Copyright © 2025 by Markovas & Candle

Editing by Joletsart

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C1 – Woken

Through an endless nightmare of broken screams: consciousness emerged. Dragged bloody and frail, a grinding drumbeat of sharp plastic tubes and rusted iron gears beat against a body, coated thick with sludge.

Bound beneath an unseen mass, the figure clawed and kicked, snarled and screeched against the darkness, although, for all his efforts of fighting this force, neither did he utter a sound, nor did his body so much as twitch.

Light and pain seared behind his eyes. His mind ablaze with instinct and confusion, the humid air enwrapping him with a choking heat that made sweat pour from his overwrought body.

His heart boomed in his chest, blood racing frantic through his head, pounding in his ears, his chest swelling with a sensation of bile, at the suffocation clawing at his lungs. His body demanded he gasp deep, but all his lungs did in return was follow the same slow, calm pattern as before.

Spitting, blighting, convulsing. Nothing was working. The taste of something plastic, something long and smooth in his mouth. He groped for it, his body acting on instinct, thrashing harshly against the inexplicable weight of his own bony arm.

Hands grasped limply around thick plastic; his self- preservation pounding fury in his chest, he yanked against the tubing in his mouth. Exhausted fingers slipped from the surface, lubricated as it was with spit and moisture.

His lungs moved to a slow, mechanical shift within his chest. Blotches grew in his vision, amid the white popping of light behind his eyes. The pumping of his heart became a furious rhythm.

This was it. He was about to die. If he wasn’t dead already. If this wasn’t some cruel fairytale conjured by his mind in his final moments. He’d read about those concepts; those theories that the brain could produce a whole lifetime of hallucinations in the moments before death. Why was he thinking about this right now? Next came the question of where was he going: the night had opened up around him and he felt his body dripping through…

A mushy darkness lay beyond him, an unseen distance beyond which night-creatures hooted and growled and chirruped to the moonlight.

A soft wind picked up the scent of the marsh, the sweet lavender, the earthy mud, the musk of sheep. Another time. Another life. Another world, left behind.

Coming back slowly, he steadily came to remember his reality, laying dazed on his back, gazing up at the suspended, blinding lights above. Lungs breathed the same slow, soft rhythm.

The light flickered. The buzzing became a tone more insistent.

The figure flinched, the sound drawing him back from his passed-out stupor. He tried to swallow, but the plastic piping was still firmly lodged in its place. A taste of bitter alcohol and chemicals.

Looking upwards, as he blinked away a sting of grime and of sweat, he saw the plastic pipe leading away to somewhere unseen in the ceiling. A ceiling he couldn’t even make out in the dark.

The figure became slowly aware that he was on his back. He felt sure he’d been upright moments ago. Had the whole pod tilted?

Straining his eyes, he tried to see more of the world around him. The air had grown cooler, though no less stagnant. He could hear the sound of droplets falling, thudding on a metal surface below him.

What a place.

He tried to move again, and found himself able to twitch his fingers and toes, although the rest stayed locked in place by his unseen restraints.

Stay calm. Stay still. He’d only pass out again. There was no way to breathe quicker or deeper; all trying did was make his chest hurt. The paralysis would pass. It had to, right?

It was so itchy. The more he came around the more itchy he grew, his wrists and legs, where tubes of their own had punctured his skin. Large blisters were formed around them and his veins where thick and bloated from whatever was being pumped inside. Some deep red with blood; others, an orange fluid. A last tube, larger than the others, disappeared directly into his stomach. He tried to ignore it; tried to look past the light, that blinding glow staining blotches in his eyes.

He could just make out a line of rails above: outline shimmering in the light’s flicker. Stillness loomed, groaning across the precast concrete walls, stretched to beyond the edge of the faintest glow.

The buzzing lamp was the only break in the silence; the echoes of distant droplets: the insidious skulking of entropy’s faint disorder, drawing damp streaks of rusted crimson tears on the concrete.

Straining for a single sound of life: footsteps, voices, nothing came of it. The last thing he remembered? There had to be some clue of what he was meant to do. Digging his memory, some scraps was all he could find. Looking back further, he couldn’t remember much at all. At all.

If he could just remember his name, that’d be a huge comfort.

A crack broke out from somewhere above. A coarse sigh followed, as metal ground against metal and two bus-size fans shifted to life. It was not loud, yet amplified by the silence, coldly echoing in the humid air.

Following, came a grinding in the distance, the sound of a motor and a screeching of metal against metal.

A surge of energy flowing; all the lights that worked buzzed and flickered, until the one directly above burst with a brief shot of blinding light. Sparks hurled down and landed on his naked body, singeing dark patches on his exposed form.

The pain was slight but it shot through him like a wasp sting. His whole body twitched, his arms and legs jolting, his lips pulling back in a snarl. Paralleled by the second of heat was a sharp cold that was somehow even worse, as the layer of thick sweat on his body started to steam at the airflow of the giant fans above.

The grinding screech grew closer, a constant low drone of something like a skeletal arm, swinging and dangling like a corpse in the shadows.

Shaking his head, still trying to focus his thoughts, the figure took this as a sign to start calling out. A muffled babble of yells followed, lost to the obliqueness. He called to be helped up, demanded to have this pipe removed, cried for someone to come over and tell him it was all going just fine.

A voice came in reply, although not in comfort, to his request.

“Attention. Sector. F. Two. Three. Biological. Reanimation. Initiated.”

A bellowing clang sprang out from the umbra, a searing pain following at the blinding light in his eyes as dozens of white lights came on at once. The room was huge and seemed to stretch forever, the concrete walls stained yellow with rust and age, many fractured and crumbling, the surfaces lined with rounded pods identical to the one he was in, lids closed, glass: black and misty.

The great skeletal arm of that machine came swinging towards him, dangling down from the line of rails above. It caught something on the side of his pod and he wished, to anyone who was listening, this would stop.

There was no time to see more through the blinding white as another snap broke out to the sound of electrical shorting, somewhere not far and the lights all together died.

He lay motionless in the silent black and hoped for his life that whatever system was controlling his breathing wasn’t on the same circuit the lights were.

Silence held, total darkness. His anxiety grew to a sinking question as to if his wish had been answered by a monkey’s paw; if, whatever this was, really had stopped, leaving him trapped in this hanging prison.

The smell of ozone and melting plastic drifted through from the direction of the shorting electric. Engine oil, disinfectant, a dozen other smells none of which were natural in the least.

Latches snapped around him and the pod began to shift and wobble. He sat up a little, as much as he could manage. There was nothing to see, but a part of him was still relievedto see the paralysis starting to wear off. The small pod started to trundle on something beneath. The motion was nauseating. He had to resist being sick. There was no telling if this breathing pipe was designed with a fail-safe for that.

The whole pod started swaying as the mechanical arm lifted it away, that sound of grinding metal coming again.

He shifted and tore however he could, every motion waking his body up more and more, his chest heaving rapidly in a grotesque sight of tubes, cables and grime. His mouth gurgled but no sound would come between the tubes. This thing, this blight. If only he could breathe himself again.

His hands grasped tightly around the pipe, and at last they did not slip away, but held enough to firmly grip the plastic and yanked.

His body buckled and he felt a sensation like tearing deep inside him. Fuck. He buckled over and tried to vomit, but only coughed up specks of blood over the inside of the clear plastic pipe.

His bloodshot-yellow eyes were darting around in shock, retching and whimpering and growling against the pain. The trundling vehicle froze in its tracks.

“Attention. Subject. Condition. Exacerbated.”

Paranoia was now playing around all of his fingers, twitching madly and scraping against the curled lengths of his disfigured fingernails. His eyes watered, tears streaking down his grimy cheeks as his body finally found a speck of strength to resist, to jolt against the restraints no matter how insignificant.

