Knights of the Grey City

Chapter 1 - CALL

Under a thousand tons of ink-black water, I could breathe.

The cool of it pressed down on me, but I wasn't cold. The faintest traces of light drifted down and revealed a blurry waterscape of black stones, wave-smoothed bricks, and broken statues.

I was the only thing living, but the loneliness was comforting. It was like someone hit the mute button on a million screaming background noises, which I had slowly grown used to and stopped noticing before this moment. Now, it was finally quiet.

I moved forward effortlessly, gliding across the seafloor. I was travelling through ruins, though the imagery was strange and disjointed. Classical Greek statues, robed and elegant, lay beside more modern brass sculptures of war heroes. Empty frames rested in the rubble, shredded canvases rippling in the currents. There was a stronger shaft of light ahead and I swam toward it with vague interest.

I stopped.

A creature was caught in the light. It seemed nearly to be made of darkness itself, its body absorbing the light around it with no reflection or discernable colour tone. It was reptilian, with a long alligator's jaw, arched neck and long pointed tail, wreathed with spiny fins.

It looked at me through white, blank eyes, impossible to read, but I somehow knew I was looking at something intelligent. It paddled through the water with long limbs, webbed claws catching the current. Swimming toward me.

It is nearly time, said a voice, everywhere and nowhere. I flinched back. Awake, Second.

And I popped awake, lying in my bed at three in the morning with my blankets bunched and knotted around me.

I sat up, heart pounding. It had been the clearest dream yet-I swore I could still feel the dragon's white eyes staring at me from the shadows. But obviously, that was crazy; my room looked the same as it always did.

I clicked on my desk light and reached for the ratty journal where I'd been recording the dreams. It was getting fuller now, though with each dream I seemed to have less to say. I flipped to a new page and hesitated with the pen hovering.

The dream was still clear as day in my mind, shocked into my memory by the strange creature. I put down the notebook and the pen. I had a feeling I'd remember this one without writing it down.

I straightened out my blankets, turned the light back off, and tried to go back to sleep.

* * *

My life was an exhausting rhythm of work, sleep, and more work. It's the kind of thing you learn to accept, especially living in a place like Toronto. Nothing against my city-it's really not such a bad place. I like the busyness, the subway and streetcars that get you anywhere, and I love living near the waterfront. But the city's expensive as hell, and I was beyond lucky that my cousin Eli had even been offered this apartment. Even luckier that he'd thought rooming with his deadbeat cousin from Ottawa wouldn't be a terrible idea, and that it had worked out for us so far.

I had work that morning. That meant I turned off my six AM alarm with a groan and staggered into the bathroom, feeling like the living dead. I scowled at myself in the mirror-waking up in the middle of the night had given me dark bags under my eyes, or maybe those were just permanent now. Combined with my prickly-short hair and the stubble that barely hid the little white scars on my jawline, I looked just a touch too murderous for my liking.

I shaved, showered, got into my work clothes, and made it to the kitchen running late. Eli had left for his job already-poor bastard had to be in by quarter to six-but he had thoughtfully left half a pot of frigid coffee in the coffee maker.

I scowled and poured a cup, glugging it back without bothering to heat it up, then set off into the cold December morning.

It was a work day like any other at the plant, but something didn't seem quite right. I went through the motions, stacking cardboard and cleaning equipment and doing whatever other odd jobs the supervisors thought needed doing. The whole time, there was a strange prickling on the back of my neck-I felt like I was being watched.