Scion of Atlantis Ch. 01

I woke with a groan, lifting my head from the pillow with difficulty, my head feeling like it was clamped in a vise. Outside, the road work which seemed to be eternally in progress on Claire Street was in full swing. It was the jackhammer that finally roused me, it's rapid-fire pounding matching the pulse in my temples.

I pushed myself up from my bed, sending another spike of pain through my brain, and blearily looked around the room. It was my bedroom, alright- the same off-yellow paint job, my mismatched thrift store furniture, my tattered posters on the wall for punk bands and video games. At least I wasn't waking up somewhere completely strange, that would have been hell with a hangover this bad.

Sitting up took an effort, and treated me to both another bolt through my head as well as my stomach cramping in protest. I grimaced against the pain and stood, reaching out to clutch the wall as the world spun around me. That had to have been one hell of a rager last night. The inside of my mouth tasted nasty, and I could tell from the "flavour" that I hadn't just been drinking, but smoking grass on top of that. As you do.

I struggled to recall the details of last night, as I stumbled my way to the bathroom. The dishwasher at my work invited me out to this rave in an abandoned hotel, that much I remembered clearly. We were at work, I was just wrapping up my prep for the day when he told me about it. "You like music, don't you?" was what he asked, and then tried to sell me on going to his buddy's rave. I didn't normally listen to any kind of dance music, but I just had my tip-out and there was supposed to be cheap drinks, and how often do you get invited to a secret urbex rave anyway?

I made it to my tiny phone booth of a bathroom, gripping the porcelain sink, and blearily examined myself in the mirror. At least it didn't look like I had gotten into any fights. My eyes were so bloodshot they were stained pink, and my hair was a mess, but I was otherwise intact. My hands shook as I ran the cold water, leaning over to drink directly from the faucet, ignoring the blast of pain that followed. My stomach protested against the cold intrusion, but the water felt like heaven on my throat. I drank as much as I though I could take, before my stomach really started to do flip-flops.

I could vaguely recall some kind of fight breaking out, and a dark shape- maybe a guy in some kind of costume?- charging across the rave, a cloak flapping out behind them. There was the sound of breaking glass, and a crowd gathering on a balcony... I remembered charging down the stairs two at a time, way too coordinated for a drunk person... Did I really drink that much? Or...?

Shaking my head against the confusion of memories, I straightened, spitting into the sink in a futile attempt to rid by mouth of the foul, post-party taste. I grabbed my toothbrush from it's cup next to the sink, and brought my eyes up to the mirror, fully intending to scrub that nastiness out of my mouth, but instead I dropped the toothbrush in surprise.

Standing close behind me, in the confines of the tiny washroom, was a woman I didn't recognize. She was at least a foot shorter to me, standing at my left side, and wore an amused smirk as she watched me. "Awoken from last night's revelries, my prince?" she asked in a sweet voice with an untraceable accent.

I turned around, my eyes scanning the small space, looking for her, my pulse quickening from the surprise. I grabbed the shower curtain and tore it aside, revealing the tile and crumbling grout of the empty shower, and ducked my head out into the corridor. Nothing. Well, my stuff all still seemed to be there, but at least there was no people.

My hand went to my temple. The surprise and how quickly I had moved my head around looking for her had set it to pounding, the previous dull ache replaced by spikes of pain beating in time with my heart. I went back to the mirror, muttering quietly "I must have taken some shrooms, too." It would make some of my stranger fragments of memory make more sense, at least.

The girl was still there. "You are not hallucinating, boy," she stated simply, her expression now disappointed bordering on angry. My eyes immediately widened, and I looked about me once more time, confirming I was alone before focusing back on the woman in the mirror. She was curvy without being chubby, with black hair in short braids, the locks framing a pretty, delicate face were decorated with pale blue and white beads. She had some kind of vibrant purple eyeshadow that stood out against her dark skin, and wore some kind of chestwrap made out of an ivory-coloured fabric. And it was quite a chest- I was always terrible at guessing bra sizes, but each of her mounds would more than fill a hand,

I idly wondered for a moment why I'd hallucinate such a busty woman, when my natural inclination was towards more modest chests.