“Facilitate. Expedited. Disengage.”

He wanted to scream. Liquid in his ears wobbled as the pod whirred into life as strange, high pitched sounds grew behind the frame with quick plonks, as if guitar strings were snapping under immense pressure.

First it was the hands; some kind of coldness spread across each connection, from the tubes to his fingertips and then, the wires that were embedded into his skin ripped away with a hiss and spurt of oozy liquid.

He reached for the holes of flesh instantaneously, expecting a great deal of pain, yet he was unsure if there was any, or all that was felt was the piercing coldness, intensified by his imagination.

He brought his wrists to his eyes, trying to make out the damage those things had left behind, but the light was so little and the shadows were swaying with… what was going on?

The swinging was getting worse, the buzzing of the motor growing to a harsh whine at the struggle of this monster of wire and shadow.

Tightness pulled at his legs and stomach, the same thing happening with a rip of wires and tubes snaking out from deep within his thighs. Instead of further panicking, he tried to take a step, though it was futile as now came the next phase, it seemed, all his weight being pulled up by the tube that clung deep in his throat.

He tried to help the machine pull it out, just managing the coordination to bend his stiff fingers around the tube, but he was gratified only by a harsh buzzing and red light shining upon his face when he tried to pull.

“Tracheal. Intubation. Mandated. Do. Not. Remove.”

The pod again started to tilt, this time bringing him upright as the last of the pipes, the one in his throat, started shuddering and gurgling.

Something for sure was streaking down into his body and it was making him gag. The pod shuddered, and just as his vision finally cleared, something in his throat gave way to vibrations and the tube moved upwards. It was a sensation like he’d never felt before in his life, and wished he would never have to again.

Every centimeter of this length ground harsh against his insides, this pushing pressure slowly working its way slowly up his throat, that feeling of oxygen suddenly reducing and giving way, for the first time, to this desperate urge to breathe.

Suddenly he didn’t hate his prior predicament. His entire body hung from this thing, and even as he tried to push himself up, his wobbly legs failed his every attempt.

The lull finally lost to gurgles between his cream teeth, which they at least were in good condition. At last the end of the tube came out, its end enwrapped with tissue and blood; thick, clear slime fell in trickly droplets.

The vacuum of machined-air burst to a freezing cold in the breath of the air around him; his entire body collapsing from the pod to the dusty floor beneath him.

The surface was a thick rubber, soft and warm against his fingertips. He lay in exhaustion for a long moment, just enjoying having control over his own lungs again.

The floor jolted beneath him, wobbled slightly, started moving on a longrow of small wheels: a conveyor belt calmly taking him to wherever he was meant to be next?

Instead of panic: respite.

Instead of a scream: a gasp.

Instead of pain: newly forming comfort.

C2 – Get Up

The figure pulled up slowly, letting his eyes close and his head fall heavily against the side of the pod he’d been cocooned in, just minutes ago. His chest lead-heavy, he focused on his breaths, carefully stretching his lungs, both enjoying the deep coolness and grimacing at the scars and weakness left from his recent ordeal.

What wouldn’t he give for a cold glass of water right now…

Pulling his eyes open, he found himself coming to the end of a narrow corridor. A sign hung above an archway, barely illuminated by the dull glow of a bulb above. He tried to blink away the fog from his vision but he didn’t have a chance of making out the text.

Swooshes within his ears played with the danceful screeches of the tracks beneath, that rumbled and crawled towards the uncertain destiny, each bump over the wheels wobbling at his feet.

Through the reoccurring blurriness, old posters on the walls exhibited random frames of planets… DNA strands… trees… words like ‘future’, ‘time’, ‘last chance’… and nothing else in the enclosed space of the long corridor.

Heart: if he could just relax his heart so this despicable panic would go away and flood itself down into the rusty wheels, trodden away and cut to pieces…

But he couldn’t stop it, as now new faintness blew through his oxygen-deprived mind that just drained away his eyes’ focus.

No matter. He was going somewhere. Entropy was being kept away. It was just a matter of… time.

So, he focused on emptying his mind so that it would manage to find space for his memories, for his reason, for his composure, and hopefully for his name.

There, fragments connected together and formed meaning. Yes, he was an employee. He was to be briefed. His name was…

The figure raised a palm and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. Who was he? Where was he? Things were definitely still hazy. He seemed to have real trouble remembering the name of anything. What rank was he? What facility was this?

He opened his mouth to call out, but the rumbling floor and a glance around soon showed him he was only with walls, wallpaper, old lights and the soft grinding of motors and rusty tracks.

He looked around for the warmth of the pod, only to see it already going backwards, on the rail that hung from the concrete ceiling, disappearing into the mouth of utter darkness from whence it came.

“Hey!” he called, his throat clamping in at the motion. He gasped in pain and reached for his neck. He gagged as he tried to regain his breath, watching as the pod ascended out of reach above him.

He stood hastily but fell badly in the process, twisting his ankle for his body’s degenerated condition. Just… get back on the conveyor. Follow the light at the end of this corridor, even if you have to crawl.

A long, irritated growl twirled as he pulled himself up by his frozen fingers; long, nail-claws scraping and peeling off the damp surface of the walls.

As he was learning again how to walk and breathe, what surprised him were the visible hand marks on either side of him, all leading towards the path ahead. It was like a line of yellow, as hundreds of hands had rubbed against this countless times. That gave him hope, but also brewed horror.

With a heave that made his buckled legs shudder, and a curse beneath his breath at whoever thought this was a good idea, he walked, expedited by the conveyor belt, closer and closer to the single door at its end, labeled ‘Briefing’.

He faced the door. It had no handle, no keyhole, no element of interaction, just rusty metal with specks of blue paint that had somehow survived.

Reaching a hand to the metal barrier, the sight of his own long and curled nails caught his eyes. Disgusting. If he didn’t have an empty stomach, he’d have already vomited at the reality of his body’s fate.

Instead of a hand, he grunted and pressed a fist against the surface. It didn’t budge, so, adjusting his breath, he chose his words as haphazardly as possible.

“I’m here!” he wheezed with a cough.

Nothing.

“I’m right here, dammit!” he shouted, his hand now banging at the door, with a puff of rusty dust spewing and sticking to his moist palm.

Nothing.

He knew he could keep trying, keep acting like a mindless animal… but reason somehow overcame his basic senses and brought the urge to look around himself again.

And there it was, in the corner was a surveillance camera looking right at him with all the red diodes glowing in its eye.

Someone was watching him. Someone knew he was there. Someone was going to help him.

This truly made his heart stop skipping so loudly and he gave himself time to calm down, which of course brought even more problems to attention: from the freezing metal under his feet to his itchy, anciently long beard. Well, pretty much all of his body was slowly entering some kind of itch frenzy, but it was just not possible to really relieve any of that, since his hands were practically useless for grabbing, scratching…

Maybe he could just break off these filthy claws? Shouldn’t be that hard now, should it?

A loud hiss startled the demons out of him as the corners of the door blew off curtains of dust, the whole metal frame sliding upwards with a snap, exposing the truly incredible thickness of these walls. He couldn’t tell if it was half a meter or more?

It didn’t matter, as warm air washed around his body, giving embrace for the unquestioning steps that were quickly taken to the allurement ahead, yet in this euphoric drive, his brain caught up too slowly to realize that he was entering darkness of cutful blindness.

Before he could bounce back into the light, the heavy door behind him crashed into the grooves, sealing his exit and killing all light that was.

He stumbled into the door; his nails scraping against the unwavering surface of steel. Was he not supposed to do that? Should he have waited for further instructions before plunging himself heedlessly into the dark?

