Sky City (The Rise of an Orphan)

by RD Hale

  A memory tears into the scene, accompanied by a pain stabbing at my heart. Summer time. She was picking flowers with a smile. A big bright beam which demanded you to step into a world of blameless sanguinity and did not take No for an answer. 'Live for the moment,' she used to say. And we all did. I sit motionless, taking short breaths as my eyes lose focus and the girls sob uncontrollably.

  'What's wrong? What's wrong?'

  My sister runs over on stumbling legs weakened by trepidation and my index and middle fingers close eyelids as Emmi collapses to knees. 'Nooo,' she sobs, burying her face into a breathless torso.

  As I linger in disbelief others join the hysteria and I strive to separate my mind from the hideous cries in search of a reality where this is not really happening. Finally Oscar speaks: 'She's gone, our friend, she's de… What are we gonna do?'

  'We should b-bury her. We should dig a gr-grave,' I reply, my trembling voice barely audible.

  Grabbing a rusty spade from the junk room, I traipse into the courtyard with Oscar following and we remain muted as we break crusty topsoil, fearful of any word which may invoke further tears. Digging deeper and deeper I delve into surreal recesses of emotion, having never wanted to do something less or conversely been more compelled to continue. Dirt moistens and penetration becomes easier but a flood of cortisol has weakened my arms.

  'I cannot believe we're doing this,' I mumble.

  Cramp strikes my lower back so I stop to rest for a few seconds, screwing my runny nose, but I feel guilty as though I am letting her down so I push through my pain threshold until we are six sickening feet deep.

  'I think that's enough,' I gasp.

  Tired arms heave us from a hole with an unthinkable purpose and a pair of teenage gravediggers stroll into bleakness, covered in filth. A sheet has been placed over our sleeping sister and her tragic sight causes momentarily lapsed pain to rematerialise. My subconscious is battling to suppress her premature demise, but when Lel springs into my mind the guilt of forgetting intensifies the trauma as a punishment for being so selfish. And I cannot imagine a greater form of torture.

  'The grave is ready. We'll bury her this evening,' I mutter.

  I send Smig a message on my holowatch: I have terrible news. Lesley has passed away. We are burying her tonight. Please come.

  I clean my filthy hands in the bathroom sink and retreat to my room, settling into a melancholic state to write a child's eulogy. Word after word is scribbled out and page after page is scrumpled. Anger arises from my bungling efforts because writing is usually my strong point, but this is too personal and no language can truly express the magnitude of emotion. The pen digs into the page until it snaps and shards of plastic scratch my hand. Scurrying through my belongings to find another one, I continue to scribble barely comprehensible ramblings. Hours later, I hear a roar.

  'ARTURO! ARTURO!'

  Plunging downstairs, I return to the despondency which is still horribly real and I am met by the first sign of real emotion in the usually indecipherable face of Smig. Our former classmate's skin is a furious crimson and tears steam in his eyes as he rips the collar of my t-shirt, snarling:

  'How could you let this happen to her? She was our friend, Arturo. You could've taken her to a doctor, you have the money.'

  'W-we thought she was getting better, she seemed okay yesterday. I don't know what happened. I-I'm sorry.'

  'You could've helped her. It's all your f...'

  Tears blur vision as every word bludgeons my enfeebled self like a blunt weapon and I collapse to knees, sobbing as Emmi speaks in my defence:

  'Smig, it wasn't Arturo's fault. He said he would take Lel to the doctor, but she said she'd be okay.'

  Emmi's words succeed in subduing Smig's desire to lash out and he drops his head, shaking as my sister puts an arm around him. The boys and I carefully wrap our lost angel in the sheet, tying it at the ends and she is so familiar yet every touch elicits terror and trauma. We carry the body which once contained our beautiful friend to the grave and we lay her onto another sheet, which has been placed beside the hole where she will be disassembled, recycled.

  Searing tears brew a storm of grief as we stand in a trembling circle below a grey sky. Four of us take the frayed corners of the sheet and lower her into the ground - a girl swallowed by the dirt - as we share the desperate wish to rewind the nightmare, the demoralising feeling she does not belong there.

