Human hands have twenty-seven degrees of freedom.
The human heart has thousands.
-Anonymous
~
The human heart has thousands.
-Anonymous
~
The city is grey in the morning. Come to think of it, it’s grey in the afternoon and evening, too.
The streets are at best littered with trash, and at worst littered with bodies. There are abandoned fountains at every corner and at the center of the city is a factory.
Once upon a time, the city used to be beautiful. Once upon a time, the city used to have a name.
It used to have a savior.
It’s a city held together with broken teeth and mortar mixed from tears, and no amount of patching ever seems to do any good.
~
Broken birdie with no wings to fly
The words flow through his mind without entering his ears. It feels like water in his head.
A single painted feather drifts down from the sky and brushes against his arm. He picks it up, and when he looks to the sky there is nothing there.
And on he walks.
Everyone calls it the Facility; it used to have a proper name, and probably still does. But the sign’s worn away and he can’t be bothered to try and recall what was written on it.
The electric doors don’t work anymore, and have to be pried open with a crowbar. One of these days it would probably just be easier to smash the glass.
The lobby is green in some places, and grey in others, and where it isn’t grey or green, it’s a brownish red.
But it’s best not to look in those corners.
The elevators, miraculously, still work. The doors slide open and he steps inside, where the elevator music begins playing in his head.
He takes the elevator to the top floor and for the day, his hell resumes.
~
When Grace opens her eyes, she finds a patch of cold sun on her hands. She is still clutching the coffee thermos she fell asleep holding. She discovers a crick in her neck as she stands, and as she does so, a slip of white paper falls to the ground. it tells her the location of a small cache of food, that there is water in the thermos now, instead of coffee, and, in a post-script, that it doesn’t matter if she stays or goes.
The city doesn’t look any more promising by daylight. Grace leaves the building and begins to walk. Maybe she’ll return tonight. Maybe not.
She takes the marble from her pocket and rolls it over her knuckles and between her fingers. It glimmers dully in the light.
The city is strangely void of life, or at least, she thought it was. Out of the corner of her eye she sees traces of movement, groups of dirty children moving in the alleys. They look…strange. Almost part animal.
The hairs at the base of her neck stand up.
~
Sometimes, when he's suspended in the tank, he thinks he can hear voices.
He is their last try, the final hope. If it fails, if he fails, then it will all be gone. He's got nothing left to lose anyway.
The tank gives him plenty of time to think. To breathe. To Be. He hasn't been able to be anything in a long time.
He thinks about the girl in his abandoned building, Grace, wonders what will become of her, if she will still be there when he returns. It doesn't occur to him that instead of when he returns, it could be if.
She wouldn’t know what happened to him, and he could picture her wandering around the city forever calling his name.
His back begins to itch.
In the tank, he thinks of things that he would not usually think about. He thinks about his childhood.
He thinks about his brother.
~
She supposed the first air-raid sounded at about noontime. she didn't have a watch.
The taste of panic was a familiar one on her tongue, sweet and tangy, and when she scurried to find a place to hide, she couldn't help thinking, I suppose things aren't so different here after all.
The capsules fell soon after that.
It was the exact same, the capsules falling open like flowers, the creatures emerging, and the prayer repeating itself over and over in her head, and beneath it all, things aren't so different here after all.
~
The pain is almost unbearable. He flailed around in the holding tank trying to reach his back. Streams of scarlet tainted the water pink.
Something was ripping, tearing, trying to break through. He hears voices outside the holding tank.
Adrenaline pumped through his veins, and his vision filled with red.
The holding tank began to crack.
~
It’s a continuation of nightmares, and once again she can’t run away.
She folds herself into a ball, as small as she can manage. One of the creatures is creeping closer; it can smell her fear as easily as she can smell the putrid stench roiling off of it.
There are no pros or cons—it’s either get up and run, or don’t. Either way will end the same, the only difference is the length of it’ll take.
The creature barely looks human anymore—all elongated limbs, and loose skin. It’s dome shaped head is dominated by large, baby blue eyes. A sound escapes from its torn lips, and under the gut-wrenching fear, it sounds like her name.
She begins to whimper. The creature reacts to the sound of her voice, rearing backwards on its spindly legs, mouth open, revealing rows of sharp, bloodstained teeth.
She squeezes her eyes shut and waits for the blow, for the feel of rendering flesh. But it doesn’t come. Perhaps Time had taken pity on her and removed itself from the equation, leaving her in a blissful, quiet state of limbo.
When she looks up, it isn’t who she expected to see. He crouches over her and shielding them from the view of the creature is a pair of brilliantly pure white wings.
You know my brother, he says, except the words flow into her mind, like melted snow.
He lays a hand on the top of her head and instantly she is calm. The wings fold up neatly against his back.
Run. And a final message for my brother—warn him not to be crushed by the falling walls of Jericho.
~
There is blood and water everywhere and something is terribly wrong. He can’t feel—think—move—breathe—
The voices in and around his mind are louder than ever, and now he feels hands all over him, touching, prodding, poking.
Everything hurts and something is moving on his back and he could vomit from the pain of it, and so he does.
The city’s being attacked again, and somewhere in the mortar maze is Grace.
They’re pulling him to his feet, and he can’t even recall how he got to the ground. His back feels like it weighs a million pounds.
Time doesn’t exist now, it comes and goes and before he knows it he’s outside and breathing in short panicked gasps.
He’s walloped to the side, and the new weight below his shoulders throws him off balance, but then he is righted and the creature is dead at his feet. He has no weapons. He never even touched it.
The sun blazes out from beyond the clouds for the briefest of moments, and from the shadows cast on the grey cement he sees a large pair of hands protruding below and up beyond his shoulder blades, clenching and un-clenching their long fingers. The creatures reddish brown blood drips in sickly ribbons. They have a mind of their own and he is propelled forward without his body’s permission.
He has to find Grace.
The street is littered with capsules, the pavement pockmarked with craters and the creatures—unearthly soldiers, spawn of hell—they are everywhere.
The city is losing itself and he can do nothing. But the things on his back again propel him forward, forward forward
forward.
When he lifts his own arms, they’re covered in blood not belonging to him.
A pair of creatures rushes him and are thrown back by flying chunks of cement. He is again thrown forward and the strength of his landing—or perhaps it is the force of the balled up fists hitting the cement—creates a larger crater than those surrounding him.
The path is clear now, lined with blood and shards of rock, and at the end, he sees his brother.
The city used to have a town hall, a ridiculous affair with towers and pillars, which in the end, fell like everything else.
Jeremiah—
In the center of the townhall rubble he stands—
Jeremiah…
Like twins, their mother would say, though they were several years separated in age. Her precious boys.
His brother stands in the rubble, encased in his brilliant wings.
The other can feel the hands on his back encircle him, fingers clasping together, embracing him, comforting him, and the sensation fills him with the urge to cry.
You have been given a mockery, Brother.
The words in his mind ring with disappointment, and that in and of itself is a familiar feeling. He picks his way through the remains of the building, and his brother walks forward to meet him.
His brother’s footsteps trail light. When the other looks, he sees that his own footsteps trail black ink.
The walls are closing in on you, Brother. Don’t let them fall.
~
The sky is covered in fallen feathers and broken fingernails.
~
Time and water
Both flow around obstacles
Both can save your life
But both can also push you under.
Don’t drown, Brother.
Both flow around obstacles
Both can save your life
But both can also push you under.
Don’t drown, Brother.
You did this to me.
Spoiler! :
Gender:
Points: 2188
Reviews: 74