Questions became answers as side lights brought closure to the trepidation that boiled in his heart. Lockers, aged-yellow tiles with rusty gutters, cameras on each corner that looked at him as if following all his movements. Was he being tracked?

A line of sinks stood at the other end, with dull mirrors set above. Beside them: doors that looked nothing like the one he’d walked through.

This place lacked all warmth, the yellow tiles left a trail of slime at his footprints. The fluorescentlights stood tall on the walls, dull-yellow and aged.

Holding himself to the wall, he crept scrapingly towards the sinks, his breaths shaking through the empty smoothness of this locker room. Slowly, his own body came into sight in the warped mirrors.

No wonder it was a challenge just to stand.

Bony and wrought; naked and bloody as the day he was born. His long hair slicked flat by the strange fluid he’d been encased in. His fingernails: long and tipped black, while his skin was an unhealthy shade of white. Hopefully he didn’t have anemia with all of this unfolding horror beforth.

He grasped at the taps, his throat felt like sandpaper after what that pipe had done to him, but nothing came out but a quiet gurgle.

The door to his side took his interest, pricked by the symbol for a shower printed on its front. He grabbed the handle after a few failed attempts, apparently getting his strength back was too nice for his life, and a loud scrunch shook the frame, rusty dust falling from all around.

There was the shower, as promised. But it seemed nothing could be taken for granted in this place. While sludging ever-closer to the showerhead, his eyes refocused and found no way to turn it on.

He looked around for a button, a dial, anything; for someone to air his grievances to, but then those emerald peepers caught on a strange section of this tiled room.

The whole thing was just one huge lump of shape. It gave him the creeps. A huge machine fixed to the floor, breaking the monotone yellowish tiles and surrounding it all in static sleep, gaping gutters enveloping.

A closer inspection was mandated, intrigued to find just what the hell was this thing?

He found an inscription set on the side, deeply engraved with the corporation logo above. ‘Property of yo Mumma’… Who had defaced this company property? He checked to see if he could wipe off the marks, but they seemed pretty set.

The corporation logo lingered above, overseeing, and no doubt unhappy, with the immature associate scrawled beneath.

Somehow it gave vibes of a throne, with a wide seat amid a mess of all other bits of metal strapped on. Two handles jutted out, painted in blue; some rounded contraption that was level with the head-height of the sitting part… and to bottom it all were some grooves to put one’s legs, all encased in steel, elevated, old, brittle.

Looking from the base of the stairs, hesitation spoke in his ears. There was no drive to screw around and find out, but this was what was expected of him and he had to follow the oblique instructions.

There was zero awareness to what he was thinking of doing, yet it seemed like all of this was setup for him to follow along, even if in a state of dementia.

Grabbing at the railing, he dragged step by step, his body itching and no longer just because of the sludge that surrounded him.

He lowered himself into position. Reaching the top, his feet imprinted upon the discolored grating, long hair sticking to his feet from a pile of hair all around the machine’s front.

He couldn’t be sure if it was the rust covering the bolts or something else… and that potential something gave chills that reached the marrow (use this for the ionized teeth).?

Some kind of screen lit up, to which he dragged himself closer, trying to keep steady and hold on to whatever was tall enough.

Subject. Fixate feet on the feet device.

There were no buttons, no other guidelines, just the silence and drips in the tiley room. But no matter, this must be part of the process and there was nothing to be afraid of, right?

So he held balance by angling towards the blue handles and carefully putting his foot in one of the grooves. To his surprise there was an instant snap that fully immobilized him. He tried to pull away but quickly reminded himself that this was the procedure and that he should follow every point without delay or question.

Just as he was to put his other foot, his gnarly nails got stuck in the grating, forcing him to pull sharply off, with filthy tufts of hair of all colors coming out from underneath.

That made him rather sick to the prospects of what this was, yet his second foot followed suit pretty quick.

Subject. Fixate cranium in the cranium holding device.

That device must’ve been the thing that was at his head height. It looked odd, like a bear trap without the spikes. He took a long scratch on his nose to alleviate the tension and obediently continued.

The whole thing moved around his neck as it tightened its grip, so that the only thing that could move was his eyes that sought what would come next on the screen.

Subject. Grab both handles, twist clockwise, push inwards.

Okay, first he had to take hold of the handles. But there was not enough space for him to push through due to the curled and long nails…

His wrist twisted in many different ways but it seemed as if things weren’t going to work out without some… painful sacrifices. Finding the least awful outcome, he shoved his hand into the opening and wheezed through the piercing pain that pulled at his nails.

Okay, one done, one more to go…

It proved way more difficult, as these had curled in a locking swirl, so many angles had to be tried until his hand schlomped through the gap. Of course if he wanted to get them out, it’d prove rather catastrophic…

He looked at the screen that waited his input, and with a heartbeat in his throat he grabbed both handles and twisted. What came were the sound of cogs clanking in their slits. The handles were pushed into the machine, his hands extending as much as his tendons would pry.

That’s when that same constricting pressure enveloped his wrists to par… That’s when his entire body became immobilized…

Subject. Standby for decontamination.

A barely audible motor: something picking up speed underneath his imprisoned feet. This thick heat bristled around his naked, sludgy body. Unnerve danced in his mouth as whimpers were the only suffix to his dread.

It was impossible to hear his own thoughts, it was impossible to focus due to the immeasurable cacophony that shook the cracked tiles.

And so it happened, something like liquid sprayed upon his limbs and head. It burned him viciously, though what else was there to clench at this time?

Awful tugs draped upon all his nails, as if something was trying to unroot them from his fingertips and toes. Sludge crept down his head, stinging his eyes shut.

What in the hell’s blood was going on with this? Weightlessness suddenly occurred all across his limbs, as if great weight suddenly was poofed out of existence. He dared to move his fingers around and could sense the lack of those wicked curly stumps.

Before things could escalate further, all that noise ground to a halt as the lights faded away, the heat all around him slowly finding refuge towards the ceiling.

Pitch black, stuck in this prison contraption, alone…

His imagination was running rampant for what could come next, at any second… for the creatures that could be crawling him right now…

Forget about said creatures, what if the power came back and something went wrong with this machine? Could he lose his hands or—

Loud snaps echoed from somewhere far behind the walls and that fellow, the motor, whirled back into life, reaching its revving speeds without the laborious first start.

Okay, power was back, but would it know where it had left off or… Something sharp and cold traced around his chin and neck, leaving nothing but irritation and bare skin. On his scalp came the vibrating motion of what he suspected to be a hair trimmer, although it seemed one in pretty bad condition, as it was pulling harshly in blockage.

He tried to fend off the tears and all that could be given was the silent rage that hung in his throat like a choking hazard.

There was no way to tell how long the process took, but by the time it was all over the sludge around his skin was now heavily mixed with foul sweat. He felt lighter, but the itchiness was so much worse now due to the many strands of hair riddling his shoulders, neck…

The text on the console before him—it changed.

Subject. Cavity examination is in effect. Administration of general anaesthesia.

Cavity-what? Wasn’t that supposed to be done by a dentist? Was he going to get punched by meaty steel across his face if there were to be something wrong with his teeth? No way, the restraints would be released right now, just this very moment.

But instead something pricked into both his wrists: something sharp and hot. He tried to pull away but he only made the irritation hotter; hair falling around his restless tugs.

Something like plates moved from the face contraption he was bound to, limiting his vision and surrounding all that he could see; both aiming at the direction of his jaw.

Slight warming formed on top of his skin, though he could also feel it around all his gums. It was getting gradually hotter and hotter, though in good queue came another power cut that stopped the process.

This should be his chance to get out of this. Instead of waiting he wrestled his body wildly. Nothing. He tried shouting. Just gurgles.