I looked over my shoulder again, and indeed I was still alone. "You don't exist," I replied, still trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I opened the medicine cabinet, hoping to find some indication that the mirror had been replaced with a screen, anything to explain this nonsense other than the fact I must be going crazy, but there was nothing but a spare razor and a bottle of aspirin. I took down the bottle, then when I closed the medicine cabinet to check if she was still there, the woman sighed, exasperated.

"If I did not exist I could not speak with you," she said flatly, "I have grown used to the reactions of newly awakened Scions, but this does grow tiresome."

"Yeah, but you're literally just an image in the mirror," I shot back, rubbing my eyes. Nope, she was still there, and I was still hearing her even with my eyes closed.

The woman in the mirror put her hands on her hips, in that traditional I'm-done-with-your-bullshit way that all women seemed to instinctively know. "We can proceed in one of two ways," she said, matter-of-factly, "You can either listen to sense and acknowledge that I exist, even though I do not occupy a place in your material reality, or you can continue with your foolishness and I can go back to sleep and await a better host. I have little patience for how modern people have come to mistrust their own senses."

I gripped the sink and peered it's basin, hoping that some sense of normalcy would reassert itself, but when I glanced up again, she was still there, in the mirror, glowering. I closed my eyes, and tried to think rationally. Either the woman in the mirror was real, or I was hallucinating or otherwise being delusion. I could either play along or continue to refute her existence. If I refuted her and she didn't exist, everything was fine. If I played along her and she wasn't real, well... I still felt relatively rational, just hung over. If she was a delusion, hopefully I'd be able to identify when she was making me do something obviously dangerous.

In the case that I refuted her and she did exist, I would lose my only chance to figure out exactly what was going on here. The only possibility I couldn't quite account for was if she did exist and I did listen... so, I may as well play along until I can suss out what precisely she wanted with me.

I looked back up at the woman in the mirror. "I... I'm sorry," I said slowly, trying not to feel too ridiculous for apologizing to my mirror, "But this is a completely new situation for me. I didn't know mirrors could hold people."

The woman smirked with triumph, and crossed her arms under her breasts, framing them rather nicely for my view. "I am no more 'held within' the mirror than you are. You have much to learn, young prince, so let this be your first lesson- the mirror is a gateway to the psychic," she instructed, with evident smugness now that I was acknowledging her as real, "Peering within a mirror can show much more than your mere physical appearance, and that which reflects may also reveal."

I sighed and rubbed my aching temples. What was this, some kind of New Age garbage? "Well, if you're not inside the mirror, then where are you?" I asked, doing my best to keep the annoyance out of my voice. Of course my possibly-drug-induced hallucination woman was going to be a brat about it, too.

"I am within you, of course," she said with obvious pride and satisfaction, "I am Ayaundinshal, the Grimoire of En-me-zannag, the Sage of Names. Inscribed within me are the 144 Great Spells of Atlantean Lore, and I have been soulbound to great heroes, leaders, and magi for thousands of years. Be honoured, young prince, for you have become a part of greatness this moon."

At that I could only stare dumbly. The woman was still preening when I swallowed a few moments later, my throat still aching, as I shook out a pair of aspirin from the bottle, and downed them with another mouthful of water. No, it didn't work, taking my time replying didn't offer any clarity on what she had just said or how the nonsense syllables hit my ear.

"So... would Aya do, as a shorthand?" I asked, spitting once again into the basin. With some annoyance I noticed my toothbrush had landed on the floor. It wouldn't need more than a rinse- I kept my bathroom, at least, very clean, thank you very much- but it was still kind of gross, and I ended up kicking it in the direction of the trash can.

"'Aya' will do, and you are not the first of my Masters to shorten my name so," the woman, Aya, replied, laying a finger along her jaw with an amused expression, "You will find that I will be much more accommodating of you when I don't have to prove my own existence."

I sighed, running a hand through my hair nervously. Okay, so the mirror-lady had a name. Following that, I guessed I should start at the top. "You referred to me as a 'prince', just now," I ventured, "Unless you know something about my heritage that I don't, I'm about as 'royal' as a brick." While I talked, I had filled a second cup of cold water, which my throat accepted as greedily as the first one.

