Chapter 13: Chapter 13 – AWAKE

I swam, the frigid water closing all around me without making me feel cold. I could feel the stinging sensation of it, but not the pain; my muscles didn’t seize and it was not difficult to hold my breath.

I probably should only have been able to swim down a few feet, but I found myself gaining strength the further I dove, swimming becoming easier and easier. I came to understand something the closer I came to where I had thought the bell-tone was.

The bell-tone wasn’t really here with me in the water. It could have been anywhere; it could have effortlessly appeared to me whenever it wanted rather than making me seek it. But it was the act of seeking it which had made it available to me. In reaching this area, I had passed a test of sorts. An intense sense of harmony surrounded me, stopping me in my tracks and seeming to hold me in place underwater.

I saw the water dragon, like I had in my dreams, his enormous face right in front of me. His white eyes pierced through me, then began to glow, so bright it was hard to look at, but I was not able to turn away.

The shining white light was suddenly overcome by luminous green, and the voice of the dragon whispered: “Join me, and we can be victorious against your enemies. Take the strength of my claws, my teeth, and destroy them.”

I don’t remember agreeing—only that the image disappeared, but the light continued to shine through me, tearing my whole self apart in ribbons. And then every part of me suddenly burned with energy, alive and well; I felt an agonizing rush of sensation. I was suddenly awake.

Everything was so VIVID. I moved forward through the water and it was effortless. I wasn’t a clumsy primate fighting liquid resistance, just a shadow in the water. Moving forward was as effortless as thought.

Where before I had seen a dark, murky expanse of water, I could peer for miles, gauging the quality of the waters, seeing shifting patches of colours. I spun in an effortless barrel roll; my new shape perfectly used to the water.

It was incredible. Every movement only seemed to take the smallest amount of energy; nothing could challenge or tire me. Along with the vivid intensity of my new senses, there was this overwhelming sensation of CALM.

The stillness of the water was captivating as I continued to swim further. No one else was here but me, and that was as it should be. I was completely, comfortingly alone. But…

Hadn’t there been demons up on the shore above?

I had to go destroy them.

After I had that thought, there are some blank spots in my memory. I remember swimming, I remember climbing to the shore, and that’s about it.

The only thing I remembered clearly was standing on the shore, still deeply calm and deeply aware of everything around me. All fifteen or twenty demons, however many had been lurking there, were gone. I couldn’t remember fighting them off or chasing them away; the information was just irrelevant. They no longer mattered.

The creature that was now me had a mind that I can only describe as spacious. I was so used to always thinking, always paying attention to vague concerns in the back of my mind.

Now it was so different. The vibrant world I sensed around me, so full of information, ran like an undercurrent in my mind, calming me with the notion that the water was still and I was alone. And so long as there was nothing to worry about, I just didn’t. My brain was blank. I stared out at the water, content to sit there for years if need be.

Among the things I did not think of, but simply accepted, was how much my shape had changed. There had been a sudden shift in scale, which should have staggered and confused me: from five foot five inches to looming fifteen feet above the water. My webbed claws, which grasped the edge of the wooden dock, seemed as normal as anything else. Had I cared to consider it, the body I now wore was identical to the creature I had seen in my dreams.

I became aware of another creature making its way toward me, flying over the water. White and shining with long, sharp feathers.

“What the hell are you doing? Where did the demons go?” it demanded of me. I watched it very intently. “There’s ink by the shore… did you kill them all by yourself? Can you… can you hear me?”

The creature flew a small circle above my head, continuing to talk to me, but I did not respond. It lighted down on a building a short distance away, then cautiously hopped to the earth and started to move toward me.

All of that steadiness, that calm awareness, vanished. Anger bubbled up in me like something I’d never known, and I have been angry before. I’ve been hate-angry, desperate-angry, the kind of anger that shuts down everything else and possesses you, turning your blood to fire.

This was an anger that was like that, but purer, more complete. It was less like anger had possessed me, and more like I became anger; the empty, spacious brain turning all its focus into it. The spikes that led down the back of my neck rose and bristled, my claws bit deeply into the wood.

He. Was. In. My. Territory.

I roared at him in ear-shattering bass and struck. Sharp and small, he should have been able to get out of the way, but he was injured and caught by surprise. My claws connected with his midsection and sent him flying back. He tumbled and skidded across the ground before scrambling back upright.

I leapt for him again to land another hit before he recovered, but he dodged, springing into flight over my head. I reared up and snapped my jaws shut on his tail, ripping him from the sky and slamming him back into the earth as I landed. He shrieked, back legs clawing at my jaws.

My teeth still closed around his tail—not managing to pierce it; the feathers he wore were as hard as armour—I shook him once to silence him and then tossed him with all my strength. He sailed out over the buildings in a tangle of limbs, but before he fell he flared his wings and caught himself. He flew further into the sky, rising quickly out of sight. I growled as he left, feeling the ground under my feet vibrate with the sound.

Silence. Steadiness. Wrapped again by calm, I used a claw to rub at the lacerations the intruder had left around my mouth and surveyed my territory again. If the water was still, all was well.  

 I should patrol the area. I soundlessly entered the water and drifted down, down, into the embrace of the wild currents.

 

* * *

What the hell was going on?

I was deep underwater. It would have been pitch black if not for an ambient green glow in front of me, which shifted to wherever I pointed my head. It seemed to emanate from my eyes. My normal thoughts were back, the ones that belonged to Camilo, but I was still in the form of this… creature.

This wasn’t right. I’d… what had I done? I knew it was something bad, but I was having trouble remembering. I looked up and saw only dark water. Wait—how could I tell if I was looking up, or down?