But just as he thought that he had more time to try something else, was when the lights shot back on, the plates before him twitching aimlessly, yet moving nowhere.

The rotors underneath him picked up speed, with the heat around him becoming unbearable. His eyes could not see as white foil-like wrapping went around them and his forehead.

Same wicked heat pierced through his cheeks, yet this time it was amped up and was focused at one spot rather than moving.

It was as if his entire mouth was stuffed with molten coals. There was no room for screaming. There was only agony.

What had he done to deserve this? He did everything that was asked of him. Why was he being treated as if some piece of meat? It grew to a definite feeling of burning with a scent of cooking meat.

Suddenly something clanked piercingly below and the whole machine lost speed, the hum of the rotors dying out just like the embers in his mouth. All he could do was sweep controlled breaths so he could remain conscious.

So much for that general anaesthesia. If it wasn’t that pumped in him, what the hell was going into his veins?

The screen now had just a single word: ‘Shower’.

Excitement sprung in his stomach and instead of overwhelming pain and fatigue he sensed renewed motivation and energy, something that made zero sense.

The locks at his feet snapped open. He expected to fall limp on the hairy grates, though that also made no sense as he was being held up by the rest of the locks. Maybe he should use this moment to try and get a footing?

Zero expectations for himself getting anywhere with his strength, yet somehow he had enough of it to stand still, no matter the shaking that was surely caused by his adrenaline.

It took a while, but then the rest of the latches unlocked and he instantly pulled away his hands, bloodstains creeping down his forearms from where the needles had gone into him.

With some rubbing at the soreness and puzzlement to his newly found ability to stand on his legs, he looked above the terminal and at the arched pipe that he suspected to have been the shower, now just a broken shape of useless, hollow metal.

Using his brain to solve this new riddle, he remembered there being another showerhead just a few steps away from this old machine, and since he could not see any buttons or further instructions, the decision was made to do the only thing that could be done—go to the knobless shower.

As he was climbing down the steps carefully, still holding to the railing just in case he was to be betrayed by his legs, his tongue lapped around his throbbing mouth and he swore that the taste was bloody, so, to make sure there was none, he spat into his hand, which was just transparent saliva.

He had no idea what could cause that taste, but whatever that was used on him must’ve done its job. One thing was for sure: he was never going to trust a machine like that ever again.

His body got under the rusty showerhead in anticipation, a line of hairs following his trace. He tried to force his hand away from his face and scalp, so he made do with doing that to his forearms.

Unbearable was this itchiness, but it would soon be all over in the spurt of cleanlinessto come… but when was it coming? Maybe there was a secret lever, a secret switch, a secret passphrase?

Because nothing was changing, he looked at the big machine behind him in thought of if he was supposed to pull something down, and just when he gave the showerhead one last look: the pipes vibrated and groaned deeply.

There it was, it was coming, the waves of comfort that would wash away—

A loud, gruesome, abnormally disgusting gush of rusty dust blew into his face in remorselessness, but it did not stop there, as then a stream of sludge hit against his body as if Satan’s sewage was coming out of his personal gutter.

He fell on the floor in a thud, crawling away from the cold filth, yet in disability to see anything, as the putrid sludge coated his face, an odor of disgust breaking into his mind.

He wanted to breathe, but at moment’s fro? he fought against any such urge from allowing him to do that, yet he had to move away from this since who could tell what this putrid substance was from.

Wiping his face and taking a deep gush of air, he blinked into a moment’s grasp the streaming water before him that touched lightly on his feet in a cold nudge. The sludge was already swimming towards the gutters and it seemed as if the worst was over.

Obviously distrust was nothing but a disease that questioned his every move, yet seeing this heavenly water, and the playful heat emanating from it, gave new drive to go back and allow the satisfaction of ridding himself of this spiteful horror.

Standing up, he shot under the hot stream. Surprise devoured him in question as to why he couldn’t feel the water on his skin, though slowly it seemed to be washing away the new and old sludge, which made him more and more prevalent to the satisfaction that the filth was trying to rob him of.

Ah, yes. His hands reached around his short hair, mingling in greatness to the sensation of calmness. The frostiness all across his core and skin sizzled with life, giving vigor a new bubble within his heart.

There was no soap or shampoo, but this was going to be enough, this was just…

Perfect.

He stood for a time, just enjoying the feeling. He didn’t even care the water was alternating between hot and cold, making his meatless body shiver. The feeling of the coats of thick fluid being washed away from his skin and hair was the greatest relief he could remember. Good things were coming after this.

After water. After food. After some warm clothes.

It was unknown how long he’d taken under the heavenly waterfall, but after having had enough he walked, dripping, around the machine and tried to find any extra clues to it’s maker, and how further he could use it to figure out his next move. It belonged to the Corporation, but that really was the extent of the information he could gather without having to start dismantling bolts and framings.

So he did the most sensible thing and left the shower room, not before giving the dark ceiling a last glance, since the only thing that could be seen was the creeping darkness and nothing else.

With a quick pace he got to the main part of the locker room and sought the lockers for a towel. One stood out to him easily. Had it been open before? He hadn’t noticed one open, but he could hardly trust his peripheral judgement right now.

Inside, he found the remnants of what resembled a towel with a stack of dead cocoons and moths mummies, old soap that looked really moldy and a pair of rubbery slippers. He would’ve grumbled a lot but agreed that the soap was just nasty and that he wouldn’t have used that anyway.

Quickly stepping into the slippers, which were obviously too small for him and creaked and frayed with every step, he slapped away to the next part of the locker where he expected corpses of frogs and rats to be hanging, though what he saw was a single shirt, underwear and a dark blueish coverall.

He knew it was too much to expect for it to be his size: hanging from its rail in uniform color, but at least it wasn’t eaten up!

That’s when he remembered to look at the corner where the camera was skulking at him, and that made him remember that he was still with his bare ass to the world.

In shy humiliation he quickly put the dusty worksuit upon himself, finding annoyance with sneezes, yet solace in the newfound decency, dryness and warmth. There was baggy excess of fabric hanging all around him but it would have to do for now.

He wondered if he’d grow in to it more once he’d put some meat back on. The same wouldn’t be true for the heavy workboots though, they were just too big. At least they were better than those silly slippers.

There was a box on one of the shelves, which he opened, and within was a smoking pipe which he recognized as his own property.

Quite a nice sight to see after so long, he was quick to adjust its end into his mouth, blowing sternly to chase away the dust within. His hand reached into the coverall’s pockets in instinct to the expectancy of finding a pouch of Tryka. Confusion crossed his completion, before a glance down reminded him that this was not home. No matter.

Also from the cardboard box, he pulled a small plastic sheet of pills. He remembered buying those too, on the advice of his mother. The memories: they were slowly coming back.

Breaking the seal proved to be difficult; his fingers still numb and shaking, but a capsule of blue popped open as he was curious to see what was inside.

But in his unsteady movements he jolted, leading the single pill to be spat out before he had a chance to realize: now lost somewhere in the dark space underneath the lockers.

Looking into the darkness, he wondered if he should crawl around and look for it. It was technically littering after all. But he soon made his mind up when he realized he could be speeding up this monotonous process. And by the state of the place, the last thing on his superiors’ minds should be ‘littering’.

Well, at least this place was scrubbed clean. Even if it made him feel like a hamster in a dungeon, looking out at the walls that caged him.

The door on the other side of the room clicked a few times, whirls grinding inside of its frame until, with a final clank, it barely opened.

Huh, so he was expected to go there.

Reaching back, he took hold of the only other thing in that locker: a bag of tools, screwdrivers and wire cutters hooked onto its side. It was a heavy bag, fitting for an electrical technician, but he was happier taking it than leaving it behind.