"Bloodlines and sanguinity have little to do with it," she replied, her gaze meeting mine in the mirror, "By accepting the Grimoire you have also accepted the title. The Princes of Atlantis were drawn from the greatest magicians living in the lost city, each Grimoire passed down from sorcerer to sorcerer in an unbroken line to the dawn of magic itself." She frowned, suddenly, before looking away. "Unfortunately, after the Fall, certain requirements of the title have been put by the wayside, in the name of survival."

I frowned, opening my mouth to respond to her barb, but Aya interrupted me. "The time for questions is over," he said, her hand cutting the air in a slashing motion, "You are about to learn why the world of magic is kept secret from the attentions of mortal men."

I was startled by the sounds of someone trying to open, then knocking at my apartment door. Looking around, I noticed that Aya had vanished from the mirror, and it was hard not to wonder if I had been suddenly brought back to reality out of a dream.

Curious, I left the bathroom, turning the corner to regard my apartment door with suspicion. As I did so, there was a second, more impatient knock. I looked, making sure the bolt was closed, before I leaned in and put my eye to the peephole, peering out into the hallway.

There were two people out there, a man and a woman, looking like nothing so much as a pair of government agents straight out of the X-Files. The man was tall, bald and black, and had a medium build. The woman was a dirty blond, white, and had her hair back in a neat bun. Both of these wore dark suits and had sunglasses, with crisp white collars and black ties. I shook my head, bewildered. First Aya in the mirror, and now the men in black were here. Immediately my nerdy brain labelled them as Rude and Elena, respectively.

The woman, Elena, spoke first, raising her voice authoritatively so I could hear her clearly through the door. "We can see the peephole darken, Mr. Campbell, we know that you're in there," she told me, sounding more like a disappointed schoolteacher than a secret agent, "Please, we just want to speak to you about the events of last night. Won't you let us in?"

"Uh, sorry, one second, I haven't dressed," I replied lamely, as my mind raced for what to do. Why were the men in black here? And how did Aya know who they were? My eyes went to the knob of the door's bolt, which was conscientiously locked- thankfully, given how they tried the door before knocking- then over, to my hoodie, hanging from a hook that some previous tenant had installed near the door. As quietly as I could, I slipped it on.

I suppose they must have knew I was lying, because they reacted immediately. "We've got a runner," I could hear the male agent mutter in the hallway, and I turned and ran, hurrying through the kitchen to the window. I could hear the first thump and crack, as the agents tried to bust the door in and the cheap, aged wooden frame already began to give, and that motivated me to pry the window open. It was just as neglected as the rest of my place, and shrieked in protest as I desperately clawed it up, the sounds of traffic and construction from outside becoming instantly clearer.

A second thump from behind and I was lifting my legs, one at a time, slipping through the open window into the daylight and noise of the street. I winced as I found the fire escape, the grated metal digging into my shoeless feet. Briefly, I wondered if I had time to grab my runners from the front door, or better yet my sturdy kitchen shoes, when the sounds of the apartment door finally giving way pushed me to scramble down to the alley below.

By the time Rude stuck his head out the window to find me, I was already all the way down, landing on my feet in the sticky, filthy alleyway. We had a moment of eye contact, him lowering his sunglasses to peer down at me, and then I was gone, charging out of the alleyway onto Claire Street. I was already planning my next move. Because of the sidewalk construction, I couldn't use my side of the street, so I had to go across, and then up to the next block to Duquesne Street. From there, if I could lose the MiBs or whoever they were, I could hop on the subway and go... somewhere else. A problem for me to figure out in the future.

I didn't have a clear idea of what time it was, but the sun was up and Claire was busy as always, and thankfully the traffic lights were in my favour as I dashed through the bumper to bumper cars. I was never much of a sprinter, so I was already panting by the time I made it across Claire and up the block to where it met Duquesne. If Claire was busy, Duquesne was packed- six lanes of delivery vans, taxis, and construction vehicles all in a jumble and moving like molasses, not to mention the clumps of pedestrians filling the sidewalk.

