Chapter 1: The Boatman

Chapter 1: The Boatman

The groan of the floorboards was the only sound that greeted Elias Thorne as he trudged into his apartment. It was a familiar sound, the weary sigh of a building as tired as he was. He dropped his keys in a chipped ceramic bowl, the clatter sharp in the silence. The air was stale, thick with the ghosts of microwaved dinners and the faint, metallic scent of the city pressing in through the window he couldn't afford to open in the summer.

His body ached with a deep, grinding fatigue that had become his constant companion. Twelve hours of hauling boxes, scanning barcodes, and walking on concrete had leeched the life from him, leaving a hollowed-out shell. He peeled off his work shirt, the fabric stiff with dried sweat, and looked at his reflection in the smudged bathroom mirror. Dark circles pooled under his eyes like bruises. He was twenty-eight, but some days, he felt ancient.

This was his life. A cycle of exhausting work, tasteless food, and the four walls of his cramped apartment. But there was always the night. Sleep wasn’t just rest for Elias; it was a portal.

His dreams were his real life. He had fought dragons on mountains of glass, navigated sprawling cities of brass and steam, and spoken with beings woven from pure light. His worn, black journal, lying open on his nightstand, was filled not with daily anxieties but with meticulously sketched maps of dream-worlds and detailed accounts of impossible conversations. He lived more vividly in his own head than he ever did in the waking world. Tonight, he craved that escape more than ever.

He bypassed dinner, the thought of chewing an effort too great. He simply changed into a pair of old pajama pants and a thin t-shirt, the worn cotton a small comfort against his skin. The bed creaked in protest as he fell into it. The last thing he saw before his eyes slid shut was the open page of his journal, a half-finished drawing of a star-sailed skiff. His last conscious thought was a desperate plea: Anywhere but here.

The universe, in its cruel and literal way, answered.

He wasn't in his bed. There was no gentle transition, no fading of consciousness. One instant, he was sinking into his lumpy mattress; the next, he was here.

He was sitting, bolt upright, on a simple wooden plank. A cold, damp mist clung to him, chilling him to the bone. The air was heavy with the smell of ancient brine and something else, something thick and vaguely industrial, like old oil. He tried to move, to stand, to even turn his head, but his body was locked in an invisible vise. A leaden paralysis held him fast, a familiar sensation from the fringes of sleep, but this was different. It was absolute. He couldn't twitch a finger. He couldn't even scream; the air in his lungs felt frozen.

He was in a boat. A small, crude vessel made of dark, waterlogged wood. It rocked gently on a sea as black and placid as polished obsidian. Above, a sky of uniform, oppressive grey stretched to an unseen horizon, offering no sun, no moon, no stars. There was no light source, yet he could see with perfect, unnerving clarity.

And he was not alone.

At the stern sat a figure. It was tall, even seated, its form completely shrouded in a heavy, hooded robe the color of wet earth. The figure held a long, dark oar, one hand resting upon its shaft. And what a hand it was. Pale grey, almost white, with skin that looked ancient and wrinkled like dried leather. It had only three long, skeletal fingers, ending not in nails but in what looked like hardened, yellowed bone.

Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through Elias’s mind. This wasn't one of his dreams. His dreams were vibrant, chaotic, full of color and sound and life. This was a monochrome nightmare, silent save for one terrifying noise: the breathing of his companion. It was a slow, deep, laborious sound, like air being forced through waterlogged bellows. A wet, rhythmic puffing that seemed to come from the deep shadow of the hood.

Elias fought against his paralysis with every fiber of his being. He strained, his mind screaming, his muscles burning with phantom effort. He had to see its face. The terror of the unknown was a physical pressure in his chest. As the boat drifted, the figure shifted slightly, and for a fraction of a second, the light caught the edge of what lay within the cowl.

It wasn't a face. It was a mass of something fleshy and convoluted, like an exposed brain, but with a series of vertical, gill-like slits that pulsed faintly with each labored breath. Elias felt a wave of revulsion so profound it almost broke him free. This wasn't a dream creature born of his imagination. This was something wholly, horribly alien.

Wake up, he begged himself. Wake up, wake up, wake up! In his dreams, he always had some measure of control. He could fly, he could change the scenery, he could will himself awake if things turned too sour. But here, his will was useless. The boat, the sea, the creature—they were all crushingly, undeniably real. The damp wood beneath him felt solid. The cold mist on his skin was real.

With a final, desperate surge of pure terror, something gave.

His right hand twitched. Then his fingers curled into a fist. The paralysis shattered like glass, the sensation of pins and needles flooding his limbs. He gasped, sucking in the cold, oily air. The sound, his own ragged breath, was an explosion in the oppressive silence.

The creature stopped breathing.

The rhythmic puffing ceased. The silence that followed was a thousand times worse. Slowly, deliberately, the hooded head turned, the featureless abyss of its cowl fixing directly upon him. Elias felt a gaze he could not see, a pressure of pure, focused attention that made his skin crawl. This was no longer passive transport. He had been noticed.

“Where are you taking me?” Elias croaked, his voice raw and unfamiliar.

There was no answer. The creature simply watched him.

“What do you want?” he tried again, a tremor of hysteria in his voice. “This is my dream! I’m in control here!”

As if in response, the creature moved. It wasn’t fast, but it was unnervingly fluid. The three-fingered hand lifted from the oar and reached for him. Elias scrambled backward, his back hitting the hard, cold edge of the boat. There was nowhere to go.

The hand shot forward, impossibly fast, and clamped around his forearm.

Pain. White-hot, electrifying pain. This wasn't the dull, disconnected pain of a dream. This was real. He felt the inhuman strength in its grip, the bones in his arm grinding together. The cold, damp fabric of its sleeve pressed against his skin, and a foul, greasy substance began to seep through his t-shirt.

Elias screamed. A raw, throat-tearing shriek of agony and terror that echoed over the black water. He thrashed, trying to pull his arm free, but the grip was like iron. He looked down and saw the pale grey fingers digging into his flesh, the pressure immense, unbearable. The oily blackness from the creature's robe was staining his sleeve, a creeping, dark blemish.

This wasn't a nightmare he could wake up from. He was trapped. The pain was real, the boatman was real, and the oily sea waited patiently below. As the creature leaned closer, the wet, puffing sound starting again, right next to his ear, a singular, horrifying thought eclipsed all else:

This is happening.