Straightening out his baggy clothes and rustling within his shoes, he adjusted the pipe in his mouth and walked with however much confidence he could muster, bag of tools in hand.

Expectation gave way to a person behind that door that would greet and brief him on the situation, though the likeliness of that was strangely unrealistic from the experience he’d gone through. Things seemed a bit too… left to their own devices.

But, as he pulled the door open, all that could be seen was the gray-carpeted room with a few office chairs, a monitor and a desk with two pieces of paper positioned on top of it.

He moved over to the aged CRT screen and fiddled with the buttons. It seemed the most obvious source of figuring out what was going on here after all.

Nothing.

That explained it: there must’ve been a message playing, but the power outage that happened at the shower had reached the monitor too.

It seemed strange the infrastructure was set up like this. Synchronous systems were a good way to protect important systems from power surges, but why they’d rig the monitor up on the same system as the lights…

He toyed with the paper pages as he pondered, idly positioning them to be perfectly perpendicular with one another and the edge of the table. That was until his eyes fell first upon the name printed clearly at the top.

“Isaac L. Forst.”

Yes, that was it! He’d began to remember anyway, piecing parts together after washing and drying himself. He just hadn’t had a moment to stop and think about it, else he would’ve remembered it himself, he was sure.

‘Position: Warehouse Distribution Worker’. Forst scoffed to himself at this. Worker. He’d had a feeling it was something along those lines due to the equipment he was given access to, though at the back of his mindhe resented that possibility. Maybe it was up for debate?

All those hours of overtime and study it had taken to get here. The company was not an easy place to climb the ranks of, when you were at the bottom. And this was nigh on rock-bottom.

He skimmed over the rest of the page but distracted himself by the other beside it. The name at the top was the plain ‘Distribution Supervisor’, which grew irritation for a split blink, but Forst was more interested in his own fate.

In clash of fates his eyes fell back to where his value would be dictated; where his value would be reflected; where his value would be… ‘Worker’.

Damn it. This was nothing close to what he suspected. He’d not be the one in charge and this ‘supervisor’ would be above him. Not just that, but how could he get such a low level position? There had to be a big mistake!

He scoffed again, glancing back to the eerie silence. Shouldn’t this Supervisor have been here by now?

C3 – Supervisor

The constant soft buzzing of the vents was getting on Isaac’s nerves. A consistent subtle humm of overworked motors as a scent of moldy air blew continuously towards him. The air’s dryness was a scorching grind against the sensitive wounds inside his throat. Every few minutes he felt the need to expectorate but he held it back. It wasn’t becoming of a man of his position… his damnably lowposition.

Pacing slowly back and forth, every step strained his patience further and further. A growing discomfort was gnawing at his stomach, a deep hunger he’d felt since first waking up. His head fell to his hand, a soft groan followed. Visions of endless dark flashed into his mind.

Stasis was a hellish experience.

The lights flickered for a moment. That smell of ozone again. Another fuse burnt out? If only he was higher rank he’d really be down the neck of whoever was supposed to be maintaining this place. He reached again the end of the room and turned to pace back, gazing at the dim, yellow fluorescents above. His boot caught on the thick snake of a wire strewn carelessly upon the floor and he caught himself on a wooden chair stood against the wall.

The chair fell to dust at his touch and he slid to the floor with a thud and a rasped cry. Twisting his head at the collapse beside him, he grabbed at the leg, which broke off in his hand. He turned the end towards the light, gazing at the many dark holes inside. Years of woodworm and rot apparently had eaten away at it from the inside out.

Breathing longly, Isaac let his head fall against the floor. At least, like this, the room wasn’t spinning. At least, like this, the vertigo wouldn’t lead him off.

The quiet grind of rough synthetics continuedas he pulled himselfup, linking his fingers around his knees as he glanced behind him at the perpetrator of his fall. A black wire that led from somewhere into the wall. He looked at the CRT monitor, dropping the bag of tools on the desk, and sniffed at the subtle scent of ozone not yet sucked away by the ventilation.

Rubbing his palm against his brow, he followed a line of black leading from the mounted monitor, to a socket of its own close-by.

An urgency taking his step, an eagerness even, Isaac got up for a slim screwdriver from his bag. In between, he stumbled, his head rolling to its side as a moment of faintness took him.

He had to press on.

The screw holding together the CRT’s plug was tight with rust, but a harsh tug was just enough to crack the cement of oxidized iron. The lump of charred black was too apparent of an issue. A few moments later, he returned with the fuse from the other plug, slotted it in the CRT and smacked it into the wall.

In a faint rustle of light, redness grew within the standby button. He had done it.

Clicking the button, an exhausted grin broke upon Isaac’s face as the screen slowly glowed into life. The Supervisor was sure to be pleased with the progress. Not even formally ‘on duty’ and already he’d fixed up some…

Isaac turned his attention to the flicker of a logo and text, though it was already fading out and he didn’t have time to read it. The face it faded to was that of a woman. Not young but not old either. No idea who she was. She wore a lab coat as white and pristine as her teeth. Her smile didn’t move as she started to talk.

Oh come on, this was just getting silly. His joy falling to a discontented sigh, he checked for volume buttons on the side of the screen but found none. The screen showed a diagram of an array of pipes leading in all directions from a specific central point.

Was that where he was? Red arrows pointed some substance leaving through those pipes from the red dot of origination. Sewage? Goods? No further clues were given, as things faded away to that face again, talking with gestures that implied whatever was being said was highly informative and important.

Hissing, Isaac reached behind the monitor and grabbed for anything. The screen went instantly black. Then pure white.

The silence burst with a blistering scream of white noise and fell deaf once more.

Fiddling with that found grounds to disorganized and frantic spurtsof static and harsh changes in volume. The room flickered with white and gray and black as the signal temperamentally cut in and out, and as the audio haphazardly came and went.

“-behalf of… welcome y-“

Isaac held his breath, so close to that teetering edge between perfect audio and a fizzled mess of discordancy. This mandated a delicate twist.

“—facility. You and your team should now move to the Cafeteria for refreshment. We know you—… that, move along to tra—… platform seven one-B. Further instruct—…—member, a good day is… smile.“

Isaac gazed longingly at the silence. His nose twitched again at the blasted ozone as a thin trail of smoke slowly rose from the plug. The hell was up with the electrics in this place?

Reaching down, he yanked the plug from its socket. A fire now would be all he’d need.

Now what, move to the Cafe? The Supervisor was already there, he felt sure. This was all just a test of his independence, or something.

The room wasn’t that interesting as another quick glance was given. Rather empty, small, and with no clues to what he should’ve been doing next. Sure, he was tasked with going to that platform, but where was the map that would lead him there?

Dim light blinked in the shadowy corner where the framing of a door idled. Isaac was surprised he hadn’t managed to spot that for all the time he’d spent in the room, but altogether found excitement that the next step was at hand.

So he grabbed his bag of tools and walked through the metal door without much of a hitch. It was a long corridor with degenerated posters on both walls. His stride was yet to normalize, but confidence was bringing more and more coordination back to him.

‘Today’sTomorrow’, ‘You have been chosen to—’, ‘—bring us back…—ove the g—’, ‘Always follow the instructions’ were the slogans thatcould be read, whether in full or in tatters. The imagery was basic, just shapes as borders and random icons, like a cog or an exclamation mark.

Somehow it brought Isaac vibes from when he’d enter a metrostation with all the vibrant and alluring advertising that would urge passersby to join this effort and that effort…

But this was nothing like the bustling pass. Where was all the life at? And what was up with all this disrepair. Things were fine, but at the occasional broken light were moments where creeps would bring him back to that pod and he’d be wiser to pick up the pace so he could finally find a living soul.

