Rome Burning

by Sophia McDougall

  Heat struck his face and blurred his sight. There was a wall of terrible light somewhere but he couldn’t look at it. He heaved his legs free, rolled and fell; and for the moment he hardly knew where he was, what he had pulled himself out of or why there were smears of molten pain on his shins and hands – nothing, only the pitiless clutching of his lungs. Only that he would do anything to get one more breath.

  He was lying between the burning remains of the barracks and the brick wall behind them. The coughing, perversely, was more painful in the air, as though sheets of sandpaper were working in and out of his chest. He rose onto his hands and knees, powerless as spasm after spasm scraped through his throat; he almost felt his lungs would be forced bloodily inside out, and he wouldn’t care – anything if the choking would stop. And it seemed to him only that he was getting used to it, not that it was really easing. Still, as if by mere chance, he felt one palm slap blindly against the wall and he made some kicking movement on the dusty ground that levered him somehow onto his feet.

  What had he just done? The violence in his lungs – the burns shrilling on his hands – a few moments before he had been in no pain at all, by now he could have been past feeling anything. Then, why –? Not for his parents’ sake; though was it not chiefly for them that he’d knuckled down to each day of the last three years, that he’d done his utmost not to be tempted, to ignore every means of cancelling this unchosen stretch of his life? Yet he was guiltily aware that, there in the dark, if he’d remembered them at all it had been with the almost irritable thought that they would just have to put up with it. He’d had his chance, it had seemed allowed. After all this time trying to resign himself to captivity, there had been peaceful, effortless freedom, and what had he done with it? He was almost calmed by the touch of the wall beside him, by looking up and seeing the palisade of barbs overhead. He was not out of it yet, not by a long way.

  He stumbled forward, pushing himself along against the wall, walking, after a fashion.

  He croaked, ‘Sulien,’ and found that he could hear it, although even his own voice seemed to be happening outside a glass bubble in which his head was encased.

  Well, he thought, if he had survived this far, Sulien must have done too, he must have got out of the collapsed barracks, probably some time before Varius had himself. The section where Sulien had been did not even seem as badly blown in as the ruins he’d just escaped, a quarter or so of its roof was still in place, although pale smoke was swelling steadily above it. Perhaps Sulien was round on the other side – although Varius did feel a dim warning that this did not make much sense, lingering out in the open, in the scope of the blast.

  And he saw it now, as he reached the corner of the ruined barracks: a gorgeous, livid pillar of fire, continually buttressed by round explosions, casting a glowing shower of burning shreds and metal hail, rising into the sky from where the heart of the factory had been. A dome of barely penetrable heat extended around it, even to where he stood, where it met and merged with the heat of the burning sheds. Something screamed out of it, ploughing a yellow trail into the sky above the city. Varius staggered. Had Proculus really said a thousand people? It was not possible. In the distance he saw a small flight of figures running, stumbling over the remains of the little tramlines, but no more than ten, and no one else, and he could not see where they went— black and white chutes of smoke rolled and glided across the ground, another powder store burst and perhaps felled them all, he didn’t know.

  And he could not see Sulien. Bent double, he lurched into the glare with his arms crossed over his head, along the fractured front of the sheds and shouted again, but the curious certainty that Sulien was outside somewhere evaporated completely. For a stunned moment Varius stood lurching in the heat, panting, staring at the wreck. From here, the dormitory Sulien had entered looked worse than he’d thought – a stockade of trampled timbers and fire. The door was no longer a way in or out, only a bunch of flaming kindling, propped on the rest of the heap. He called hoarsely again and ran back round the building, knocking on the walls that still stood, and fell against the heating wood with another choking fit and a panicked feeling of helplessness. He shut his eyes as it occurred to him that even if Sulien were alive and conscious, he would be just as deafened as Varius was; they might both be shouting and not hearing each other.

