1.

It was a Saturday afternoon. It was a Saturday afternoon, and the sunlight seeped in through an old windowpane, through a threaded tear in the decaying curtains, to set alight the thick golden dust choking the room. A shadow moved fitfully in one corner, melting from shape to shape as it gradually resolved itself into a human figure. She was naked, hunched down with both skinny arms curled around her legs, staring intently at the lone streak of light that had crept into the room. She never moved, not even when the glittering dust began to settle on her exposed shoulders and hair. Not until the sun had set, and the world was blind again. Then she began to hum to herself, a tune with no words and no end, as she rocked slowly back and forth.

Time always moved differently on a Sunday. It dragged, leaking from one moment into the next so that each stretched on for eternity. The woman's heartbeat slowed and then stopped completely, and she felt herself stretching to fit the wide, empty silence. When nothing had changed, she could almost convince herself that no time had passed. Her room was filled with clocks, but she had never wound them. She didn’t understand people who liked to listen to clocks, to the tick-tocking of their time running out. An off-white egg timer that shatters the gauzy daydreams of an aging housewife. A countdown. The woman was no longer naked, and the rotting curtains were thrown wide. The thick cloth had bled when she had pushed it aside, and left sticky crimson smears across the backs of her hands. She could look down at the streets, now, at the dark shapes tearing their way through the world. Today she would join them, would sink beneath the rolling, intangible waves of sweat and blood to push across the dirty cement to the train station. To where he sat, waiting.

She knew he would be there, because he always had been. When she sat in her room, she could tell herself that the world didn’t exist. But the dreams had started again, and she knew she needed to find him. On the way to the train station, she saw five murders and a rape. She heard the screams for help, the heavy breathing, and the wailing of police sirens as they hurried past the real crimes. She stepped carefully over dark pools of blood, a red-paved path that led straight to glassy eyes and empty, blue-veined faces. A broken-bottle woman, her clothing torn, leaned against an oily wall.

None of these events actually took place. She scuttled quickly along the darkening streets, her eyes locked on the pavement in front of her. A long, thin blue arrow stretched out ahead, and she carefully laid one foot over the faded paint, then the other. She knew that it would lead her to the train station. It was dangerous to look up, these days, because you never knew when you might meet someone's eyes. Years ago, the city had painted color-coded arrows on all the sidewalks, so that no one would have to.

Even though she didn't see them, the woman could hear the bodies around her, breathing in and out in a hundred different ways. Slow, luxurious sighs, horrified gasps, steady panting, and frightened, hissed whispers from the dark alleyways. And with every breath taken, she could feel the air tightening around her lungs, choking her. The oxygen was drying up, and drifting to the ground as a fine, white powder. She panicked, beginning to claw at her throat and looking wildly for the familiar, green iron gate. Unconsciousness had just begun to wrap her in its glittering, hot embrace as she threw herself down the stairway, tumbling into the sweaty darkness of the train station.

The floor of the platform smelled of oil and scrubbed bloodstains. The bitter scent revived the woman, and she rolled, twisting, into a corner, and sat up. Digging her back into the tiled wall, she could feel the building pulsating slowly beneath her. She closed her eyes and pressed both palms against the oily floor, listening to the sharp tattoo of shoes on cement, the clattering of trains in the distance. The heavy beat of music, pouring out of a black box on the platform across from her. She stared across the empty tracks, into the eyes of a girl. Too much eye makeup and too little clothing. The girl was swaying and rippling to a primal drumbeat. Her spidery white hands were outstretched wrists pressed together, fingers cupped. The girl was already dead, and the people carefully, guiltily, avoiding her eyes knew it.

The scene disappeared abruptly as a train pulled up, screaming to a smoky, reluctant halt. The woman fed the faceless silver box a small coin, and stepped cautiously onto the train. A teenager, already seated, glanced up at her, and the woman almost screamed; the teenager had stolen the dancer's face. It was too dark for the thief, and she had smeared brick-red over the lips, but the woman recognized it instantly. The stolen face was smiling distractedly at her. She felt sick, and made herself look away.

As soon as the train began to move, the people seated around the woman began to flicker. They appeared and disappeared, giving her only the smallest glimpse before vanishing. Blue eyes, trapped and restless behind glass, like goldfish. Two soft, sticky young hands, wrapped around a piece of colored plastic. A few inches of white ankle, slithering up inside a pair of unremarkable brown pants. A lady's laugh, high and brittle. The woman lost herself in the shifting images, the flickering game of hide-and-seek. The next thing she heard was the diseased crackle of the intercom, announcing the last stop. The train car was empty.

She stepped out onto one of the derelict, nearly abandoned stations. The walls were a uniform bronzy green, and a steady drip, drip, drip echoed through the empty platform. There was a welcome sign built into the wall a few feet from where the woman stood, thickly crusted over with moss. She rubbed the sign clean with her sleeve to find out where she was, but the enameled white surface underneath was completely blank.

The frantic clicking of rodent feet suddenly filled the platform, followed by a bout of hollow, wet coughing. "Bloody hell!" a voice said thickly, as soon as it could speak again. The woman turned at the sound, her face impassive, and walked forward until she could see the grimy, tattered shape. He was coated thickly in disintegrating rags of every color, and smelled of cheap liquor and regrets, voiced to anyone who would listen. Two small black eyes glittered at her from the depths of the oily cloth, disappearing briefly as another violent bout of coughing shook his thin form.

When silence had fallen again, he looked up at the woman, and his voice bubbled up from the rags, oily and diseased, "Tamara."

Yes, the woman thought. I am she.

"Tlaloc," she said. "The dreams are starting again."

Two dark, aged hands emerged from the stinking rags, palms down. Tamara found herself thinking of a young girl, dancing alone on a greasy, cold platform. Drops of water began to collect on the underside of Tlaloc’s hands, swelling and fattening until one fell. It exploded against the greasy concrete, and another followed an instant later. Soon the air underneath his palms was thick with moisture, and the platform echoed with the scattered drumbeat of falling drops. Tamara noticed that the color was seeping out of Tlaloc’s hands, leaving him white and shrunken.

Carefully, Tlaloc turned both his hands over. Water immediately began to pool in his bloodless, cupped palms, and Tamara stared through the crystalline liquid. Despite the murkiness of the abandoned platform, the water flowing from Tlaloc’s hands was a sparkling, searing white. And nestled in the exact center of each palm was a small, round pill.