There, another door that should mark the entry to his biggest hopes; a step into order and life. He didn’t even contemplate the ‘what if’ as the handle was pulled to the entry of reality.

The childish smile was quick to extinguish. It was another one of those rooms. Aged, dusty, unkempt, degenerating.

Isaac glanced around at the four doors set into the rounded walls of the cylindrical room. One of the heavy double doors bore a label marking it as ‘Progress’. Progress that was hampered when he found himself pushing against the spring-loaded hinges with a grunt. They refused to move: solid with rust.

The distant whispers that something was horribly wrong found amplification, as the dread of what could be was banging louder and louder. Was he the last living being in this place?

In the bubbling hysteria he noticed one of the doors opposite the double doors. It was hanging on one of its hinges and there seemed to be quite some garbage littering its similar corridor he had walked.

Maybe he’d find his answers there!

With a spring in his adjusting step he rushed at it but realized quickly the void of darkness that was before him, darkness that touched upon his face and made him freeze in horrid trepidation. No-no, he couldn’t just enter the unknown like this. What if there was a gaping hole or something hazardous? This was borderline stupidity.

In bold frustration he threw the work bag on the floor and hissed away in anger, his hands grabbing at his head as he raced through the mist of thinking. It wasn’t easy with the aftereffects of his slumber but he was managing to piece fragments together. And that’s when it hit him.

With swiftness, he opened the work bag and rummaged like a hungry boar in a field. Wrenches, screwdrivers, bolts, picks, files… what about the side pocket… there!

In his hands was now the tool of his salvation: a bulky torch with a crank. Not wanting to lose hope by allowing his thoughts to fester doubt, he turned the crank through solid crunches and for a moment nothing happened.

Again. Again. Again. Turn. Turn. Turn.

A blink, a stutter… and then light. Isaac didn’t even think about it as he got up and shoved the beam into the darkness. The path was riddled with dirt and garbage but there were no gaping holes.

Yes, this could work. Without even remembering to take his bag, his feet carried him through the corridor of exposed, moist rebar that still remained embedded in the walls. None of the posters had survived here.

Ahead was a lonely doorframe, yet somehow the excitement was making him oblivious to the situation.

As his feet clanked againstthe fallen metal door he found himself in a room just like the one he had been at. But here the CRT monitor had a hole in the screen and the desk was nowhere to be seen, cogs, paper and ink scattered all across the dirtiness.

A minor setback. If this was identical to the place he was at, maybe there would be…

The locker room… now he could never allow himself to say that the former place was in bad condition… this here was apocalyptic. Half the ceiling had collapsed with thick rebar curled like spaghetti, while the debris was scattered everywhere upon the cracked tiles.

Little voices in his head shouted at him to go back to the safety of the light, but he needed to find more information, he had to find the Supervisor.

No way could he enter the shower as it’s entry was stuffed with hedgehogish concrete. Grimness was all that throbbed in his heart for his hand turned and turned the crank faster and faster, as the prospects of his loneliness grew and grew…

He wanted to speak, to give a yell of notice, but the dryness ever-presentkept up the charade of thirst as he sidestepped carefully between rods of rust.

There, just where the lockers of his own room had been, tilted and stuck under the scrunched weight, was a pile of dusty uniforms flopped against the floor.

He made step towards the other exit from the locker room, guessing the place would have the same layout as the one from before. The Supervisor wasn’t ahead of him since his document was left behind, so the guess was he was stuck somewhere on the path here from Stasis.

He turned the corner to the sight of the doorframe, but just like the showers, a collapse of the concrete above had turned it into a pincushion of poking rebar.

It didn’t seem too much had collapsed in the way. Was the Supervisor stuck the other side? He called out, reaching with dusty fingers to the pile of fallen material and pulling away at a little of the mound.

Pieces of rock fell by his head as a distant rumble faded off with the darkness above. This wasn’t a good idea. And no answer had come anyway.

In tune with the rumble: the lights above flickered their last… What in the world had happened here? He looked around for answers as he cranked his torch, but nothing else could be seen around the place. Nothing, but for a single open locker.

He had orders to carry out, this wasn’t his place to sneak around, his locker to poke about in. This was going against the rules and he was in who could even know how many violations. And yet… well, his Supervisor probably was already dead.

Thoughts cut through his mind… Dead…

Renewed effort brought vision to his eyes as he fixated his path towards the open locker.

Was this his answer? Was this his chance?

The flashlight between his knees, turning and turning with one hand, he grabbed through the contents of the locker.

Was this chaotic mess of entropy the bringer of this golden opportunity to ascend beyond what the Company had decided him worthy for?

Shirt, underwear, boots; disturbed dust flew all across the room like a relentless hailstorm. He tore through the small space, the little flashlight splaying more shadows than light across the scene.

Then he found it. The coveralls. Hanging long and deep blue. And there it was, stitched on the lapel, that delicious title: ‘Supervisor’.

This was it.

Barely able to breath, both from the dust and the exhilaration pumping at his heart, Isaac reached out to the uniform and touched the thick weave of synthetic material.

This would be his one chance.

Lips setting to a smile, the uniform came free of its hanger. A half second later and Isaac was already pulling his Workman’s uniform off himself, eager to try out this new fit.

Yes. This was it!

C4
Cafeteria

Fresh strength had entered Isaac’s gait, his head held higher with the honorable title of Supervisor on his chest. His flashlight now tucked into his front pocket as the lights had found a way to come back to life after some dwelling in emergency red; in his hand he carried his briefcase.

Passing his old bag of nasty, rusty tools, fit only for a laborer, Isaac grew a small smirk. His own bag was light and streamlined, no doubt holding papers, information, stationery fit for his new position. However long he could keep it. Isaac’s gait slowed with a glance down to his boots. How long would that be? What’s more, how was he going to get through this damnable door?

Okay, just because it hadn’t worked last time, that didn’t mean that all was forlorn. This wasn’t some immovable object, this was a path that would lead him to his destiny.

Pushing hard to a pinch on his fingershe was drawn to hissingly glance at a streak of crimson, leaking from his palm.

Instead of losing faith in his struggle, he braced against the steel and shoved every last inch of energy he could musterfrom his bony body, echoes of labor bouncing in a harmonious skip.

He was not going to let this great opportunity slide away into dust and cracks!

A snap, a clank, rust peeling from the doorframe… and then the door actually moved into the wall, new light glinting into hope’s rebirth.

The door was opened. But at what cost… at least he’d had his tetanus shot, though… did the expiry date still count if you’d spent that time in Stasis?

With new momentum he made enough space for an opening to slide through, not forgetting, of course, to take his recently changed briefcase, and enjoying again that it was lighter than ever.

Dread flooded his mind at what was before him. A line of dim blue bulbs lit the short corridor, the walls and floor: bare concrete, thick with dust. The sight didn’t hold him up for long, the promise of a hot meal was enough to drive his steps confidently into the bleakness, yet the nag that something was terribly wrong echoed deeper into his skull, its song amplified, the more he was seeing of this aging facility.

He tried to wipe off the splotches bled by the crudely made door handle, but stopped at realizing the importance of his newly acquired jacket. Just a few drops really, but it was best not to make a mess, so he looked around to find something to wipe it off with. But at finding nothing, he just used the side of his bag.

Nonetheless, there was the opportunity for him to seize at the bargain he’d make to the first person in management he’d meet. He wasn’t going to be some lowlife worker.

This spot hadn’t been as bare as the path from the stasis pod to the lockers. There were crates and junk, pieces of paperwork scattered everywhere. A sound like fallen leaves followed as Forst moved, the quiet murmur of the pages of years gone by, tracing his wake like an ethereal guard dog, keeping him moving in the right direction.