  'Nooo,' Emmi sobs.

  'Okay, everybody. I-I'd like to say a few words.' I tense as each decibel leaves my mouth, focusing through emotion to give Lel the tribute she deserves:

  'Lel's gone and it's difficult to understand why. We're all confused, angry, upset, but this is never how Lel was and our tears would probably annoy her! We grew up together, ran away together and we remained a family in the truest sense. All we've really known is each other and we share a lifelong bond. There are people who couldn't be here today - Lel's parents and Killow - finding out will hit devastate him as it has all of us. Lel's mother is dead, her dad's in jail. He may never know...

  Lel's no longer here in person, but she'll never be forgotten. She was always smiling, carefree and nobody could say anything bad about her - other than the fact she was a tiny bit weird! She was testament to the fact we do not require anything other than positivity - not optimism. The two are different. Optimism is the faith that things will get better, often without reason. Positivity is the assertion that things do not need to get better. Life is not about what you have, it's about who you have and in Lel we had one of the very best.

  Together we faced the worst - starvation, isolation, intimidation and it never phased her. She remained constant, bubbly. She realised every second spent not having fun is a second wasted and she did not waste many.

  Emmi, Bex, Mila, you guys were inseparable, always running off together, always up to no good! There's gonna be an emptiness, a void which is difficult to fill, but we should fill it with memories. Let Lel's memory keep us together always. That's what she'd want and we should live as best we can in her honour.

  Lel was taken away from us by a cruel, unforgiving world and she did not deserve it. There's no reason why. No purpose. No deeper meaning. We've always known of our mortality, but never faced it so closely and so never understood it. We've seen pain, misery and death in the slums but we've always defied it. Free spirits in our own timeless bubble. Our maxim to have fun. There was not meant to be a tomorrow.

  I do not believe there is a goddess, none of us do and I'm not gonna patronise you now by pretending otherwise. If there was a hereafter, why bother with a charade? Chance has given us one infitisemal speck within infinity. And all we can do is live it as best as we possibly can. If we cannot live for joy, what else can we live for? This is what Lel understood and we should let it be her legacy. If we have just one moment, no matter what happens, it will always have been. The time we shared can never be taken away, that is immortality. Lel, I am proud of you. We all are and we'll always miss you. Rest in peace.'

  Spread of Fear

  Days pass and the discriminate plague spreads across the land of Anatolia and throughout the San Terian empire. Online forums are full of people blaming each other and the conditions they cannot escape, the immorality they are forced to live by and the stray animals they poison and burn. And when the government is blamed it sounds like just another conspiracy theory, but it is probably true.

  The quietude of the main room is unnerving as I stare at a poster-cluttered wall, lacking the motivation to do pretty much anything other than exist. Scoop is showing signs of recovery but as he stoops across to the couches clothing hangs from his withered body and his gaunt face has aged a quarter century at least.

  'It'sth an effort to walk.' Scoop clutches his stomach as though ready to revert to the vomiting phase.

  'You're one of the lucky ones,' I tell him, receiving a glare and as Scoop slumps onto a seat he takes a deep, wheezing breath.

  'Lucky? How isth thisth lucky? Tho
sthe bassthards can bring millionairesth back from the dead, but a girl like Lel - she doesthn't matter. Why did I live and she didn't? It'sth not fair,' Scoop says with tears boiling in his eyes.

  'Yeah I know, but you shouldn't beat yourself up. After refusing to go to the doctor you could've died too, but that wouldn't bring Lel back would it?'

  'I know, it'sth justht... Argh, I dunno. At leastht I've sthtopped throwing up and sthweating, I think I'm getting better.'

  'It's just as well, you were stinking the place out!' I remark, laughing for the first time since...

  'Thanksth for that, Arturo. I want usth to get her gravesthtone today. It should be ready now and you have the money.'

  'Fair enough, now is as good a time as any.'

