For the second time in thirty years, the entire world has fallen asleep...
Thirty years after the Greymen caused the decimation of her people, high school drop out Rain Collins spends her days learning to pickpocket and hold her booze. Yet she long...
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Despite the forty floors of empty rooms contained within Dr. Farrah's enormous tower, most equipped with hospital beds, Billy led me to a room empty of furniture, unless a single cardboard box counts as a piece of a furniture. Inside the cardboard box, Billy revealed, were several mismatched quilts. Together, we lined the stark floors with blankets until half the room was piled high enough to be called comfortable by someone who wasn't expected to sleep there.
After we made my bed for the night, Billy led me to a water closet, which was a literal closet with a tap near the floor and a drain in the floor.
"You can pee in here," he said, "but try to wait till morning if you have to do something more... substantial. You can use the usual bathrooms without Mom thinking much of it then."
"Do you think she'd be mad if she found out you're letting me stay here?"
"Probably not at you." He handed me a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste. I laughed. "What?"
I gestured at the water closet. "This is the bathroom. My mattress is a pile of blankets. But you give me a brand new toothbrush and a full tube of toothpaste?"
He shrugged. "Dental hygiene is not just some remnant of a bygone era. We have to preserve the past, Rain," he said with a wink. "Plus, they fit in my pocket."
Giggling, I shooed him from the water closet.
Cramped and dank, the space did not make a great bathroom. I patted the wall, feeling for a lightswitch, but found only rough cement. I reached up, hoping for a light bulb hanging from above and felt empty air. Sighing, I cracked the door open to let in a sliver of light from the hallway. I peeked out, making sure Billy was not around, then turned the tap. Water shot out in a vicious spray, stabbing at the drain below. As I undid my pants, I regretted my several nightcaps at the Dragon and hoped my bladder would relieve itself now instead of waking me up in the middle of the night and forcing me to endure this experience again.
All empty bladdered and clean mouthed, I returned to what was now my bedroom, settled into the nest. Wrapping a corner of a quilt around my shoulder, I tried unsuccessfully to pretend the pile of blankets was a bed.
Instead of the dream world, a vision materialized around me, tinted with the same haze of distortion as the night before. Across a long bridge that stretched out in front of me, a city, far larger than mine could have even been before the First Sleep. Each building dwarfed Dr. Farrah's tower, and their architectural elements put her stonework to shame. A city that large must have once held millions, and probably still held more than ten times my own city's population.
The bridge collapsed.
Until its supports crumbled, I hadn't noticed the hundreds of pedestrians crossing it. They shrieked as they fell to the water below, then splashed feebly as the icy water froze their limbs. Blue faced bodies bobbed in the river, carried away by the swift spring current.
A bright light engulfed the city, followed a second later by a resounding blast. Soft arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me to the ground. I landed on Sir's chest, which cushioned my fall well enough, like a pile of wet towels.
"It's ok," I said, pushing my Greyman away and turning to watch the destruction of the enormous city.
He frowned at a collapsing skyscraper. "Seems dangerous."
"I don't think so. This isn't a dream, Sir. It's all real. I mean, it's projection of reality. Anyways, it can't hurt us. Don't you see? It's the Masters. They're here--the harbor, this city--and they're attacking us. They want to show us what they can do before they do it to us."
Sir's response was drowned out by several closer blasts. A convoy of tanks rolled by us, groaning across the dirt and pavement, long arms wafting trails of smoke from their recently fired shots. Behind the tanks, rows of vehicles rumbled, more moving cars and trucks than I'd ever imagined. Huge, crate-like trucks packed with soldiers were followed by dark, armored boxes that shook on their four wheels from their engines' power. Mixed among these uniform vehicles puttered vehicles clearly made for cargo or recreation, modified with mounted weaponry and crammed with fighters.
The tanks fired again, followed by a rick-a-tick-ticking machine gun. The response came from the sky, flashing white again. When the blast followed, the earth shook. My vision cleared. Shrapnel flew in all directions, a never ending stream of wreckage; the rows of vehicles were being ripped apart in a chain of explosions.
When the explosions stopped, the vehicles were gone. In their place sat burning hunks of metal. I heard no screams, saw no survivors.
Then I saw. At first, just a shadow in the dust, but in an instant, the shadow was solid. A Master stood in the wreckage, admiring its handiwork. Desperately, I tried to note the length of its limbs, the shape of its body, the pieces that made it, but everything I saw slipped from my memory as it registered. I could not grasp its form.
"See you soon," the Master said, the sound of its voice fading in my mind even as it spoke.
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