Chapter 1

Lavender...and the ocean after a storm.

That’s how he would describe it someday.

He was too young to know the names of things then; but he knew her scent, and he knew to expect her strong hands around him—to lift him. She would pull him to her, and he would lay his small face on her shoulder, inhaling at the line of her slender neck—that place where her fragrance seemed to live.

He reached for her. But she did not bend to him.

Something thudded softly next to him in the playpen, but his eyes stayed on her, and he kept reaching. When she lowered herself to his level, he let his hands fall.

She curled her fingers around the top edge of thin netting between them, as though she might fall without its limp support. Light reflected off wet patches on her cheeks, so he pawed at them with his short fingers, and she smiled.

When she clasped his face softly between her hands and pulled him gently to her, he almost laughed—thinking it a game. But when she pressed her lips to his forehead, the urgency of it made him frown. She kissed his nose and pecked him on the lips.

She stood and stared down at him. He did not smile, even though his little heart hammered with the hope that she might still reach for him.

She stiffened as if swallowing something unpleasant.

And then she was gone.

Long after his heart said he should give up and his legs began to ache, he kept standing and waiting—listening for her. Only when he could no longer pick up the notes of her scent did he finally allow himself to sit.

He sat down on something hard and uncomfortable, so he scooted off the thing and picked it up—a child’s, spill-proof cup filled with water. He took a long slug, at the same time noticing the other item she’d dropped in with him.

Filled far above its normal capacity, he reached his hand inside the small container and pulled out a few pieces of puffed, crunchy cereal, pushing them into his mouth with the palm of his hand and chewing as slowly and thoughtfully as any three-year-old could or ever had.

When she left, the shadows next to his little coop were short and squat. Now they were longer, thinner.
As the shadows disappeared altogether and the light in the room faded, he stood again and—like a small animal—sniffed the air and listened for the sound of footsteps, a creaking door...a setting down of keys.

But the room only grew darker, until all but one corner of his playpen sank into pools of gloom. Lit ever so softly with traces of fading sunlight, he pressed himself into it, pulled a favorite blanket to him, and kept waiting.

The last light finally retreated, leaving him in his own dark hideaway. But he did not cry, because he knew. She would come.

When a lamp flicked on from another part of the house, the little boy startled, not realizing he’d fallen asleep.

A voice rang out, familiar but unexpected. “Sorry, I couldn’t call.”

Footsteps drew closer, and Dad appeared as a silhouette against the backlit doorway.

“I didn’t think I’d be three hours...” He trailed off when he noticed the scant reflection from the eyes of his tiny son—silent and still in a corner of the lightless room. His voice dropped to a whisper, “...late.”

He flipped on a lamp and crossed the room, snatching up the little boy and holding him close. He sounded frightened. “Where’s Mommy?”

The little boy only leaned into him and let go of the breath he’d been holding.

But then another, unfamiliar male voice pricked his ears.

“I’m not him,” it said coolly.

The boy looked up and choked on a scream.

He pulled his head away from the chest of a stranger, a man whose face hid behind a veil of shadow. He unwrapped his arms from around the torso of the phantom and leapt back.

He smacked into a wall that shouldn’t have been there, and he hit too hard and too heavily for someone so small. The lights snapped out, and he blinked in confusion as his eyes adjusted to the dim blues of a different, moonlit room.

His room.

He found himself staring down at a pair of lean forearms and the oversized feet of a young man.

His arms. His feet.

The young man took in the familiar wood paneled walls of his cramped bedroom and scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck. But a tiny, almost inaudible sucking sound recaptured his attention, and his eyes lifted in renewed alarm.

In a black corner of the bedroom, the amber glow of a lit cigarette cut the outline of an angular jaw. He recognized the same shadow-veiled man he’d been hugging just a moment ago—a small window casting a diagonal column of moonlight between them.

“Why there?” the phantom asked politely. A cloud of smoke drifted toward the asbestos ceiling as the words slid off his lips. “Always; it ends there—at that part of the dream.”

The young man stammered. “How...” The fear in his voice shamed him, and his head swam. He pressed his hands to the sides of his face, and his voice came in a rasp. “This is a dream.”

The phantom tilted his chin up, and a curtain of dark hair parted, framing the stubble-covered chin and high cheek bones of his face. “Yes...and...no.”

The man smiled, though the young man could not tell whether it reached the shadows hiding his eyes. The smile parted.

“Dream, memory, or reality? All are true...And false.” He snubbed out the cigarette on his palm, dropped the smoldering butt on the carpet, and stepped into the moonlight.

The young man pressed himself against the wall, his eyes searching every nook and hiding place of his room—for anything resembling a weapon. Calculating how quickly he could reach the door and make an escape, he prepared to launch himself over the rumpled covers of his bed.

The stranger threw out a pacifying hand.

“Wait!” he pleaded. “Do you know me?”

The young man stopped and for the first time noticed the pale-blue, desperate eyes of this person whose question transfixed him there. His voice was like none he’d ever heard, and the stranger’s face prompted nothing.

Yet, certainty flooded him. A shiver ran up his arms and down the young man’s spine. He heard his own voice murmur something, though he could scarcely comprehend its meaning.

“Yes.”

A broad grin widened the stranger’s face, and the young man noticed the whiteness of his perfectly straight teeth. “Yes.” The man exhaled and closed his eyes—as if relieved of some great burden. “I thought you might.”

“I've never met you.” The dam holding back the young man’s emotions creaked and splintered. Hot tears welled up in the corners of his eyes. “I can’t know you.”

The stranger waited until he could catch the young man’s gaze. “You can...” He paused in thought. “...if the threads that bind your world are already breaking. At least one of them has reconnected—to me.”

The young man pressed his eyes shut and groaned. “Who are you?”

As one might approach a cornered animal, the stranger took a cautious step forward. “I promise you an answer but not tonight.” He looked away as if searching for something far off. “Tonight…only a message.”

The young man looked up.

“Listen well, Syphon Black.” The stranger returned a hardened gaze to the frightened youth before him. “The rest will break soon. Choose wisely.”

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If you're reading this, it means there are others like me...that people are waking up.