Chapter 1 The Photograph
2415 Words
At exactly 3:17 in the morning, Elias Vale woke up screaming.
He didn't remember falling asleep.
That was the first thing that frightened him.
The second was that he couldn't remember what he'd been dreaming about.
He lay motionless beneath the blanket, staring into the darkness above him while his heart hammered against his ribs.
For several seconds, he didn't move.
He listened.
Rain whispered against the bedroom window.
Somewhere below, a car rolled slowly along the wet street. Its tires hissed against the pavement before the sound disappeared around the corner.
A pipe groaned inside the wall.
Then silence.
Elias swallowed.
His mouth was dry.
He lifted one hand and rubbed his face.
His skin was cold with sweat.
"Just a dream," he whispered.
His own voice sounded strange in the darkness.
He reached for the lamp on the bedside table.
The switch clicked.
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
Nothing.
"Perfect."
The electricity had gone out.
Elias sat up.
His bedroom was almost completely black, except for the faint gray light coming through the curtains from the city outside.
He turned toward the digital clock beside his bed.
The display was dead.
He frowned.
Then he remembered the old clock.
His grandfather's clock.
It sat on the wooden dresser opposite the bed, a small brass-and-glass mechanism Elias had carried from his grandfather's house twenty-two years earlier.
He could barely see it in the darkness.
But he could hear it.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Elias stared at it.
Something felt wrong.
He couldn't explain what.
Perhaps it was the dream.
Perhaps it was the sudden power outage.
Or perhaps it was simply the strange feeling that had followed him out of sleep—the sensation that he'd been somewhere else moments earlier.
Somewhere he wasn't supposed to be.
He pushed the blanket away and stood.
The floor was cold beneath his feet.
He crossed the bedroom.
As he passed the mirror, he caught a glimpse of himself.
Messy dark hair.
Gray T-shirt.
Three days of stubble.
A thin scar beneath his left eyebrow.
He stopped.
For a moment, he thought there was someone standing behind him.
Elias turned sharply.
Nothing.
Only the bedroom.
He looked back at the mirror.
His own reflection stared at him.
"You're losing it," he muttered.
He left the bedroom.
The hallway was dark.
His apartment had always been small, but at night it seemed larger. The walls stretched into shadows. The corners seemed deeper.
Elias walked toward the living room.
Then he heard something.
Three knocks.
He stopped.
His breathing caught.
The sound had come from somewhere ahead of him.
Knock.
Elias stared into the darkness.
Knock.
He waited.
Knock.
Three slow knocks.
Not from the front door.
From inside the apartment.
His skin prickled.
"Hello?"
No answer.
Elias didn't move.
He knew the rational explanation.
Pipes.
The building settling.
Something falling.
A neighbor.
There was always an explanation.
He forced himself forward.
The living room emerged from the darkness.
Everything looked normal.
The couch.
The television.
The bookshelves.
The desk beside the window.
His coat hanging from the chair.
He scanned the room.
Nothing.
"Okay."
He exhaled.
"Nothing."
Then he noticed the envelope.
It was sitting in the middle of his desk.
Elias froze.
He hadn't left an envelope there.
He was certain.
He approached slowly.
The envelope was black.
Not dark gray.
Black.
Its surface seemed almost unnaturally smooth.
There was no stamp.
No return address.
No postmark.
Only his name.
ELIAS VALE
He stared at the handwriting.
His stomach tightened.
He knew it.
He knew that handwriting better than his own.
His grandfather.
Elias picked up the envelope.
It was warm.
He immediately dropped it.
The envelope landed on the desk.
He stared at it.
"That's impossible."
His grandfather had been dead for twenty-two years.
Elias had been twelve years old when he'd died.
There were things he remembered clearly about his grandfather.
The smell of tobacco on his jacket.
The terrible coffee he used to make.
The way he always tapped his fingers against the table whenever he was thinking.
And his handwriting.
Large, slightly slanted letters.
The same handwriting on the envelope.
Elias picked it up again.
This time he held it carefully.
There was something inside.
Something flat.
He tore it open.
A photograph slid into his hand.
For a moment, he didn't understand what he was looking at.
It was an old photograph.
Black and white.
The edges were burned and curled.
The image showed a city.
But not any city Elias had ever seen.
Buildings rose into the sky like enormous black needles.
Bridges stretched between towers hundreds of feet above the streets.
Suspended from cables were enormous clocks.
Dozens of them.
Hundreds.
Some were round.
Others were enormous vertical mechanisms with exposed gears.
