...You blink awake. Involuntarily, you lash out an arm, meeting the slimy crunch of decaying leaves. Where are you? Above you, the sky is a foggy black, the stars small blurred pinpricks of light. You sit up with a gasp. You're at the edge of a vast and pitch-dark river. The river itself stands eerily still, the only movement the reflection of reddish light off of the water and the soft rocking of a boat a few feet away from you, on which sits a dragon with a claw reached out towards you. Her scales are the color of the river itself, washed in golden spots of light from the lantern held in her mouth. She's the type of beautiful that anticipates tragedy, a widow's frown already gathering on her forehead.

You blink. The fog gives you a hazy, woozy feeling, like you're alive in some long-gone memory. The dragon reaches out to you further, one knobby finger curling at the knuckle. You grasp onto the movement, the only real-seeming thing about this place. This dragon is the only thing tangible, and you find your brain traitorously putting faith in her. If she wants you to go, there shouldn't be any danger, right?

You step up to the boat, without thinking, close enough that you can smell her, something saccharine and nauseous, like rotting fruit. A hearth-like warmth is emitting from the lantern. She watches you approach, something like satisfaction curling at the corner of her mouth. When she speaks, it's not the grating rasp that you imagine but a youthful purr:

"Welcome! Can you pay?"

You don't know what she means. Pay for what? There's nothing she could provide except for a ride across the river. How long have you been awake? Ten years? Ten minutes? The lantern twists, becomes an open mouth. The dragon is a mouth holding a mouth.

"I need to cross the river," you say, before you've even thought the words.

"I know," says the dragon.
"What will you give me in return? I'm frightfully hungry."

"How about a childhood? Mine is ripe and ready for the taking." Your grandmother had taught you the ways and wishes of rivers.

(You don't need your childhood, anyway. You feel crushingly and frightfully old.)

The dragon thinks for a minute, then nods. You climb onto the rickety boat and disembark, the dragon using her tail to steer, the boat seemingly moving forward with no oars at all. You feel something heavy and awful looming against the back of your throat. A mass of grey bricks slowly appears in the distance, spires reaching thinly up through the fog.

Welcome to the Cathedral.