DEPTHS
I've forgotten something.
I walk quickly through the damp and soiled streets, edgy with the feeling of skyscrapers looming over me. Their mirrored windows glare at me with reflected eyes. Their box-like forms seem to be talking behind my back, whispering among themselves, snickering with reinforced concrete laughter. I know what they're saying. I feel it myself. I don't belong here, not now.
Night is falling. It is not the domain of such as me. Young, promising corporate executive. That's what they call us, anyway. I know, and the corporations know, that I'm just a routine paper pusher. My shiny office suit is like a beacon compared to the dank shadows surrounding me. They cling to me, try to absorb me into their drabness. I should be travelling on the moving pathways high above the dark depths of the city. They close before dusk, leaving me to pick my way through the maze of the city's lower levels.
I can feel eyes on me. Not the double-glazed eyes of the buildings above me, but the eyes of human beings. They scuttle within the homeless alleys, becoming bolder as the last vestiges of sunlight disappear from the disapproving windows. Degenerates. Sewer scum. I've heard them called worse. Always I've looked down upon them, a pair of eyes condescending from within an iris of mirrored glass. And now I am among them. And I'm afraid.
I can see them begin to emerge, the old with their swollen, spidery fingers, and the young with a wiry resilience that cannot be described as human. Their flinty gazes follow in my footsteps as I walk hesitantly past them. I put one foot in front of another, walking only because my body can at least perform this simple task without the aid of my tormented brain. I can feel their stares piercing me, turned towards me a hundredfold by the steel windows above.
It's strange. Half a century ago mankind celebrated the millennium. Singing and dancing, they turned their starlit eyes to the new dawn, and prepared to step into a new century. Their hearts were full of hope, their spirits full of dreams. Barely fifty years later, we have come to this. Despair above, and despair below. I lift my gaze to the heights of the city, taking what comfort I can from the sparkling affluence which obliterates the stars. Instead, the neon taunts me, laughing happily high above the squalor in which I find myself.
I can now see the people who call this warren home. Some huddle together for warmth, some stretch trembling hands towards unwilling flames, and some sit silently by themselves with their backs to the walls. It upsets me to see them like this, but there is nothing in my power that can be done for them. I can't give them credit, none here would have an account, let alone venture into the bustling veins of the buildings behind the watchful windows.
I hear the crunch of a heavy boot behind me. I whirl, frightened. I see nothing. Crunch. Again. I can see them now, three pairs of large ex-military issue boots. I look around me in terror. The eyes of the buildings are unafraid. They frighten me still, but are my only hope of sanctuary. I see young depth crawlers slip into the shadows cast by the lightless steel eyes. I follow. I can do nothing else.
A bristling black shoulder passes within inches of my face. I can smell the stench of blood, sweat, and leather. The boots stop, and their wearers survey the near abandoned road. They stop, and begin their advance towards their single target. An old man, quiet, defenceless, all alone with the cold building for a rear guard. Crunch. Crunch. I can feel the tension, see it stretched close to breaking point in the in the eager watchfulness of the same building who acted as both guard and tormentor to the silent man. Crunch. Crunch. The clank of chain. I feel the tension build around me, in my mind, in the flat orbs of the vigilant buildings, in every bone and muscle and sinew in my body.
I felt it break before I heard the whistle and thud of chains being used as a whip to bite into human flesh. I could hear the groans of the old man, the sudden gasp of one of his assailants as they realised that their quarry was not as helpless as he appeared. I dared to hope... But no. I heard the sound of boot hitting flesh, smelt the blood and the fear. Worst of all, I felt the laughter coursing through me. It flowed from the bellies of the scum of the heights, washed over the squalid street person they had chosen to beat for fun, vibrated through the crackling air, and jeered at me through the laughing eyes of the city.
They left then, but their laughter continued to stay with me, treading on my heels as I ventured towards the old man. He was not hurt as badly as I had feared, but nevertheless had taken a good beating. His eyes found mine, and searched the depths within me, as I stared wonderingly into his eyes, helpless, with nothing to offer him but wanting with every scrap of my being to help him. Slowly, hesitantly, I took a step forward. Then another. His eyes broke contact with mine, looking away in fear. Step. Another step. Keep walking.
Stopping in front of him, I offered the only thing I could give. I extended my hand. He stared at it in wonder and shock, then looked into my face. Something in my eyes must have reassured him, for he grasped my hand and let my strong young body heave his battered one off the ground and back to his place beneath the windows.
His eyes kept their hold on mine, and I could see something strange within them. Something I've never seen before, not for a very long time. His eyes began to sparkle, like the eyes of the city which caught the neon lights of the highest levels and reflected them back like stars. His face crinkled, and the corners of his mouth turned up in a wide and genuine smile.
Inexplicably, I felt my cheeks break free from their customary bonds, my mouth opening and flowering into a huge grin. My eyes blazed with the lights of the city, and I felt the windows respond to the light in my eyes.
Resuming my journey, I turned from the old man, the smile still plastered across my virgin face.
I've remembered something.