up by the stars and the moon, the rest of the world would be left to live in almost complete darkness

                if not for the flowers, which lit up all of the world's places.

                Flowers used to bloom. They bloomed to great extents; with great yellow fragrance both in color and in their light, they shine.

                They shine and they do, thanks to all the songs the kids sing to them all night and all night, almost without pause. All that had to be done to keep them lighting up, shining and glowing was for the kids to sing, which they happily do, even dancing around bunches and fields of flowers as they did.

                A real day-like event, just like what it would be

                for a world where the sun, inadvertently, existed.

                This was what kept the whole place bright despite the night, and even brighter than just with the lights, as they danced as if in flight. The songs came from them in effortless melodic tunes, making the flowers light, the kids blessing themselves, dancing with happiness, in the illumine environment given by the flowers, whom they sing and sing for all the time as they did, no matter the hour, or the darkness that always lingered in the sky. This constantly made the world a globe of ever-burning yellow, radiating and glowing like an ambient and calm sun, for days, months, and years to come. The flowers looked like groups of little suns, and the people of the world would know, if only a sun existed.

                But without the sun was already more than enough, as they were always happy; they had all the shining flowers to light up the night.

                But, a reminder: in this world, there was no day. There's just night.

                It would be dark, if not for all the lights that fought the enveloping shadow: the stars, the moon, and most especially,

                the yellow flowers.

                Then one night – well, again, it was always just night – the flowers, without a warning, suddenly stopped shining.

                The night was dark, and in able to do things both essential and miscellaneous in an infinitely black night,

                the people, specifically the elders, needed the light.

                But...

                The world ran out of flower light, for, as it turns out, the children had forgotten to sing for the flowers, or just forgotten how to sing at all.

                They forgot to sing for a while that, before they knew it, they had forgotten the basics of how to sing. And had deprived their precious flowers of the ability to shine.

                The elders were angry. They were blaming whoever's child for the blackness that enveloped them, and vented about every problem there was with only light from the sky and not from the ground.

                "There is light," they repeatedly said, "but it is not enough light."

                So they forced and told children to sing, and the words and tones that came out of their mouths were... dull. Out of tune. As they sung, though, the flowers were glowing a bit with every pint of tone they were able to vocalize. This jollied the elders. They smiled, and there was hope in their eyes.

                But these kids, they were all becoming tone deaf. They kept singing, forcing themselves to remember how to, until one night – another night from before – all they were singing were declarative sentences.

                There was no tone.

                It was nothing like singing. Not one bit of music came anymore of their mouths, and all they could do now

                was speak. Only speak.

                Forcing the tone out of their bare throats only made it sound more deafening.

                And it angered the elderly even more.

                They beat the kids up. They tortured them and clamped their noses crushed, and they won't stop until they are able to sing.

                Or learn to sing again on their own.

                Some children, who were forced by the impatient elders, were finally thrown to fires of wooden sticks and twigs, which burned them instantly, as nothing good a singing came out of them until the elders' last of their attempts and methods. Some elders that were more patient stuck knives into the hands of kids, which happily helped, somehow bringing glimmers to a few flowers' petals, but did not constantly light them up like it should. The kids were singing, but their voices, already out of tune, shook, as they cried of sadness and pain, their hands a pitiful slabs of knife stabs.

                Some were patient. Really so. That all they did was talk to the kids, teach them what they remember about singing, let them try again when they make mistakes, and motivate them with a pat on their backs, both with hints of success and failures. Their kids were happier than the other elders' children – those that were still alive, at least. They bested other elders so far.

                But they, too, lost their patience.

                They finally brought sticks and whips and metal tubes, and hit the kids' bums until they bled, and yelled rude and bad words at them, calling them names as they did. And the impatient elders, probably somewhere with the other kids, continued with their ways as they did, torturing and killing kids when they couldn't bring themselves to sing.

                "Sing, child."

                They say to every child.

                And every child, knowing tortures and deaths in horrible manners are what awaits them, sings, but does nothing else than that but cry.

                At this point, the elders were growing darker and darker in color, their faces and details little by little fading with the waning of their colors and the deepening of the black.

                They were growing darker by the ticking of the night's seconds, becoming its color, all while the kids' tears fell from eyes so weary, as they screamed in pain and in terror and in guilt.

                Guilt that wasn't for them to bear. For what happened was not them losing the ability to sing, but their voices undergoing change.

                The kids' voices were growing deeper in tone. Or, more identifying, whole. They were going through something called a puberty, and it was, in fact, a natural phenomenon. They didn't know it was, and didn't know what it was.

                The blackness would cloud with the absence of the flowers' lights, but it will eventually fade, as the songs would be regained by the kids themselves.

                All along, they just needed time.

                Their singing voices came back, and it was different from the voices they used to sing in, but in some obvious but unidentifiable a way, better.

                Then one by one, the kids that were still alive, still held by the hands of their elderly torturers, sang.

                It began with one kid, then another kid singing, then another and another, until every other kid in the place were singing in their newfound voices and ballistic melodies. And with confidence they once lost. And their eyes that shook with pain.

                The elders were, at first, shocked, happy, almost celebrating. It was in their eyes. But as soon as the kids reached their highest harmonies, they felt the guilt,

                sadness,

                regret,

                and despise for themselves with what they had done.

                This, too, was in their eyes.

                But as the flowers shined their fullest blooms, following their singers' ascending melodies, the now dark, dark colored elders were being overthrown to nothing. The stronger-than-ever lights had waded them off, reducing their shadow figures in the flowers' splendid bright, little by little until they were none.

                They disappear.

                And all that was left of the world were the kids. And the flowers.

                And the kids sang.

                These kids grew older, and still, they sang for the flowers. They sang, they sang, and the world grew brighter, with the increase in the radiance of the flowers, caused by ascensions in tones and variations of the kids' singing voices. But as they grew to being adults, they were occupied by tasks, both essential and miscellaneous. Mostly by work. There were only a few of them singing by now because of this, but thankfully,

                kids started appearing again.

                Just like them when they were all younger. Happy, smiling, as they sang and made the world go bright. Someone had now been singing in their places, and they had no more worries for light and now just worked.

                And suddenly, they too, those kids, lost their ability to sing. It was at this night – well, it was always night – that the flowers, without a warning, suddenly stopped shining.

                The adults were angry.

                'Cause the kids stopped singing.