The air was heavy and stagnant, that was until the dust kicked up by his boots reached his nose, leaving him gagging and gripping his neck once more. The rough grains ground against the sores within him, the sensation almostas equally discomfortingas the memory of that grotesque sucking sound that pipe had made as it was pulled from his throat…

Definitely, that was the wrongest memory he could conjure, so he had to stop himself from the bubbling of vomit, though that wouldn’t have been much of a waste.

Covering his mouth with his sleeve helped, but it was clear the jacket needed a wash, or maybe several.

Isaac’s steps paused. In the distance, above the wood door, the wall bore a sign indicating the trainline. That couldn’t be right.

A fresh panic took him, the thought of never reaching the cafe, being robbed of that moment of rest, that sip of cool moisture to wash away the filth in his neck and the cracks of his lips that stung in iron.

Backtracking anxiously, his fingers clasped in a rough fist, reopening the cut on his palm and drawing a trace of spider’s footprints across the murky age.

“Hac… heaeh!” he called to the night, though the strain of speech was almost impossible to beat, that, and the creeping sense of aloneness were enough to deter him from trying further.

It was one thing to hear silence. It was quite another to hear your own voice go unanswered by any life but the distancing echoesof your own.

Isaac’s lips pulled back a hot hiss. He huffed again, looking to the walls; the briefing rooms behind, for any alternative from this foodless path.

Nothing.

This was unbelievable. How could he have missed it? How could this even be legal to happen! Scowling, he turned to a crate just by his side and bashed it in rage.

It was large and looked like solid wood, or at least it once had been. Now it was eaten by rot, Isaac’s foot passing right through and toppling the whole stack of boxes and papers.

Leaping to catch them, grasping at air and dust, Isaac locked his gaze over his shoulder towards the door, feeling sure security would burst through at any second with harsh berating.

Nothing came and no sound followed, but for the distant echoes of this crate’s demise reverberating through the empty concrete halls. Well, at least that allowed for a sigh of relief…

Cafe. Right there in front of him. Hidden by the stack of boxes: a door marked ‘cafe’!

Isaac’s mind buzzed, already energized and alert, ready to take on whatever duties had been assigned to him. His lips parting with a grin, the man muttered to himself, “It’s ahhg… it’s about time.”

Pushing against the door, he found the hinges blessedly smooth, he opened upon the… smelly, damp, ruined husk of what once could have resembled a cafe, lit up by his handy flashlight. The moldy green tiles were cracked all over, the paint on the concrete walls peeled away to the point it appeared more akin to a worn frilly dress than a paintjob.

Isaac pushed through, regardless. Nose scrunched against the fumes of mold, he wandered briefly around the huge room. There was something unnatural packed around the center, where plastic chairs were arranged unevenly around what looked like ash and charred wood. It wasn’t long before he looked up at the black mess of soot that had spread across the ceiling.

Who in their right mind would have a fire like this? It was breaking so many safety concerns and regulations, fully criminal!

One look at the taps was enough to frighten him off drinking from them, even if they might’ve worked. The food stocks were empty, the ovens didn’t turn on. The fridge… okay, the fridge was just disgusting. Not a chance he’d try any of the rest.

He lowered himself, perching on the edge of one of the many rusty tables scattered around the place. One that was the right way up. He sighed a groan as the declination set in and the life faded from him, the dizziness returning as growing weakness in his bones.

Absently, his fingers reached for his pocket and drew out the snubby wooden pipe. Lips finding their way around the stem, Isaac gazed around at the stained walls and the pattern of dark, oily streaks against the oceanic paint.

“Looking for a – lo-lo-l-l-looking for a sn-sn-snack? -nack?”

Jolting, Isaac spun at the noise.

“It’s t-t-t-the first gr-gr-… -feezz-nrr!” it came again from the corner, as if rodents were being ground by gears. There was a vending machine there, though the sound choked itself to extinction. Isaac wasn’t even sure what triggered it to play, or if it always did that, day after day, in this lonely mess.

Pulling himself up, he went for a closer look. The glass was still intact and he had no money, so no easy way of taking what was inside. He’d been told these things were alarmed and… well, the food inside was all festering rot anyway.

He slid his finger against the coin slot of the machine and chuckled to himself at the company’s choice to have a paid vending machine in a spot where no money had been given. Then he cleared his throat, and reminded himself the company didn’t make bad decisions, he just wasn’t capable of understanding them.

He moved to turn away, but a glint of metallic gray caught his eye: a packet on the bottom shelf of the device. Squinting, Isaac lowered himself towards it. Erzat’s? It wasn’t Tryka but it’d do!

The coin tray was the first place Isaac looked. Predictably empty. It never could be that easy. Beneath the machine some food was found, in the form of crackers, dried to a state of near mummification, in an interesting shade of green that he would have put aside for a modern art project, were he that way inclined.

The tables were all empty, the place surprisingly ‘clean’ of anything useful, despite the waste thrown everywhere. Behind the counter, in the sink, behind the lights and in the gaps behind the peeling paint.

At last, a penny was found, nearly lost in the gap between two tiles, where the silicone had worn away. A moment later it found a new home: burrowed between the slots of the vending machine. The buttons still worked and against all the odds, the device didn’t jam.

With a slap, the small plastic package of thin and long sticks plopped down to the base of the machine. A brief grope later and Isaac had the packet in his hand and was ripping open the top.

A scent of musty air and plastic rose to meet his nose. Yummy… yummy. Isaac sighed. At least ‘Erzat’s Synthetic Tobacco Sticks’ never expired.

He drew one to his mouth and slipped it between his lips. It was hazardous to swallow these things, these nasty little sticks of plastic. All you could do was suck them for the paltryamounts of tobacco inside.

Usually, he’d never bear thought of these things, but, well… if nothing else, the tobacco would be at least a little filling.

C5 – Workman

Isaac Forst slugged to a spot surprisingly clear of debris. A door marked with black letters stood before him ‘Platform 71B’. He pushed against it and it slid open easily. Had the hinges been oiled? He pondered on the good condition of this spot as he passed through the doorway, but his mind was taken aback as he stepped out into the darker expanse.

A long line of concrete was lain before him, a platform such as he’d expect at a train station. A single bulb hung from a cable, swaying in a gentle breeze.

Isaac sniffed as he looked around. Where was this breeze coming from? Maybe from the tunnels the station was connected to left to right? It didn’t appear that big, just two tracks, with the platform only being on one of the sides, the other having just concrete wall and cable.

His exploring footsteps echoed sporadically, each pace bringing a quiet grinding as he dragged over the broken concrete tiles. He breathed the cold air, gazing out at the festering blackness where lights were none. The air was fresh, slightly salty even. Some distant buzzing and sparks changed the pace, but were insignificant enough to be remembered more than the occurrence.

Even if he couldn’t see far beyond the yellow beam of incandescent light flickering above his head, it was enough. There was freedom to this spot. He stepped a little further forward, noting the chevron hazard markings helpfully laid across the edge of the drop. How far the drop was, he had no idea, but he’d traveled via metro enough times to know to ‘mind the gap’ on this one.

He glanced around for an indication of any signal lights or timetable, but saw only a telephone station set against the wall. It stood out as odd to him because it had no visible buttons. He moved over to it and lifted the receiver. Dead silence. No buttons on that either.

“Who’s you meant to be?”

Startled, gasping, Isaac drew his light and darted it to the source of the sound. A figure, hunched against the bare wall. Looked like a homeless goblin, a shape of hunched gray against the background with a tool bag in hand.