And beneath the city was water.
Black water.
Not dark blue.
Black.
It surrounded the buildings like an ocean.
Thousands of lights reflected on its surface.
Elias turned the photograph over.
There were words written on the back.
Six words.
His grandfather's handwriting.
WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T REMEMBER TOMORROW.
Elias stared.
A cold sensation spread through his chest.
He read the sentence again.
Then again.
"Remember tomorrow?"
He laughed quietly.
The sound was nervous and hollow.
"What does that even mean?"
He turned the photograph over again.
And then he saw the man.
He had missed him at first.
The figure stood beneath one of the enormous clocks.
A man wearing a long dark coat.
His face was turned toward the camera.
Elias moved closer to the window.
His heart began beating faster.
"No."
He brought the photograph closer.
The face was unmistakable.
His face.
Not similar.
Not approximately similar.
Exactly his.
Same eyes.
Same nose.
Same scar beneath the left eyebrow.
Even the small silver ring on his right hand.
Elias looked down.
The ring was there.
He had worn it for eleven years.
A gift from his grandfather.
He looked back at the photograph.
The man was standing beneath the clock.
Looking directly at the camera.
Looking directly at him.
Elias's fingers began trembling.
He turned the photograph over.
At the bottom, almost hidden beneath the burned edge, was a date.
1926.
He stared at it.
His brain refused to process the information.
One hundred and twenty-three years before the present day.
Impossible.
He turned it over again.
Same city.
Same man.
Same face.
He looked at the date.
Then at himself.
Then back at the photograph.
"This isn't real."
He put the photograph down.
He walked away.
Three steps.
Then stopped.
He returned to the desk.
Picked it up.
Studied it again.
There had to be an explanation.
A trick.
A fake.
Some kind of antique photograph manipulated by someone who knew what he looked like.
But who?
And why?
His grandfather had been dead since 2027.
The photograph was dated 1926.
Elias suddenly remembered something.
A story his grandfather had told him when he was a child.
At the time, Elias had thought it was a bedtime story.
His grandfather had called it the city that remembered tomorrow.
Elias had forgotten most of it.
But now fragments returned.
A city surrounded by water.
Clocks that didn't measure hours.
People who could remember events before they happened.
And a rule.
One rule above all others.
Never remember tomorrow.
Elias sat down.
His hands were shaking.
He hadn't thought about that story in years.
His grandfather had told it to him on the night before his twelfth birthday.
The same night his grandfather disappeared.
Not died.
Disappeared.
That was what the family had always said.
His body had never been found.
The official explanation was that he'd suffered some kind of mental episode and wandered away from his home.
The police searched for six months.
Nothing.
Eventually everyone assumed he had fallen into the river.
But Elias had never believed it.
His grandfather had been too careful.
Too precise.
Too intelligent.
And now this photograph was sitting on his desk.
A photograph that shouldn't exist.
Elias looked toward the old clock.
The hands were still frozen at 3:17.
He stood.
Walked closer.
The clock was silent.
Then—
Tick.
Elias jumped.
The second hand moved.
Tick.
Another movement.
Tick.
The hands advanced.
3:18.
At that exact moment, the photograph changed.
Elias stopped breathing.
The image on the paper seemed to ripple.
He blinked.
The city remained.
But the man beneath the clock was gone.
Elias stared.
The photograph was now empty beneath the enormous clock.
Then black letters began appearing across the image.
Slowly.
One by one.
As if someone on the other side of the paper were writing with invisible ink.
TOMORROW, YOU DIE.
Elias dropped it.
The photograph struck the floor.
He stumbled backward.
"No."
The letters continued forming.
UNLESS YOU FIND THE CITY FIRST.
Then everything stopped.
The apartment was silent.
Elias stared at the photograph on the floor.
His breathing became shallow.
He crouched and picked it up.
The writing remained.
He turned it over.
His grandfather's six words were still there.
WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T REMEMBER TOMORROW.
A sound came from outside.
Elias looked toward the window.
Across the street stood an old apartment building.
Six floors.
Mostly dark.
But on the roof, beneath the shelter of a small metal awning, someone was standing.
A woman.
She wore a red coat.
Elias couldn't see her face clearly.
She was simply standing there.
Watching him.
His first thought was that she was waiting for someone.
His second was that she had been waiting for him.
The woman raised one hand.
She was holding something.
A photograph.
Elias stepped closer to the window.
The woman pressed the photograph against the glass door behind her.
Even from across the street, Elias could recognize the image.
The city.
The clocks.
The black water.
