On the First Day, Part I
The sun rose for the first time upon the City.
Its rays stretched over road and building, brick and concrete and steel, claiming it like the grasp of a possessive hand. It glinted off of windows, lighting them for the first time like a thousand crystal beacons. In a modest apartment on the eastern edge of the City, it met the resistance of thick, dull curtains. They had been shut tightly against the echoes of nighttime traffic and the brave lights that had endeavored bravely to illuminate the shadowed streets. They held out valiantly but were unprepared for this strange new intruder. The sunlight stole in on soft feet, creeping slowly across the floor. Its leisurely efforts eventually pierced the heart of the room's shadows, its warm light revealing the sleeping form of a woman.
And as she had been on so many nights of late, she lay trapped in the cold bonds of fitful sleep.
To all the world concerned, her name was Heather Collins. She had been born into a small middle-class family, had lived her life in a middle-class neighborhood. She had spent the majority of the past forty years employed as a secretary in one part of the City or another. She was in her mid-sixties and had never married. She had no family living now. Her life had always been quiet, and uneventful. Somewhat lonely. A cruel person might say insignificant. It was not a life that had touched many. It was not a life that should have inspired nightmares.
And yet, for the past two months, Ms. Collins' sleep had been plagued with fear. She woke nights trembling, her dark hair damp with sweat, a scream lodged frozen in her throat. And after waking, even with her eyes open the images would continue to dance before her vision, complete in vivid and horrible detail.
In her dreams she saw the City, the space between every building occupied by a sense of palpable and incomprehensible menace. Silent cars lined the streets in long, still lines, and people slumbered inside them, utterly helpless. Some nights her dreams dragged her through endless expanses of cold, dark emptiness, dreams from which she awoke feeling trapped. She dreamt of an immense clock, ticking implacably, painted by shadows within a pale green gloom. And in her darkest dreams she was stalked by pale figures with long, reaching shadows and circular, gaping maws lined with teeth where their faces should be.
It was nights ago she first dreamt of the lightning and thunder, of buildings shattered and broken like glass. She saw the great clock sundered, and streets burst open, and the creeping monsters uprooted from the earth like pallid grubs. She saw the City itself, broken in half, and she saw it mend itself again. In her dream, she knew that destruction and creation both were born of a single man. And when she woke, always before she saw him, the fear on her tongue was touched with bitter hatred.
Warm light caressed her face and Heather's eyes fluttered open. She lay still several moments breathing shallowly, struggling to bring her crashing pulse to rest. As always, her latest dream drifted back to her with perfect clarity.
She sees him in pieces only, a patchwork phantom sewn out of a dozen dark, shifting faces, but she knows him all the same. He is alone, suspended against consuming darkness and cold starlight. He brings his hands together, and from his cupped palms water pours, first a stream then a cascade. The torrent blooms outward, spreading below him, stretching out for miles until it has become an ocean. The last drops expend themselves and he walks like a dark messiah with the black, crashing waters churning beneath his feet. The land is born from underneath the waves, and like a jutting spear she sees the lighthouse rise before her.
And behind it, the sun rises as though for the first time. His figure is lost from her sight, swallowed by its shadow…
Heather drew back the curtains with a trembling hand and the sunlight spilled into the room. Her reflection in the glass pane before her showed her plainly what that light revealed: the stark bruises that had crept in under her dark eyes, the lines etched harshly into her face by weariness. She only observed this for a moment before her gaze passed through, and she looked beyond into the City. Against the pale dawn, the City held such an alien look that she briefly doubted she could have ever seen the sight before. For just a moment she glimpsed blue, shimmering on the horizon.
Despite the soft sunlight that bathed her in its warmth, she shivered.
Author's Note: Sorry this chapter has been late in coming. I blame it on a recently acquired addiction to Elder Scrolls IV. To facilitate things going a little faster, I've split the chapter I was working on into three parts.
I like to think I've made it pretty transparent what is going on. The principle characters involved in this story are not OCs. I hope it's as clear as I intended it to be just who is who. Sometimes I fail at obvious, though.