  There was a rain-water butt against the wall beside him. Varius fell towards it rather than walked, and hung over it, wondering if he could move it and douse the flames enough to get into the barracks. But there was nothing at the bottom but a few cupfuls of fly-blown slime, which made him utter a gasping cough that was almost a laugh and swear hollowly. Then, with something close to exasperation at the uselessness of it, thinking, Might as well, he climbed clumsily onto the edge of the barrel, teetered a little and hoisted himself up onto the roof, then crawled over to the skylight. He lay beside it for a moment, trying to get control of his protesting breath. White smoke was already seeping up around the window frame, and when he stamped it through, a pale, thick column exhaled itself from the space. He turned his face away from it, screwed shut his stinging eyes and climbed down.

  The smoke had lost all its gentleness, it was like giant hands trying to hold his ribcage still. He felt the familiar haze growing in his head much faster this time, but not the vague addled pleasure at it. He’d lowered himself, as he’d hoped, on to the top of a relatively unscathed bunk. At this end the blast seemed to have tipped the whole row of bunks back and sideways, so that they were packed, tilting, against each other, like books placed untidily on a shelf. There was no way between them and it was only because the opposite row had been loosened and smashed that he managed to get down to the ground at all. Varius plunged down as fast as he could through the embrace of the smoke, on to some clear ground between the slanted uprights, sinking his face almost to the floor and gulping desperately at the air that was still there. It was amazing that there could still be such fierce light outside. It was so dark here that at once he saw the risk of being unable to find his way back to the skylight even if he had any time or chance to do so. And it was so loud, and the heat sent his burns, which for a minute or so he’d nearly forgotten, into infuriated tantrums of pain. He tried to console himself that perhaps that would keep him conscious a little longer. Grimacing, he began to feel his way along the ground in the dark, and then turned back, hesitated for a second, kicked off one of his shoes and left it there at the foot of the bunk he’d climbed down. It was probably pointless and seemed such a ludicrous thing to do that again he smiled sourly, but he hoped that at least if he crawled back this way and felt it again he’d know he was under the skylight.

  He crawled again along the remnants of the aisle, pushing aside or climbing over the hurdled planks. He patted around on the ground, calling, and nothing met his fingers except the sharp ends of split wood. Certainly if Sulien had been anywhere near the front wall then he was dead, Varius already knew that. And it was plain now that even if he was alive and trapped in the debris at the further end of the shed, in the kind of little cavity from which Varius had forced his way out, then Varius had no real chance of finding him, let alone digging him free, before the smoke carried away first his own strength and then his life. All he could hope for was that, in the blackness, Sulien might simply not have been able to find the skylights or a break in the roof. But he neither heard anyone answering his calls nor sensed any human movement in the dark. Then the space he was crawling along narrowed and his hands met a fence of slivers and beams which he could not move.

  Varius felt sideways and slid himself into the tilted space between the bottom of two beds. There was a kind of cramped pathway here, under the packed bunks, roofed with the slats and edges of the beds, too low for him even to crawl on his hands and knees. Varius swivelled round and pulled himself along it. Only a few minutes could have passed since the explosion, and yet he felt as if he’d been doing this for days. Again he felt the lure of lying down alone in the privacy of this
dark and narrow space. The confinement he dreaded so much in normal, day-lit life, seemed to welcome him forgivingly as if it had been waiting for him. And Gemella stepped lightly, casually into his mind, bringing the feeling he’d had sometimes in prison, that there was only a few inches between them, a barrier yielding as paper.