His heart stopped.
The woman lowered the photograph.
Then she pointed directly at him.
Elias stood perfectly still.
The woman moved her lips.
He couldn't hear her.
But somehow he understood.
Two words.
You remembered.
The rooftop light went out.
She vanished.
Elias ran to the window.
He pulled the curtain aside.
The rooftop was empty.
He stared at it for several seconds.
Nothing.
Then he noticed something.
A figure stood in the street below.
The woman.
She was no longer on the roof.
She was standing directly beneath his apartment window.
Elias stepped back.
Impossible.
There was no way she could have crossed the distance that quickly.
She looked up.
Their eyes met.
This time Elias saw her face.
She was perhaps thirty years old.
Pale.
Dark hair.
A small scar across her cheek.
And eyes that looked strangely familiar.
She raised one finger to her lips.
Then she pointed behind Elias.
Elias turned.
Nothing.
He looked back toward the window.
The woman was gone.
He ran to the front door.
Opened it.
The hallway was empty.
He stepped outside.
The building was silent.
He walked down the stairs.
One floor.
Two.
Three.
He reached the lobby.
The front door stood open.
Rain had begun falling again.
He stepped outside.
The street was empty.
No woman.
No footsteps.
No car.
Nothing.
Then he saw something lying on the sidewalk.
A photograph.
Elias crouched.
Picked it up.
His hands went cold.
It was another photograph of the city.
But this one was different.
The photograph showed the enormous clock tower.
Beneath it stood the woman in red.
Beside her was Elias.
He looked older.
Perhaps ten years older.
His hair was longer.
His face thinner.
There was blood on his shirt.
And behind them stood another figure.
A boy.
Maybe twelve years old.
Elias stared at the boy.
The boy was holding his grandfather's clock.
On the back of the photograph was a single sentence.
Elias turned it over.
THE CITY HAS ALREADY CHOSEN YOU.
A car suddenly appeared at the end of the street.
Its headlights swept across him.
Elias stepped backward.
The car stopped.
The driver's window lowered.
An elderly man looked out.
His face was terrified.
He stared at Elias.
Then at the photograph in Elias's hand.
The man's expression changed.
Recognition.
Fear.
"You're him," the man whispered.
Elias approached the car.
"Who?"
The old man shook his head.
"You're not supposed to be here yet."
"Who are you?"
The man looked behind Elias.
His face became even paler.
"You need to leave."
"Leave where?"
The man started the engine.
Elias grabbed the door.
"Wait!"
The car suddenly accelerated.
Elias stumbled backward.
The vehicle disappeared into the rain.
He stood alone beneath the streetlight.
Then his phone rang.
Elias nearly dropped it.
He looked at the screen.
No caller ID.
He answered.
"Hello?"
Static.
Then a voice.
An old man's voice.
Familiar.
Impossible.
His grandfather.
"Elias."
He couldn't speak.
The voice continued.
"You have exactly twenty-four hours."
Elias swallowed.
"Grandpa?"
A pause.
Then:
"Don't trust Mara."
The line went dead.
Elias stared at the phone.
His hands were shaking.
He looked down at the photograph.
The woman in red stared back at him.
And for the first time, Elias noticed the city behind her.
One of the enormous clocks had changed.
The hands were no longer pointing at 3:17.
They were pointing at midnight.
And beneath the clock, barely visible in the darkness, were three words.
WELCOME HOME, ELIAS.
He looked up.
Across the street, every light in the city went out simultaneously.
Every apartment.
Every streetlamp.
Every shop.
Every window.
Darkness swallowed the neighborhood.
Then, somewhere far away, a bell began to ring.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Elias counted.
Four.
Five.
Six.
The bell continued.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
Eleven.
Twelve.
It stopped.
Silence.
Elias looked at his grandfather's clock through the window of his apartment.
The hands had moved again.
They were no longer at 3:18.
They were pointing backward.
3:17.
And then Elias heard a voice directly behind him.
A woman's voice.
Soft.
Almost a whisper.
"Now you remember."
He turned.
The woman in the red coat stood three feet away.
She smiled sadly.
And Elias realized something that frightened him more than the photograph, the city, or the impossible voice of his dead grandfather.
He knew her.
He had known her for years.
He simply couldn't remember from where.
The woman touched his arm.
"Come with me."
"Where?"
She looked toward the darkness beyond the street.
"Home."
Elias stared at her.
"I don't know you."
Her smile disappeared.
"Not yet."
Then she took his hand.
And somewhere beneath the city, something enormous began to wake.
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