As I ventured down down to subway, slowing to a fast walk as I struggled to catch my breath, I tried to make sense of what just happened. I had some kind of secret agent team trying to break into my apartment, presumably to get to me, and presumably also having something to do with the magic lady in my mirror who claimed I was some kind of prince now. I had a hoodie and the t-shirt and jeans I went to bed with last night, but no shoes and- checking my pockets- no keys or wallet. Which meant no money, which meant I was screwed.

I glanced to one side, where an athletics store was open, it's display window showing off a variety of runners and skate shoes. I frowned at the display with jealousy, when I noticed in the reflection of the glass there was someone standing beside me, arms crossed. "Why are you slowing?" Aya asked with a tone of annoyance, "Do you think your pursuers deaf and blind?"

"I need to catch my breath," I replied, but I still shot a glance back over my shoulder, just in time to see Elena and Rude round the corner. They spied me, and I saw Elena reach under her suit jacket, and somehow I found my motivation to run again.

I scrambled for the subway station at the end of the block, shoving pedestrians out of my before awkwardly dancing around a woman with a baby stroller. Once at the entrance to the Duquesne Street subway station, I stumbled more than descended down the stairs into the fluorescent-lit bowels of the street. It was hardly a stealthy escape, with people shouting and cursing me as I jostled and bounced my way through the crowd, but the only thing that mattered to me was breaking line of sight with the MiBs and getting on a train before they could catch up with me.

Once inside the station, I spared a glanced for the ticket counter guy, a stork-thin man with a puff of thin white hair that I knew by sight but not by name. He was dealing with a line a dozen people long, so I vaulted over the gate as stealthily as I could while he was distracted. Luckily, the rent-a-pig must have been busy elsewhere, because nobody stopped me or even commented on it, though I did get cut-eye from some Karen-looking woman with two handfuls of shopping bags.

I heard a shout from behind me, and looked back to see Rude and Elena right on my heels, jumping the turnstile themselves as the counter guy shouted at them in surprised anger. I ran past a blue-haired woman with a guitar busking in the station hall, glancing around for something, anything, to help me get away, and spotted the washrooms. With few other options, I ran for it.

Bursting into the men's room, feet sliding briefly on the floor, wet from people spilling water from the sinks and I didn't want to know what else. It was gross as hell, but I tried not to mind that as I stumbled to the counter, gripping it hard, and looked into the mirror. "Okay, Aya," I said in a panic, glancing around in the mirror for her, "If you really can teach me magic or something you'd better get on it because I just can't shake these guys."

But there was no Aya, and no response.

The door to the bathroom slammed open, and the two MiBs stormed in, Rude looking pissed, and Elena more professional. As one, they reached under their jackets, and pulled out small, silvery, pistol-looking things with a cylinder attached to the top, not unlike a pair of water pistols, except glinting at the barrel end of each snub-nosed "gun" was a tiny needle.

I stumbled back, fear finally seizing my brain and driving all my escape plans from my mind. I crept backwards, away from them, as the advanced, eyes fixed to the injector-gun-things in their hands. "Aya!" I called one last time, in desperation, but there was still no response.

With a heavy bang, the door to the bathroom slammed open again. The MiBs whirled around, just in time for the busker girl to reach out, grab Elena by the tie, and lift her up in the air one-handed. Elena squawked in surprise as the busker tossed her bodily into one of the empty toilet stalls. Rude lunged forward, aiming his injector for the busker, but she grabbed his wrist, and began twisting the gun around. They struggled, briefly, but the busker's immense, unnatural strength was too much, and she slammed the injector into his chest. Rude gasped, for a moment, grabbing at the busker, before he fell to the ground with a dull thump like a pile of wet laundry.

The busker, her greenish-blue hair in disarray, and a heavy trench coat at least two sizes two big wrapped around her, extended a hand to me. For a heartbeat I thought she was going to quote the Terminator, but instead she said, "Aren't you coming? They're not going to be out long. We've gotta get on the train, now!"

Glancing at where Elena was crouched in the bathroom stall, glaring daggers at me while she nursed her arm in a heap between the toilet and the wall, I nodded, and stepped forward to take the girl's hand.