Chapter 3: Chapter 3 – AFTERMATH

I staggered into my apartment, shook the snow off my clothes, and let out a sharp huff of air.

The apartment looked like it always did. I couldn’t help but think I wasn’t really home, but everything… felt the same. White walls, second hand furniture crammed together, scuffed hardwood. The lights were off; Eli was out somewhere.

My back and hands were stinging as feeling came back to them, and I made my way to the bathroom to check the damage. Pulling off my shirt and twisting to look at the mirror, I could already see bruises forming around my right shoulder. The palms of my hands were scraped bloody and I ran them under some water.

The injuries were real. The rest of it already seemed like a fever dream, but the injuries had really happened. I tried to arrange the memories in some way that made sense and soon gave up. All I could think was: Why me?

And Huang… was he really just another person who wandered into the City? Or was he a part of it, only looking and acting human? The shining dragon had saved me twice, but…

Either way, I wanted nothing to do with any of it.

My dark apartment was starting to set me on edge. The sensation crept back that maybe I wasn’t really in the real world, if no one else was here. The dark walls reminded me too much of those empty buildings with blank rooms.

I made my way to the kitchen, where my phone was charging on the table. If I could talk to someone, I could confirm I was really back.

I was surprised to see I’d already received few texts from my younger sister. Apparently there’s a big storm on its way, be careful today! was the first. Followed by, I’ve been on this bus for two hours and counting. This sucks. There were a series of other complaints about how terrible the roads were. And then, You forgot your phone, didn’t you.

The last one had been sent at four PM. I winced and responded: Sorry, just got back. Walked home from work. That barely scratched the surface.

She responded pretty quickly, while I clicked the light on and sat down. You’re an idiot. Why didn’t you take the bus?

Because that worked out so well for you, I replied. The panic died down a little. Slow public transit, Esther complaining, a quiet evening when Eli was out with his friends. It was all very normal.

At least I was warm, Esther texted back. You’re gonna die of hypothermia.

Thx for that image.

I should tell Mom and she’ll drive all the way down to Toronto with your old coat.

Don’t even think about it. The wind was still howling outside, threads of snow and hail clattering against the window. The common living space of our apartment was pretty small; I could easily sit in the kitchen, look across the area we’d elected our “living room”, and see the weather from the window on that wall.

Esther went silent after that, probably getting absorbed in doing her homework or something else equally nerdy. But I picked the phone back up and sent, Random Q for you, Esther. Do you believe in ghosts or aliens?

It was the only way I could think to phrase the question. Not really, Esther responded after a minute.

I frowned. Well, do you have any actual thoughts on it?

Well.. the catholic belief is generally that humans and angels are the only beings God created. Plus evil spirits, I guess.

That last part caught my attention. And evil spirits are NOT ghosts, according to you?

No, not according to the church. Evil spirits are usually thought to be demons, or fallen angels. Priests will say that ‘hauntings’ are the result of demons, not ghosts of dead people.

I wondered if that’s what Huang meant when he’d called those monsters “demons”—a religious entity, a fallen angel? Those things were anything but angelic. A shudder of nausea went through me.

How about aliens? I texted, just to have something to keep the conversation going.

I really don’t care about aliens, Camilo! Her response was accompanied by an alien face emoticon. I’m studying business administration, not UFOs. Why, did you see an alien at work today or something?

No. Just thinking stuff like that might exist.

There was no reply. That was as much as I was likely to get out of her on the subject, so I set down my phone and decided there was only one thing to do: move past the experience and pretend it never happened.

After forcing myself to eat something I had no appetite for, I went straight to bed.

I should have known the dreams would find me again.

This one picked up right where the last one left off. I was deep underwater, floating in darkness, and a white-eyed sea creature was facing me. The creature was huge: its blank eyes were the size of my skull. The thing had to be over forty feet in length from nose to tail.

Maybe in real life I would have been smart enough to book it but, in the dream, I felt calm. The creature didn’t scare me. A feeling of steady wisdom seemed to radiate from it as it floated there, watching me.

It turned and started to swim, stopping a few strokes away to tilt its head back at me. When I moved to follow, it continued, stopping when it drifted too far ahead.

We journeyed further into the ruins, swimming under broken, eroded archways. We eventually came to an area where most of the rubble had been cleared away in a circle, leaving only one item resting at the center.

It was a sword. A heavy-looking, long-handled thing with its blade buried in the white sand. I drifted towards it uncertainly while my dragon friend hung back.

It is yours, said a voice from all directions. I looked back at the dragon, wondering if it was speaking. I couldn’t tell.

As I drew closer to the sword, I realized it was far too big for me to hold. It seemed to have been scaled up from normal size, the hilt too large to close my hand all the way around. I hesitated in front of it, unsure of what to do, then turned around.

The dragon was right in front of me, blocking my entire field of vision, baring rows of sharp white teeth each the length of my forearm. You cannot hide or escape. You cannot plead or reason. You must fight.