  With the others tucked away in the bedrooms they have barely left, Scoop and I head into the van and drive through the slums to fulfil a duty we can ill afford. The survivor's sporadic coughing and revving of the engine are the only sounds breaking the silence because the usually swarming streets are desolate until, about three miles from home, we approach a disturbance.

  A masked mob is hounding a crying lady and I slow down, watching intently as the encircling figures shove her back and forth with gloved hands. It is tempting to mow the bastards down but I would probably crush their victim in the process.

  'The bitch could be infected just like her kid was. Burn everything!' a female screams and as we cruise past this confrontation a man spills a bottle of fluid in and around the entrance to her pitiful chipboard shack. I blare the horn, but one of the antagonists points a pistol at our windscreen so I duck my head low and blindly floor the accelerator, only sitting up when we are safely beyond the gunman.

  In the rear view mirror I watch a masked figure striking a match which he tosses into the doorway as others hold the struggling woman back. She wails as flames engulf combustible materials of her home, condemning a couple of dozen surrounding shacks to a similar fate and as we turn a corner I tremble.

  'This is what they wanted, the bastards. We're turning against each other. No wonder people are so quick to enrol in workhouses. At least they're quarantined,' I murmur and thoughts of the incident compound the misery which makes me realise how easy our lives used to be.

  We reach old town, which would be more appropriately referred to as ghost town. There is hardly a person in sight and the shutters are down on pretty much every building in the vicinity; the owners fearing disease more than starvation. The lack of activity is disconcerting like we have become detached from reality: lost souls roaming the remnants of our previous existence.

  Litter is carried by the howling breeze as Scoop directs me to a shopping district. We disturb a number of pigeons who had the road to themselves and as they fly away we approach a row of brown buildings, identifying a sign which reads: Open for business.

  Parking directly outside the entrance of the building, we leave the engine running because there is zero chance of a motor thief lingering in the vicinity. A bell rings as we enter the stonemason's store to see rows of tombstones on display and these examples of deathly craftsmanship elicit a shudder as a voice screeches:

  'No mask? There's no entry without a mask.'

  'Relax, we'll cover our faces.' I pull my jumper over my nose and mouth like it will make the slightest difference.

  A gasmask-wearing man stares through murky eyeholes from behind a sparklingly polished counter. Although I cannot see an inch of his flesh, his body language alone suggests it would be better not to antagonise him. Scoop approaches and says: 'I've come for the headsthtone I ordered for Lesthley Everestht.'

  'You got the credits? Four hundred?' the man asks and Scoop nods in my direction so I remove cash from my wallet. Reaching across his desk I offer the notes to a gloved hand, but he reels back as though I am one of the infected.

  'Place it on the bench,' he instructs.

  Dropping cash, I step back with a head shake and the gasmask-wearing man picks up the credits with a pair of tongs, placing them into a plastic bag. Then he squirts disinfectant over the bench and scrubs away every last possible germ. My eyes fleet around white walls, trying to avert marble tablets and mounted stars that are waiting to represent victims of a genocide. The man takes the money bag into a backroom, muttering:

  'They'll have to be irradiated, can't be too safe.' Glancing back, he continues, 'Go to your vehicle and wait. We'll be out with the gravestone in a minute or two.'

  Scoop and I leave his store to bring an end to the contamination risk posed by our presence. Climbing into the van I strum fingers on the dashboard and we stare down the empty road which seems to stretch so much further than usual. The inactivity is so pronounced, the silence so loud. It would be easy to believe the entire city has been evacuated, yet most remain locked away. The misery, suspicion and fear are now more than mere emotions, rather intrinsic conditions of our environment.

  Two men wheel out the gravestone so I open the sliding door and they haul it inside, then scurry back into their building. We drive off in the direction we came to discover the slum lane now fully ablaze as people run through black smoke with armfuls of belongings. The mob are nowhere to be seen and the only plus point is the area is not too densely packed so the spread of fire is contained. Some of the shacks have collapsed and any meagre possessions left behind are irretrievable. My heart pounds with the urge to help these victims of arson but I would be close to useless so I selfishly drive on.