I overcame the brief moment of panic when I realized my spatial sense clearly revealed a shift in water pressure, showing me what direction lead to the surface. I started to swim there, moving through the water like an arrow.

I brushed swift currents that filled my spatial sense with data, even when I didn’t concentrate on them: left-dark-down-cold-blue-lonely said the one I touched with my shoulder. I ignored it and continued swimming up toward the surface.

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I should be freaking out, I should be confused and helpless and… I just couldn’t deny that I wasn’t. Once the initial confusion passed, I felt fine. Good, even: powerful and at ease, like I’d never felt in my ordinary life in my own body.

The spaciousness of the creature’s mind abruptly opened up again and I lost a few minutes. When my conscious self awoke again, I was still rising steadily toward the surface. Pale shafts of light were emanating from above, so still that it was surreal: it looked like I was rising up into the sky rather than the surface of the water.

I felt a twinge of panic when I realized that I didn’t have full control of this creature. Its instincts were all-consuming, and I slipped away into them the moment I let my guard down. I was sure I could turn my brain off and the thing would just continue on autopilot forever.

I don’t think it was supposed to happen like this.

In an instant, it all rushed back. I’d turned on Huang immediately, without hesitation. I felt the long spines on the back of my new form’s head and on the end of its tail shiver, a nervous response to my sudden dread. Huang had already been injured from fighting the spiders, protecting me from the spiders, and I’d just…

I reached the surface. I peeked my head up above the water and saw the water extending out around me. The shore was to my left.

I swam there and lifted myself out of the lake, water sliding off my pitch-black scales. I stared down at the long-fingered claws beneath me, with wicked-sharp tips and thick webs in between.

I raised one of the talons and grasped it a few times. New instincts suggested that these claws were made for two things: swimming quickly by catching the water with splayed claws, and attacking enemies. They were strong: they could lock deeply into flesh and tear it apart, even crush bone.

I physically reeled back, bouncing briefly onto my back legs. I couldn’t comfortably rest on them and fell swiftly back to all fours. I was a creature low to the ground, but much bigger the Gargoyle was. After all, I’d tossed him around like a ragdoll earlier.

The instincts were building up again, starting to drag me back into unconsciousness, but I stubbornly held onto my train of thought. I needed to… see if Huang was okay, and… become human again.

I didn’t even know how long it had been since he’d flown away. Maybe he was back in Toronto, and it was just me in here now. If I wanted to get back into my world, I needed to… get away from this wild, strange, powerful creature that I now inhabited.

But how? Huang made it look so easy. I closed my eyes only to find my eyelids were translucent and only dimmed my surroundings slightly. Weird and unhelpful.

I tried to remember what being human was like. I remembered being very small, very weak, always confused and anxious. That wasn’t right. What else, what else?

I started to pace back and forth as the dragon, my head hanging. I remembered the city, I remembered my life, working in that awful snack food factory day after day and never being given a lick of respect for it. Why had I been content in such a situation?

There had to be other things, good things, or I wouldn’t be able to motivate myself to keep trying, and the creature’s mind would absorb me again. I remembered going to Eli’s parents’ house last week and helping them out—that had felt good. Family was important.

As if to push that thought away, a hundred other ideas came to mind of why family wasn’t that important, why half my relatives hated my guts, tolerated me with forced smiles, and didn’t want me hanging out with their kids. What was the point of all these relationships if they were so fickle? Why not be lonely forever, like the dragon wanted?

Because, I thought desperately, fighting with my own emotions, because, I’m already lonely, even as a human. Those few relationships I have, I have to treasure.

I held on to that thought with every stubborn fibre of my being. Through it, I really started to remember my old life, the life I’d been living for twenty-four years. What it was like to move among the complexities of human existence, and why I wanted to continue that hard life.

I was me again. The spacious brain of the dragon disappeared and I was standing on my two feet, looking out at the water. I collapsed to my knees on the dock, breathing heavily.

I stayed there for a long time, eventually shifting to sit cross-legged. Maybe it was dangerous to stay here, maybe I should be heading for the Sanctuary. I just couldn’t muster the willpower.

“H-hey.”

I recognized Huang’s voice behind me. I didn’t respond, everything I could say just sounding dumb and pointless in my head. Sorry for literally trying to kill you for no reason, I don’t know what came over me?

I heard him move closer. “Are you… yourself right now?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I grunted, looking over at him. Huang the human looked perfectly fine, just very cautious. “Um… Are you okay?”

“Yes,” he answered, sitting down a short distance away. “Are you?”

“Look, I…” I tried to search for words again, but all I could come up with was, “I’m really sorry.”

“What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know.” I crossed my arms tightly. “Its instincts were… overwhelming. It thinks the waterfront is its territory. It thought you were trespassing… It’s kind of foggy. I’m missing bits and pieces.”

“You really couldn’t control the instincts?” he asked quietly. “I never had a problem with—"

“No!” I snapped. “I completely lost it. I wasn’t expecting it to be so intense. The thing’s got a mind of its own; I thought I was going to get lost in it forever.” He was silent. “I said I was sorry. I am. Really.”

“…Okay,” he finally said, “I guess I… I’m also missing bits and pieces from my first transformation, so it could be that that’s just what happens, and I wasn’t aware of it.”

“I don’t want to turn back into it,” I said. “I can’t. I was barely able to turn back into myself.”

“You know we don’t really have a choice.”

“I don’t want to hear it right now.”

He fidgeted. We sat in silence. A few minutes later, we got up and headed back into the streets, and the Grey City sent us back to Toronto.

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