The stars are such wondrous things, aren't they?
When you look up and fix your eyes on your clear version of a night sky, you can see them, can't you? Those meticulously poked holes in the fabric of the universe, showing off their brilliant light to all the rest but what most overlook is their uniqueness...
Each and every one of them are different. In colour, size, age, whatever. They were made special in their own way. Each so...marvellously odd.
The same can not be true for these people though. The humans...at least not anymore.
Here on Low Landing, everything breathed chaos. Or at least orderly chaos. Take the buildings for example. Towering architecture built precariously on top of each other in zigzag formation like building blocks in muted tones of blue, red and black. Twisting streets that, without a map or general sense of direction,will leave you wandering around like a lost pup for hours, confusing interwoven train tracks built high above you so it feels like walking under a spider's web.
Evan Nightlark ran down the deserted street towards the large, grey platform building made of hardened steel, his chest pounding in a furious tempo, his hands uncomfortably sweaty where he held his bag of questionable things. I'm so stupid! He knew coming here on a test day was moronic but he had to, he couldn't disappoint her...not again.
He climbed up the marble stairs to the glass doors where two Metrons, sumptuous in ebony high-tech armour of the latest design, stood at guard.
"Skintag," demanded one of them through her helmet, her voice muffled but cold. Evan blinked and pulled up the sleeve of his black hoodie and presented his inner forearm. The Metron waved her gauntlet hand over the stark lines of his skintag and a little green light flashed on her hand.
"You may enter," she announced in cool tones, the doors behind sliding open with an audible swoosh. He stepped and groaned.
Ugh, people.
Standing in orderly rows shoulder to shoulder on the train platform like single minded ants. Above him was the billboard-sized screen mentor that showcased the trains arriving for the wane-hours of the day in neon white type. They waited for the train that would take them to the Centre, the busiest part of the city where all went to receive their work for the day that would take them to different sections of Elysium.
5:30 The Centre T1-ARRIVED
But as Evan made his way through the crowds, ignoring the subtle looks of disapproval and dissent at his shoving, he saw that near the front there was some sort of commotion.
"Hey, watch it!" grumbled an old woman wearing a bright blue dust coat over a hideous yellow ruffle collar shirt.
"Sorry," he mumbled and turned to see what was most certainly going to get him late.
The first thing he noticed was smoke. Not the smoke of a fire, no one in his short sixteen years of accumulated knowledge has ever seen an actual fire.
This smoke has a chemical flavour to it. Like diesel only heavily concentrated to the point it made his eyes water. His heart gave a sharp jab in his chest and he could sense it, the undercurrent of emotions of the crowd wafting overhead in a dull shade of grey. He glanced around, the people's faces showed nothing but pressed lips and hard eyes. A customary expressionlessness. But he could feel it regardless, the slight buzzing in the back of his mind revealing the emotions they hid well. Rage, pain, pity, grief. It was nauseating, feeling it all at once, but only just. He stood on his toes, glanced over their heads and grimaced.
His temple throbbed at a woman's screams. Her raw agony like savage clawing in his brain.
"MY SON! MY BOY!"
He pushed his way to the front, time's slippage momentarily forgotten as he took in the scene. There. Drawing the attention of the people was what was clearly a train wreck.
The very train, as it so happens, that everyone has been waiting to ride on. Now laying on its side. Right on top of a broken husk of a red haired male. His mother of the same mane wailing at his side.
He was still alive, Evan saw. With a slight, infrequent rise and fall of his chest. From this angle you could see the roof of the train and the top of the victim's head.
Now, a question for you, if you were the one witnessing this, what would you have done?
Surely, you would have helped in some unhelpful way. Perhaps pulled the woman away from the scene to console her in private or try to lift the fallen train and drag the broken boy out.
Yes, certainly you would have done something!
...None of these people did. Evan didn't do anything because there was nothing to do. Or maybe to put it more accurately, there was nothing that was allowed to be done. No one moved, no one was allowed to do anything but watch.
The woman should have done the same.
She shouldn't have wailed. She shouldn't have moaned. Because showing emotion was not allowed.
She failed. She broke the law. She should have stayed silent as her son was now.
The Metrons entered the scene. There was more than he thought, about half a dozen of them coming to clean up and holding a weapon that sent a ripple of cold fear through the crowd.
Polarizers.
Sleek black machines of a similar design to a shotgun except that the shot hole was wider that when used, shot out a concentrated beam of light that reduced matter into atoms too small to see with a naked eye. The people parted at the sight of them, shuffling back to keep away from those silent beasts of mass destruction.
They approached the woman and forced her to her feet, gripping her arms as she squirmed violently, screaming at the top of her lungs. Evan took her in. Snot drizzling down her thin lips, her green eyes burned with withering grief, the curls of her flaming hair stuck to the sides of her face, her plain get-up of worn jeans and a blue blouse were stained in dark red splotches.
She was as broken as the boy, her dignity pouring out of her in rivulets on the grey floor..
And no one said anything. No sound but her wailing cut through.
One of the Metrons, the woman who stopped Evan at the doors, stepped forward and in a smooth motion and without the slightest hesitation, she aimed her polarizer at the woman...and pulled the trigger.
The screaming stopped and the near-crippling pain in his mind died.
But the buzzing of emotion from the crowd did not cease, it doubled. For where the woman once stood, there was nothing but a plain looking gold ring.
The Metron turned and did the same to the broken boy, leaving him as a mere puddle of dark red stain on the cold grey floor.
The other Metrons turned to the fallen train and spread out to stand in position. As one, they lifted the train, their armour glowing blue under the strain and granting them unnatural strength. Then a loud thug later, the train was right side up once more. The Metrons left. The people resumed movement and climbed in.
All at once, the day went on. The moment of mild interest forgotten. The deaths of two innocents trampled over.
But not by Evan. He'walked over quickly and grabbed the ring and stuffed it in his pocket, climbed into the train and found a seat near the door. It slid closed and everyone sat in silence as the intercom sounded.
"T1, 5:45 departure. The Centre," announced the cool masculine tones of Felix, the train itself powered and driven by an Artificial Intelligence.
A second later, the train chugged in motion and Evan pulled out the ring. It wasn't as plain as he thought. A medium sized ring with its gold coat already peeling off...and an inscription etched on the inner side of the ring, written in small letters.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted
Evan blinked at these words. He had read them somewhere, he knew. It was an extract from a very rare book long since demolished, the Bible. The fact that the woman wore this ring that spelled out the words that would mean a very slow, harrowing sentence of death far worse than that which was already given to her was, to him, very ironic...very sardonic...very fitting
A perfect addition to his growing collection of lost things from lost people.
11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2gF4LOWpHe
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