I woke up and spent the rest of the night staring at my dark ceiling, listening to the howling wind.

When pale sunlight began to leak through my window, I got up and had a shower. I stared at myself in the mirror afterward, circles darker than ever. My shoulder was stiff and sent periodic throbs of pain through my back, a constant reminder.

After forcing myself through my morning routine, I peered outside the window to look at the aftermath of the storm, clutching a mug of coffee like it was my last grip on reality.

The sight was surreal: everything was frozen. The tree outside had its bare branches coated all around in a layer of clear ice, snow resting on top. The roads looked nasty, a landscape of black ice and snowdrifts.

 I clicked the TV on and learned that the ice storm had done a number on Toronto. There were a multitude of school closures and travel advisories. As I finished the coffee and wondered what the hell I was going to do with my day, my phone started ringing from across the room.

It was Eli—didn’t look like he’d made it home last night. “Hey, what’s up?” I answered, carefully keeping my voice even. Nothing strange had happened at all yesterday, so there was no need to sound distressed.

“Yo,” Eli greeted me. “Are you seeing this weather?”

“Looks bad,” I said. “You get trapped at someone’s house or something?”

He chuckled. “Yeah. Actually, that’s kind of why I’m calling… I’m at my parents’ place. The storm really tore up the yard. I know it’s a pain, but I was wondering if you could come down and help us clean up. My mom promised food.”

I’ve had worse motivators than my tía’s cooking, and to be honest, the idea of getting out of the house and doing something as normal as shovelling snow was pretty appealing.

Was there a chance that, by leaving my house, I could get sucked back into the Grey City? I hesitated, but…

“Yeah, sure, I don’t mind. I’ll be over in a bit.”

“Thanks, man, you’re awesome.”

Nothing weird happened, I reminded myself. I paced around for a bit, then got my things together and mustered the courage to go outside.

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It was quiet and freezing-cold, but utterly normal, just like I’d told myself it would be. Eli’s parents lived about a half-hour’s trek away, so I set to it, clambering over snowdrifts and shuffling over the ice, my hands stuffed in my pockets.

The city was calm under the press of all the snow, few cars braving the icy streets. Snow ploughs occasionally pushed past, their progress slow. There were kids in a lot of the yards, making the most of the snow while parents looked on from the warmth of the buildings.

I carefully stacked my fears and anxieties in the back of my head as I walked. My shoulder throbbed intermittently.

It took me a little longer than usual to reach the tiny suburb where my aunt and uncle lived. It was an old, historical place, inherited by Eli’s father and lovingly maintained by the family as long as I could remember. Eli and his parents were already outside, dressed for the weather, dragging fallen branches off the yard.

My aunt exclaimed when she saw me, reprimanding me in Spanish—I only caught half of it, but apparently, I should be far more bundled up than I was (I’d dug up my winter coat, which I thought was sufficient). After hugging me in greeting, she disappeared into the house.

Eli, his curly black hair flat under a toque, raised a hand to me. I headed over to him and his dad.

“It’s a mess out here,” I said in greeting, looking over the yard. Eli had not exaggerated. There were mountains of snow in the driveway and the tree in the front yard had been half-destroyed by the wind. Heavy branches were scattered across the lawn.

“We’re lucky the power lines didn’t go down,” my uncle said, casting a look over the destruction. “Thanks for coming, Camilo. Won’t be too much fun.”

“I don’t mind,” I assured him truthfully. Besides taking my mind off things, I didn’t want mis tíos trying to clean all of this up on their own. Eli’s mother had arthritis, and his dad was a tough customer, but his health wasn’t the best either. Eli shot me a grin.

“Well, we’re gonna have to clear up all these branches before we start anything else,” my uncle said, lifting a canvas bag. “Don’t get too close to the tree, if it gets any windier we might have more coming down.”

My aunt returned with a pair of gloves for me, which I accepted abashedly, considering that I should probably invest in a pair of my own.

The work wasn’t too much fun, but it was nice to hang out with Eli’s family again. Family gatherings had been awkward for a while, but I felt I fit in better with them than most of the others. They always gave me the benefit of the doubt while others were happy to assume the worst.

When we’d finally cleared the yard of branches, Eli and I moved closer to the tree to see what we could do there.

“Damn,” I said, looking up. Thick splinters stood up in odd directions where heavy branches had cracked, and some of what was still on the tree looked like it could get dislodged pretty easily.

“Remember when we used to climb this thing?” Eli chuckled. He reached up to drag away a low-hanging branch that was only holding on by a shred of bark. It peeled off and he slung it over toward the bags.

“Ages ago,” I agreed. “All the cousins getting in trouble.”

Eli frowned, gesturing at a slightly higher branch. “That one’s going to come down too. Think I should grab it?”

“Might shake loose too many others. Better not.”

He ignored me, reaching up for it and making use of his extra four inches of height. “Don’t worry, midget, I can reach.”

“Trying to start something?” I muttered, stepping back as his fumbling shook some loose twigs and snow down on my head. “Look, just leave it and let’s shovel the driveway already, I’m freezing my ass off.”

