I stepped into a forest glade, its dark canopy lit by fireflies that hung lazily in the trees, golden leaves reflecting their iridescent light. A small bird flit into the clearing, dancing from light to light.
After a moment of watching its flight, I realized that the bird was eating the bugs and putting out the light. The glade was in near full-darkness. I shouted and waved my arms at the bird, shooing it away. My movement startled the bugs and the bird. They all took flight, leaving me alone in the dark.
"Not alone," said a voice behind me.
I turned and saw nothing, but it was too dark to see. "Who's there?" I asked the darkness.
"Why, I am me," the voice said, echoing. It sounded deeper than the darkness, but somehow hollow, too.
I felt a stir in the air. The leaves quietly rustled all around me, shifting in the sudden wind. The rustling grew louder until it was nearly roaring. The trees shook. I cowered. A thousand fireflies burst through the trees at once, shiny butts glowing. The glade was soaked in light.
In the center of the glade stood a tall man in a green tuxedo. Dad? But when the man turned, he did not have my father's face. He had no man's face. An oozing grey pile of skin with one deep black hole and two bright red circles sat where the face should have been. A Greyman's face. My Greyman's face. It was still strange to remember that.
"You're my Greyman," I said.
"I am? Oh, thank goodness. Then you must know. Be a good girl and tell me, what is my name?" In the light of the glade, the Greyman's echoing voice and bizarre face seemed almost more whimsical than terrifying. Almost.
"I don't know your name."
"Well, what is your name?"
"Rain."
"And I am yours?"
"Yes."
"Then you must tell me my name."
"What name would you like?"
"Hm." The Greyman paced the glade, his liquid legs flapping about strangely in the confines of his tuxedo pants. "Something sporting. How about Greyman?"
"That might be confusing."
"Why?"
"Well, if I say Greyman, how will you know if I'm talking about you or some other Greyman?"
"Right, well. I shouldn't be naming myself anyways. All due respect, but that really seems like something you should be doing."
"How about something like... Joe?"
"I suppose you'll have to have a think on it some more."
"Oh, yes, sir."
"Sir?" my Greyman's hollow tunnel of a mouth curved up at the ends, forming the misshapen entrance to a cave that somewhat resembled a smile. "A good name; direct, concise, and it's certainly appropriate. Right. You will call me Sir."
"Sir?"
"Yes. Sir."
I waved a small salute. "Yes, Sir. Sir it is."
Sir nodded, his loose skin wobbling as he moved. "Rain," he said, mimicking my salute.
I smiled at the strange creature. Despite his appearance, despite our shared and brutal histories, I couldn't help but be charmed by his garrulous demeanor. I had certainly never met anyone quite like Sir before.
He led me through the forest, apparently his home. Throughout his lifetime, he explained as we walked, he had tended to the trees and flowers, the rocks and the ponds. With the infinite time of a Greyman, he explored the hills and valleys of the dream world, the lakes and rivers. And with every new venture, came a new breed of flora or fauna. He had softened what had once been a harsh pine and maple grove into a delicate eden, rich with life where our fireflies and birds would soon have many happy friends.
"I will shape this into a river soon," he explained, gesturing to a sparkling stream that came from and led to nowhere.
I stared into the water as it leapt between and over itself, roiled by rocks and roots that crept into the baby riverbed.
"Sir? Do you remember when we first met? When we ... bonded?"
He shrugged his shoulders, a subtle wave of muscle and skin made intimidating by his bizarre form.
"You were... my mother."
"Annabelle."
"Yes."
"Yes, I know all about her." He tapped his temple. "I know everything that you know."
"So you do remember. The vision. When you showed me how the Masters took over your people, the Greymen."
"With my eyes?"
I nodded, excited. "What else can you tell me about the Masters?"
He shrugged again.
"Where did the vision come from?"
"I don't know. I only know what you know." He tapped his temple again. "That's how this works. You should know what I knew, though. Don't you?"
"What?" I blinked hard, shaking my head. "I should know--? How? What does that even mean?"
"You are my master. What was mine is yours."
"Including your memories?"
"Yes."
I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to grasp at Sir's memories, but nothing happened. "Is there a trick to it?"
"If you don't know--"
"Yeah, yeah. You only know what I know. So you can tell me that I should know what you know, but you can't tell me why I don't?" I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Some help you are."
He frowned, a strange pout on his hollow cave-like mouth. "I am still of great assistance. Together, we have power and I am happy to share with you. Imagine anything and we will do it. Shape shifting, flying, sensing, manipulating, super strength, super speed, super anything-you-can-dream, I will give you the ability to do."
I smiled at my Greyman, slightly reassured by his promise of great power. But only slightly.
The Masters were a species with technologies so far beyond our own that fighting them would be hopeless at best. From the very little information that Dr. Farrah had been able to gather about them, we knew that they had made and sent an entire dummy planet to our distant solar system, then dispatched their disposable destroyers across galaxies to wipe us out. Sure, our brains were special and we didn't all die in the dream world. Now most of us couldn't die in the dream world. Good for us. That didn't mean the Masters would have any trouble killing us in the real world. I tried not to imagine the kind of advanced nuclear rocketry and hideous mental manipulations they would send our way once they learned their first strike had failed.
Of course, there were weapons on our planet, left behind by our parents and grandparents, but hardly anyone knew how to use them anymore. Those who did had deactivated or disassembled most of them a long time ago, and the rest had been hoarded or sold or used up by raiders and traders. It would be nearly impossible to gather a weapons cache suitable to defend ourselves. What we had on our planet, let alone what we had in our city, would be no challenge against what loomed beyond.
I opened my eyes to find myself in Dr. Farrah's office, curled up in bed between Kayle and Billy. The doctor stood over us, empty glass in hand. As I stirred, I felt the dampness of the water she had dumped over our faces.
"Was that necessary?" I asked as I sat up.
"Maybe not, but you'll be late for the festival if you don't leave now. We don't have time to wait for you to ask for ten more minutes and stretch and yawn." The doctor's eyes passed over Billy as she spoke. "Get up. It's time to go."
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