The heat in Ballard didn’t shimmer; it throbbed. It was July 2026, and the “Big Blue” tent city near the library was a kiln of nylon and asphalt.
Elias and Kael sat on a stained mattress, the air smelling of saltwater and hot garbage. They hadn’t slept in four days. The new batch—something whispered about as “Neon”—wasn’t just a high. It was a rewrite of reality.
The Shift
When Elias took the hit, the sound of the 44 bus didn’t screech; it roared like a dragon. He looked at Kael, whose eyes weren’t pupils anymore—they were swirling voids of obsidian.
“Do you see them?” Kael whispered, his voice sounding like grinding tectonic plates.
“The Shadows,” Elias gasped.
To their eyes, the Saturday morning crowds at the Ballard Farmers Market weren’t people. They were Hollows—shambling, grey husks with teeth made of glass, leaching the color out of the world. Every stroller was a cage of thorns; every laughing couple was a pair of sirens screaming silent, ego-destroying frequencies.
The Harvest
They moved with a speed born of chemical desperation. Elias grabbed a rusted rebar stake from a construction site on 22nd; Kael had his jagged “security” blade.
In their minds, they were Paladins. They were the last defenders of the Light, purging a demonic infestation that had swallowed the historic district.
- The Market: To the world, two frantic men tore through the stalls, screaming incoherently. To Elias, he was shattering crystal statues that bled dark ichor. He swung the rebar, and every “thud” against a Hollow was a victory for the sun.
- The Locks: They ran toward the water. The tourists watching the boats were transformed into a legion of gargoyles. Kael worked with a terrifying, rhythmic precision, “freeing” them from their stone skins.
- The Avenue: The trendy boutiques and oyster bars became fortresses of the damned. They smashed glass, chasing the grey shapes into corners, ignoring the very human screams that they heard only as the screeching of bats.
The Silence
The summer sun began to dip, painting the Olympic Mountains in a bruised purple. The frantic energy of the “Neon” began to evaporate, leaving behind a cold, hollow ache.
Elias stood on the corner of Market and Leary, the rebar heavy in his hand. The “demons” were gone. But as the veil lifted, the world didn’t return to its vibrant self.
The grey didn’t vanish. It just solidified.
He looked down at his hands. They weren’t glowing with holy fire. They were stained a deep, tacky crimson that matched the sidewalks of the neighborhood he’d grown up in. The silence of Ballard wasn’t the peace of a saved world; it was the heavy, suffocating quiet of a graveyard.
Kael was sitting on the curb, staring at a pile of colorful sundresses and spilled organic honey, his eyes finally beginning to track the blue and red lights reflecting off the storefront windows.
“Elias,” Kael croaked, the hallucination finally snapping like a dry twig. “Why is everyone sleeping?”
Elias didn’t answer. He just watched the sun go down over the Sound, waiting for the shadows to come back and take him, too.
Meanwhile, somewhere in another dimension – this is Seattle, Washington:
Which dimension of Seattle, Washington do you live in?
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