Then, suddenly, I felt it again. A shift. The other sense, the one I’d had when I was running from the demonic creature in that other world, suddenly came back to me.

Things were not normal. I had really been in another dimension, I had really felt my own senses changing shape there—and now I could sense the shape of the tree, the places where the branches were thin and broken, and where Eli’s shaking was dislodging something above us.

“Back off!” I snapped, dragging him away by the hood. He stumbled back with me just as his branch came loose with a crack, and then and even louder noise followed as a huge branch fell where he’d just been standing. The tiny twigs and leaves on the end of it smacked us on the head as it settled onto the ground.

Eli cursed and then grinned, looking at me. “That was close!” he exclaimed, shoving the fallen branch aside.

“You boys okay?” came my uncle’s shout across the yard.

“We’re good!” Eli replied, moving forward to look at the fallen branches. “Damn, that woulda hurt. How did you see that coming?”

I swallowed and tried to pull myself together. My heart was beating a mile a minute and the sense, whatever it was, had disappeared. “It just looked like it was about to fall.”

“Huh. Guess we should leave the tree for now,” Eli said, apparently not very shaken by the experience. I had sensed the momentum of the falling branch and knew with a certainty that it would have caused some serious damage if it had hit him.

“Dumbass,” I muttered. I helped him pull away the branches.

I tried to continue to focus on helping them clean up, but a dull panic was building steadily in the back of my head. One part of me wanted to go home and lock myself in my room, but the other part couldn’t bear the thought of leaving human companionship in case I was immediately swallowed up by the Grey City.

It was afternoon by the time we finished. I was having increasing trouble acting like everything was normal, and my shoulder was pounding in tandem with my heartbeat. The delicious meal that my aunt threw together warmed us up, but I was otherwise occupied.

Finally Eli glanced at me while we were bringing dishes back to the kitchen.  “Everything okay? You seem jumpy.”

‘Jumpy’ was one way to put it. I grimaced. “Yeah. I’m cool.”

He made a face at me when no further information was forthcoming. “If you’re not feeling well, you didn’t have to come. We’d have managed.”

I started to reply that it was no big deal, but suddenly felt another, more subtle, shift inside of me. I trailed off and just stood there, dumbfounded, as the extra sense opened up and then just stayed open. I could sense the surfaces around me: the shapes of the cupboards and how they’d been put together, each tiny line in the scratched linoleum under our feet.

“Uh. Camilo?” Eli asked.

“It’s fine,” I snapped, instantly defensive of his pitying tone of voice. It was not fine, I could sense the whole shape and texture of the room around me without looking at it. “Look, I just… hurt my shoulder a little, so I think I’m gonna head back home and take some Advil.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s fine,” he hedged. “I’m sure we could give you a ride—”

“Don’t bother, the roads are really bad,” I insisted, backing out of the kitchen.

I had to pass through the gauntlet of my aunt and uncle insisting that I stay longer, but I managed to extricate myself from the situation and ended up back on the road back towards my apartment, trying to make sense of what was happening to me.

It didn’t feel as strong as it had been in the Grey City, but that extra sense was definitely still there. I could tell how thick the layer of ice was underneath the snow, sense where the snow was packed tightly and where it had fallen light.

It was real, it had to be—How else would I have known Eli was in trouble? I tried to test it as I walked, stretching it out around me and concentrating on the snow. Halfway down the next street, I identified something thin and ice-encrusted buried ten feet away. I went up to the spot and dug through the snow with my newly lent gloves, then pulled up someone’s discarded mitten.

So, I was some kind of human radar now. I tried to concentrate on my own body, wondering if I’d be able to sense the flow of blood through my veins. Nothing, though I could identify every fold and seam of my clothing.

Strange. It didn’t apply to living things? I didn’t want to try my sense on another human being—it felt invasive somehow—but instead reached for the next animal I saw, a pigeon hopping dejectedly in the snow. I could sense its movement disturbing the air, but a more detailed reading seemed beyond me.

I stretched out my senses as far as they would go and paused where I stood. Doing this, I could receive a vague sensation of all the materials and objects around me. It wasn’t much more detailed than simply looking at my surroundings, except it had the added ability to sense texture.

But I seemed to catch a thread of something… something that seemed off. I paused and turned in its direction. Just another street that led towards a small plaza with a grocery store.

I stepped back, overcome with a feeling of dread. After a moment I felt it again, this time even stronger. I kept walking backwards, keeping my eyes glued on the plaza, but the snow fell more thickly and it was hard to see. I whirled around, trying to go back down the road with the pigeon.

I could no longer recognize the street I was on. The world around me had changed, the shape of the city remaining but without all the normal, familiar things—no pigeons, no trash cans, no traffic signs.

I did a 180 and found the grocery store plaza I’d been walking towards was gone now. The street I was on seemed to just lead ahead forever, into a grey haze that rested over the city.

I was back.

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