  He knocked again into an obstacle, something inert and soft: a shoulder, an arm in a sleeve. Varius started a little as if he’d completely ceased to expect this, and despite himself his breath accelerated with shock. ‘Sulien. Sulien,’ he said. He felt for the face: Sulien was breathing, but he didn’t move. Varius thought he must have been running down the aisle when the explosion had flung him back and slapped the bunk beds sideways above him. At least it had meant he’d been kept below the worst of the smoke. Varius shook him a little and at once thought derisively to himself, ‘he hasn’t overslept, idiot.’ He took hold of Sulien’s arm and dragged, the relief and surprise he had felt at finding him slipping into near-horror, for Sulien seemed to have become impossibly heavy, and as the space would not let Varius rise higher than onto his elbows, he only succeeded in pulling himself further along the floor. He hooked his feet around the leg of a bunk further back, wincing at the friction on his burnt hands, and managed to lug Sulien a short way – less than half his body’s length. But stretched across the ground like this it was difficult even to keep a good grip on Sulien’s arm, and it was far harder, far more draining, to move him than he would have expected. He thought he heard Sulien groan dully as he slid over the floor, but he remained motionless, heavy. Varius shuffled backwards, anchored himself by his feet again and tried once more. But already he found he was panting and the smoke had lowered. The coughing squeezed his chest and throat so that he felt close to retching, and knew he would never do it this way.

  He managed to surface a little, got an arm up between two beds, felt about and tugged down a filthy sheet, gathering it messily into a bunch and trailing it behind him as he crawled back to Sulien. He pushed it under Sulien’s head and threw his arms awkwardly over it so that it was under his armpits, and dragged it tight again.

  He was surprised that it worked so well. Pulling on the ends of the sheet he found he could haul Sulien further, with much less effort. He struggled past the blockage and out into the aisle, where at last he could rise onto his feet and lift Sulien properly. Standing up meant his head was again in the thick of the smoke, but he did it anyway, trying to hold his breath, and stumbled along backwards a little way before he fell down again, choking. He cast out on the ground for the shoe he’d left as a marker, felt it for a second as his scrabbling hand flicked it away into the darkness by accident. He began trying to heave Sulien up into his arms, but this time effort made him gasp dizzily and fold up again, once more bowing his face towards the ground, trying to find air. And there was not enough, the coughing made him shiver and reel. Something crunched in the blackness, the heat rolled in and the dull reddish glow he’d seen in the far edges of the dark grew pointed and turned to clear, sharp-edged blades of light, squares and triangles of yellow and orange, as the fire worked inwards.

  Varius tried to say, ‘Sulien, come on, wake up,’ but he couldn’t speak. He knelt awkwardly, Sulien propped beside him. To get this far, he’d had wilfully to ignore how difficult it was going to be to get Sulien up to the skylight. And he realised now that it was far worse than that – he couldn’t do it at all. Sulien was taller than he was, must be at least his own weight. To lift such a load over his head onto a platform, and then up through the skylight – it would have been impossible even at his normal strength; now, in pain and with nothing to breathe, he wasn’t sure he could even raise Sulien onto the lower bunk. In spite of this, he tried, but there was a muffled pressure growing in his head and his hands weakened so that he had to let Sulien down. He managed to wheeze thickly, ‘I can’t do it. I can’t lift you, Sulien. Just get up, I can help you then, I can’t do it unless you—’ And soft shutters were swinging slowly closed before him; he left Sulien lying on his side with his head turned away from the fire, and dragged himself heavily up the frame of the bunk bed, through the skylight again.

  He crawled to the edge of the roof to get his face free of the smoke, and let his head hang into space. The heat in the air was brutal, and he could feel it growing underneath him too, the structure cracking and weakening. The small wooden island was shrinking around him as the flames lapped up and across the shattered roof towards it. Varius’ shut eyes were bathed in a gritty acidic rinse, and he found he wanted to sob, he was so exhausted and it seemed so insultingly cruel. If he and Sulien were both going to be killed in an accident or a bombing, whatever it was, if he had even given out and lain still under the bunks a few minutes ago before he’d found Sulien, then bad, senseless as that would have been, it didn’t seem unreasonable to him. But to be allowed to get so pointlessly close, to be given just enough time and unexpected resilience and transient luck to let him see and think about how worthless his efforts were, it was enough to make him believe in vindictive gods.

