Original // One-shot // Rot
Genres: sci-fi, horror, fantasy
Wordcount: 788
Summary: They have hidden there for so long that for the most part, they have forgotten that there ever was a sky.
Notes: Written for the week #69 prompt at themusecafe, the city.
Rot
Lyr was lost.
She squinted down at the directions again. They were all but illegible in the inconstant greenish murk of the dying hall-glow, but it didn't matter since she had them memorized anyway. She was sure she hadn't missed any turns.
And yet, retracing her steps only seemed to be twisting her deeper into the labyrinth of the lost wing she had somehow found herself in. She hadn't even known there was one this close to her home wing, let alone one this massive.
Lyr had been walking for nearly two days, and not seen a single living sign. These halls were dead, strangled with the lethal red rot and given over to such things as could grow in it; corpse-white fungi and yellow lichen, and reddish algae in the stagnant corner pools. Occasionally she spied four-legged things with long tails and sharp black eyes slinking through the corridors of shadow. They wouldn't speak to her, though. They chattered amongst themselves when she called out to them, but stayed hidden, eyes gleaming out from cracks and crevices when she passed.
How much of the city had the red rot eaten? The monitors insisted that only a handful of wings had been lost, and that those were carefully quarantined. The chance of contamination was very low, they said reassuringly. Really almost nil.
But there hadn't been a dead wing here before, and they hadn't said a word in weeks.
Lyr sighed. Wherever the archivist had lived, she didn't live there anymore. No one lived here. No one could.
*
There was a slant to the floor, she realized on the fourth day, through the beginning of the fume delirium. It was tilted upwards at a very slight angle, and had widened enough to fit several cycle lanes. Peering through the gloom, she saw that the doors opening off of it were not thresholds, but shop-fronts. They were derelict and draped with soft red sheets of rot, but here and there a sign corner was still clear enough to tell.
Downtowns didn't look like this anymore. Now they were narrow shafts ringed with thin wire staircases, each shop-front carved out of the otherwise-unusable upper walls, each being pushed ever higher towards the rarified air of the summit as the city drew inward, curling up on itself in a vain attempt to stave off the creeping red death at its heels.
She'd found a helixway. That meant she'd somehow made a direct line through the labyrinth out into the old city.
Perhaps she hadn't needed the archivist after all. Maybe all those dreams she'd had really were the whisperings of fate after all, as her grandmother insisted. This was too much luck even for her.
Invigorated, she cast off everything she was carrying that wasn't absolutely essential for survival. She didn't need her maps, or her books, or any of the heavy navigational equipment she'd spent a decade saving up for. She left it all leaning against a shop-front and didn't look back.
The climb took eleven hours. By the time she reached the gate, she was far beyond exhaustion, and the delirium of the rot had permeated her bones. The red walls shifted and melted around her, but she kept her eyes fixed on the path forward, and picked herself up every time she fell, heedless of her growing collection of scrapes and lacerations.
When at last the helixway broadened into a plaza and the road ended against a black stone wall, Lyr stood for nearly an hour with her forehead pressed to it, wondering why her feet wouldn't move anymore.
Then the sun rose.
There had been descriptions of it in her research books, and even a few penciled illustrations, but this…
Cowering back against the western wall, Lyr shielded her eyes and trembled. The light was like a living thing, rushing in through the cracks and thundering silently across the floor.
She moaned, in pain and rapture both at once. Did they know? Did the monitors know that the fire had died, that sky was no longer black with char? The sun was shining. She could see a hundred opalescent colours in it, and could not tell if that was only because of the delirium or not, and did not care.
Lyr had to know. Even if it… even if… she had to know. Staggering to her feet, she felt her way across the north wall until she found the great metal latch, half-rusted but still functional enough to open. It fell away, and the great stone doors groaned inwards, letting the searing light flood in.
In the moments before the sun burned away her eyes, Lyr saw the sky for the first time, and it was radiantly blue.
Wordcount: 788
Summary: They have hidden there for so long that for the most part, they have forgotten that there ever was a sky.
Notes: Written for the week #69 prompt at themusecafe, the city.
Rot
Lyr was lost.
She squinted down at the directions again. They were all but illegible in the inconstant greenish murk of the dying hall-glow, but it didn't matter since she had them memorized anyway. She was sure she hadn't missed any turns.
And yet, retracing her steps only seemed to be twisting her deeper into the labyrinth of the lost wing she had somehow found herself in. She hadn't even known there was one this close to her home wing, let alone one this massive.
Lyr had been walking for nearly two days, and not seen a single living sign. These halls were dead, strangled with the lethal red rot and given over to such things as could grow in it; corpse-white fungi and yellow lichen, and reddish algae in the stagnant corner pools. Occasionally she spied four-legged things with long tails and sharp black eyes slinking through the corridors of shadow. They wouldn't speak to her, though. They chattered amongst themselves when she called out to them, but stayed hidden, eyes gleaming out from cracks and crevices when she passed.
How much of the city had the red rot eaten? The monitors insisted that only a handful of wings had been lost, and that those were carefully quarantined. The chance of contamination was very low, they said reassuringly. Really almost nil.
But there hadn't been a dead wing here before, and they hadn't said a word in weeks.
Lyr sighed. Wherever the archivist had lived, she didn't live there anymore. No one lived here. No one could.
*
There was a slant to the floor, she realized on the fourth day, through the beginning of the fume delirium. It was tilted upwards at a very slight angle, and had widened enough to fit several cycle lanes. Peering through the gloom, she saw that the doors opening off of it were not thresholds, but shop-fronts. They were derelict and draped with soft red sheets of rot, but here and there a sign corner was still clear enough to tell.
Downtowns didn't look like this anymore. Now they were narrow shafts ringed with thin wire staircases, each shop-front carved out of the otherwise-unusable upper walls, each being pushed ever higher towards the rarified air of the summit as the city drew inward, curling up on itself in a vain attempt to stave off the creeping red death at its heels.
She'd found a helixway. That meant she'd somehow made a direct line through the labyrinth out into the old city.
Perhaps she hadn't needed the archivist after all. Maybe all those dreams she'd had really were the whisperings of fate after all, as her grandmother insisted. This was too much luck even for her.
Invigorated, she cast off everything she was carrying that wasn't absolutely essential for survival. She didn't need her maps, or her books, or any of the heavy navigational equipment she'd spent a decade saving up for. She left it all leaning against a shop-front and didn't look back.
The climb took eleven hours. By the time she reached the gate, she was far beyond exhaustion, and the delirium of the rot had permeated her bones. The red walls shifted and melted around her, but she kept her eyes fixed on the path forward, and picked herself up every time she fell, heedless of her growing collection of scrapes and lacerations.
When at last the helixway broadened into a plaza and the road ended against a black stone wall, Lyr stood for nearly an hour with her forehead pressed to it, wondering why her feet wouldn't move anymore.
Then the sun rose.
There had been descriptions of it in her research books, and even a few penciled illustrations, but this…
Cowering back against the western wall, Lyr shielded her eyes and trembled. The light was like a living thing, rushing in through the cracks and thundering silently across the floor.
She moaned, in pain and rapture both at once. Did they know? Did the monitors know that the fire had died, that sky was no longer black with char? The sun was shining. She could see a hundred opalescent colours in it, and could not tell if that was only because of the delirium or not, and did not care.
Lyr had to know. Even if it… even if… she had to know. Staggering to her feet, she felt her way across the north wall until she found the great metal latch, half-rusted but still functional enough to open. It fell away, and the great stone doors groaned inwards, letting the searing light flood in.
In the moments before the sun burned away her eyes, Lyr saw the sky for the first time, and it was radiantly blue.