The House stands on the outskirts of the city, in a place called The Comb. Long high-rises are lined up here in jagged rows, separated by the square-concrete voids of courtyards. The teeth are white, many-eyed, and look exactly like one another. Where they haven't grown yet, there are only fenced-off wastelands. On the neutral territory between two worlds—the courtyards and the wastelands—stands the House. They call it the Grey House. It is old, closer in age to the wastelands—the graveyards of its peers. It has three floors; its facade faces the highway, and it too has a courtyard—a long rectangle enclosed by mesh. No one likes the Grey House. No one will say it aloud, but the residents of The Comb would prefer it weren't there. They would prefer it didn't exist at all.