  His eyes opened slowly and he stared at the indistinct ground; the air, however raggedly, moved in and out of his lungs. Inexplicably he felt himself relax, quietness running through him like a medicine – but not the drowsy acquiescence to death that had kept drawing close and then receding, since the first explosion. All this, he thought, was still too soon. Sulien was at least not yet certainly dead. And he had only climbed out to get enough breath to try again, and he could do that now. He took another draught of the hot air, as deep as he could, and slid back again across the creaking roof, into the dark shed.

  And yet it was not so dark as it had been; even in the little time he’d been outside, the fitful, dangerous light had grown stronger, although it was little use for seeing by in the smoke-drenched air. Varius dropped into the shadows beneath the bunks, steadily, although the airlessness at once resumed its pummelling assault on his failing body. He felt for Sulien on the ground, and could not find him, though surely he had come down in the same place. He almost thought, for an illogical and unsteadying second, that Sulien might not merely have died but somehow disintegrated completely. And then, faintly, he saw something move, only inches away from him and not a current of the smoke or a falling rafter. Putting out his hands doubtfully, Varius again felt Sulien’s arm, this time in mid-air, reaching blindly and laboriously for the edge of the capsized bed. Sulien had raised himself a little way, leaning clumsily on the bunk, his head hanging.

  Varius pushed back amazement. Sulien was not fully awake. Varius gripped his arm as if arresting a criminal who might escape, and began trying to force him onto his feet. Sulien swayed so that Varius staggered too and both nearly fell; he mumbled and repeated some baffled-sounding question that, in the liquid roar of the fire and the ringing in his own ears, Varius could not make out. Varius found that he was swearing viciously at Sulien and wondered faintly at the unfairness of it, but did not stop. Sulien made a clearer sound, a cry of pain as Varius drove him forward, so that Varius realised that he must be injured on his left arm, or side. For the moment he refused to feel any sympathy whatever: ‘Get up there, for fuck’s sake,’ he rasped furiously, though probably Sulien, coughing heavily now, didn’t know what was being said to him. Varius allowed him to sag against the bed and climbed onto its upper level himself, then grabbed at Sulien’s arm and collar, as he felt the foundering in his chest and skull grow again, almost forgetting what it was he was trying to do.

  Although Sulien was still only laggingly conscious, he could feel the advancing fire, and he tried to obey Varius’ bullying and raise his body up the frame, tripping and jarring the pains in his arm, side and head. He fell beside Varius, who at once hoisted him up again and felt desperately in the smoke to find the skylight, which, for a few appalling suffocating seconds, he seemed to have lost.

  At last, Varius’ hand touched space, and he steered Sulien towards it and pushed and bundled him upwards, until, with a dim surprise, he felt the
weight on his arms and shoulders suddenly disappear. He reached forward to climb out onto the roof, scraping at its surface with a drowner’s effort. But his legs crumpled under him. It was not much of a height from here – his head and shoulders were already out – but the smoke pouring up through the window, enveloping him, was now so dense that he could scarcely tell the difference, and the shuttered feeling closed inwards again while his arms pleaded to be excused any more weight, any more struggle.

  But as he buckled, he felt Sulien pull weakly, one-handed, at his arm, and hang onto his sleeve. He had no real strength to try and drag Varius up, the grasp only kept him from slipping back into the smoke. Varius lunged and surfaced onto the fragment of the roof, and the unsupported raft shuddered and dipped under their combined weight. Brokenly, Varius pushed Sulien towards the edge. He had forgotten the existence of the rain-water butt, and probably neither of them had enough dexterity left to climb down it even if he had remembered it. All Varius could do was try to clutch at Sulien long enough to slow his fall, then he rolled over the edge himself and dropped to the ground.

  As they staggered away, convulsed with coughing, a missile ripped out of the tower of fire at the centre of the factory and a blurred and melting round of explosions rumbled outwards. Flame and metal and smashed bricks swung through the air. The force knocked them both to the dust, the roof of the barracks caved in and sparks leapt up, but neither of them noticed.