  Upon return to our quarantine zone we discover the gang have emerged from their hiding holes to fill stools around the compuscreen. No-one utters a word as we join them to watch a daily sermon, knowing the source of iniquity can never be trusted but desperate to learn anything we can. A ministress speaks:

  'A plague from the goddess has afflicted our land. An estimated one hundred million have been affected with a mortality rate of approximately sixty percent. The disease is extremely virulent and it can take two weeks to kill. The worthy appear to have been given natural immunity, as for the rest their days are likely to be numbered. This is a punishment for immorality. A message that we as a nation have been too tolerant of criminality, impiety, promiscuity, homosexuality, contraception... The list goes on. We must heed this warning and change our ways. Thankfully the goddess is merciful and she has given us a solution. We have a vaccine which will be offered free to all Citizens. Any bottom leveller concerned about infection must sign up to Level Three Citizenship and turn their backs on their immoral ways. Those who do not will be forsaken. The goddess has decided it is time to cleanse our land of the impure and we have one chance to repent.'

  I switch the drivel off at the wall and Oscar helps me haul the gravestone from the van to the yard; our shoulders lulling under the strain. Minutes later, the others join us and my breathing becomes heavier as I stare at a wreath which has been blown against the fence by the unsympathetic autumn wind. Mila gathers the withering petals, carefully placing them at the head of the burial mound. Silent and tearful we erect our monument. It reads:

  Lesley Everest

  11th January 2031 - 25th November 2046

  'Live for the moment'

  Unexpected Alliance

  'This is what Jardine warned us about. He said there would be a purge. This is it. We need to get out of the city. I'm going to see him, to see if there is anywhere for us to go,' I say.

  Several beseeching messages are sent to the rebel leader without response so I depart our headquarters, heading for Underworld with Smig and Mila. We cruise through the outer-hub and it too has been transformed by the atmosphere of apprehension, despite the immunisation programme. Although some Citizens venture out in public, they scurry to minimise their time in the open and the streets are free of bottom levellers, cleansed of the scum.

  Our conspicuous vehicle attracts eyes so we pull our hoods up to conceal faces from security patrols, but an over-zealous craft in our rearview mirror sounds its siren.

  'Shit they've spotted us. DRIVE!' Smig yells.
>
  Bones rattle as we race over cobbled streets, forcing the faster enemy vehicle to descend onto wheels which does not quite even the odds. Pedestrians scramble onto the pavement but the risk to human life does not perturb our pursuers. Our rear-end topples a closed stall and the ensuing chaos fails to provide sufficient distraction as the law enforcement vehicle emerges through wooden shards and scattered clothes.

  'We'll never outrun them in this thing. We'll have to escape on foot. Look for a r-'

  BANG! A rear tyre bursts and I wrestle with the steering wheel as the rim grinds the road. Our skidding van clips a curb and we jerk violently, spinning until we demolish the entrance of an antique store. Fragments of safety glass rain down as we crash to a halt, fortunately wearing our seatbelts.

  A damaged wall blocks the cracked window of my door so I shove Mila out the other side and stagger into the wreckage. An uninjured shop assistant gawps at shattered ornaments and artifacts which survived centuries only to be destroyed in our moment of desperation. The three of us take cover behind our crumpled vehicle, peering at the trail of destruction as the patrol craft lands outside. Two uniformed officers jump out, crouching behind their doors with phasers aiming through broken shelving units.

  'DO NOT MOVE!'

  'RUN! Through the back,' I yell.

  We hurdle the service desk with phaser fire whizzing past our heads and hurry through the storeroom to an ajar door, entering a small yard unscathed. Skidding out the gate I spot a rubbish deposit system in the alleyway and sprint towards our all too convenient escape route.

  'In there!' I yell, sliding the cover open to jump into the mouth. I lie flat to avoid the innards as the conveyor belt whizzes me along to the collection facility and although I should have ensured Mila was safely inside first, she should only be moments behind. After a short duration my backside squelches on soggy garbage ready to be taken to landfill and goo clings to my hands as I clamber up.