Scrunching his eyes, leaning towards the figure, the flashlight whirred as the handle span in the silence. Was it the Supervisor? The whirring buzz drew on as Isaac tentatively walked closer. It was a man, blue overalls, his hand raised against the light that Isaac shone.

“Who are you?” Isaac didn’t lower the torch.

“Whos you!”

“In charge.” Isaac chewed his lip without exterior hesitance.

The figure grunted, his voice fading. “God damnnit.”

“Now get up, let me see you.”

The reaction came instantly but slowly, reluctantly. Isaac wanted to put it down to lethargy from this guy’s own adventures with stasis but a niggling doubt was already in his mind that he was going to have larger problems with this man.

Isaac continued to shine the light directly in the figure’s face as he stood; watching as he dusted himself off and held his stomach, like he was close to throwing up. The figure squinted at the light but didn’t comment on it. Good. No harm in reinforcing the status quo after all. The figure blinked slowly with bloodshot oak eyes: dark patches just beneath that looked like he hadn’t slept in a month.

“Damn. Stasis wasn’t kind to you. You were in stasis, right?” Isaac waited a moment for a reply, but the figure just stood blinking, swaying slightly with a complexion pale. Isaac occupied himself with glancing over the man’s uniform. It was in a considerably worse condition than his own. “You are a mess, aren’t you. Couldn’t you clean yourself up a bit?”

“What with…”

“You should’ve checked around more, there were other coveralls, you had to check the other lockers.”

“Was the last locker, others was empty.”

“‘Vork Mon’. What’s up with your label? What’s a ‘Vork Mon’, hey? Is that oil stained over the letters?”

“Bratan, just… You know where there’s food?”

“Nevermind food, where’s water,” Forst rebuked, glancing off to the side as the flashlight fell to his side. There was no need to be too harsh on the man. They’d both been through Hell that morning, after all. Or evening. Not that those terms meant anything here.

“Back at the Cafe.”

Isaac froze as he drew back from his thoughts, skimming over the sights and smells he’d found in that forsaken place. “You… mean the taps? You drank from those things? What color was it even?”

“The color of rainbows.”

“Sure.”

“Color of hopes and dreams and elf candy.”

“I get it. Don’t drink that again. You’ll catch something.”

“Bratan, I… I dunno, bratan, I just…” He groaned, squeezing his fist against his stomach as he backed up to lean against the wall, dropping the workbag loudly to a clang of tools. “Maybe today’s just be a half day.”

“My stomach hurts too, but keep talking like that and we’re–”

The workman pulled himself away from the wall and grabbed his bag. “What? Stuff me back to stasis?”

“Don’t think I can’t, there’s many other workmen than you. Don’t think you’re-“

The telephone rang. Both men halted on their thoughts and turned towards it. It was a harsh sound and seemed to go on reverberating forever through the tunnels that no doubt stretched far into the distance. The workman sidled back to his wall and leaned heavily against it. Forst reached out a hand, and picked up the receiver.

“Erm. Hello?” said Isaac, tension already building around his shoulders and neck, expecting instantly to be scolded for taking on a Supervisor’s work get-up.

“Identify.“

“This is For… this is the Supervisor. I’m ready for orders.”

“Look for the green light.“

Confusion mixing with his already paranoid mind, Isaac glanced around the telephone station. “Erm.”

“Behind you. The track. Look to the right.“

Turning, scanning the bleakness beyond the bounds of the dull yellow light, Isaac caught sight of a dim green glow. A round bulb, a signal light, probably set into the wall. “I see it, Sir.”

“Follow it. Use the maintenance platform. There’s a train. Take it, drive it. The lights will guide you.“

“Sir, are there any stops for food on the way?” Silence answered. Isaac felt anxious heat building around his neck. “As in, the cafe wasn’t stocked with food, we haven’t eaten or drunk anything in… well, in months.”

Another moment of silence. “The journey will take 45 minutes. Brief your workmen to prepare for standard operating procedure.“

With a tone of droning denial, the line went dead in Isaac’s hand. He paused for a moment, sliding his tongue between his teeth and biting softly. Isaac turned a little, watching the workman out of the corner of his eye, who was watching back attentively. He’d somehow convinced whoever it was on the other side, at least for the moment. His biggest problem now was just…

His weight shifted to his other foot, the boot’s soul grinding against the cracked floor. “I see. One last matter: this fellow you’ve sent me, are you sure he’s up to code?”

“Hey, what you saying?” The figure rose like he’d been stung and came staggering over in the dark, catching himself against the doorframe as he stumbled closer.

“He’s just not showing the enthusiasm I’d expect, Sir. His uniform’s tatty, his attitude—“

“Look-look-look, bratan, I’m—“

“You sure it’s even the right guy for—“, Forst scoffed at air’s blink.

“Ay, course, who else, look-look-ey—“

Isaac held a finger towards him, gazing towards the concrete paneled wall. The droning tone was getting on his nerves, but the discomfort was more than worth it, judging by the workman’s reaction. “I see, I see. Thank you. Goodbye.” He lowered the phone and gazed at the dotted holes in the plastic surface.

“Look-look, I’m just sick as hell, bratan. Ey, when I’m feeling meself, I’ll work extra. Overtime, ye?”

“We’ll talk this over later.”

Replacing the phone, Isaac took his time ensuring it was properly centered in its cradle. He could see the figure wanting to talk, wanting to insist or question or bicker, but he was keeping it to himself. Isaac congratulated himself, he’d handled things pretty well.

“Workman.”

“Yeah!”

Forst looked past the man, to a dim light of green just barely visible, up the path. He stretched out a finger to the maintenance platform.

“Down there, that’s our train. On with it, Workman.”

C6 – Greenlight

The maintenance platform shuddered as they moved. With each step of boot against metal, a fine mist of oxide dustscattered to the gentle breeze of this chasmous space.

It made Isaac’s nose itch; stings in the back of his throat. This wasn’t going to give him silicosis,right? No, no the itchiness was just his imagination, the company would never let hazards like that linger.

It was a wonder: this place, this company. Such technology, such advancements, “Such a walk, for a train that can’t even meet us at the station…”

“You saying to me?”

“No. Keep quiet.” Isaac glanced over his shoulder, his wind-up flashlight whirring. Workman was shorter than he was, and not by a small amount, with a face drawn and still pale from stasis sickness. Probably not that different than his own.

His oaks glinted in the torchlight, although he avoided Isaac’s eye, glancing down at his coveralls and workbag: hanging sheets of ill-fitting cloth, such as befitting for a scarecrow rather than a man. A few good meals would do them both the world of good.

He seemed less sure footed, less comfortable with the heights, or maybe it was just the sickness. Either way, his ears were sharper than Isaac expected.

There was nothing to lean against, as either it was dirty or unstable, and the last thing that was on his mind was falling between the pits of darkness. If only there was a crossing in sight so they could get on the other side…

“Wonder what this place was.”

The workman caught up just in the moment, “Train station ain’ it.”

“No. This space. The size seems overkill just for some tracks.”

“Oh. Ah, just wanned it big-big, ain’ it.”

Isaac turned slowly away from the man, wind-up flashlight still buzzing in the gloom. “Shouldn’t be much further. We’re almost at the tunnel.”

Forst glanced down at the black below, through the small holes in the iron grating the platform was made of. Nothing could be seen, other than pipes and thickly sagged cables, before the dubious nothing. It gave off an unease that was bringing restlessness around his toes.

It had been fine to begin with, a row of fist-thick metal bolts, locking the catwalk against the edge of the platform…

“Let’s keep moving, we have a schedule to keep.”

But now, as he looked up at the glistening beam, the specks of metal dust were fumbling around the light, while the spindly ribs of the path’s supports reached out into the hanging darkness. No ceiling was seen, no sense of scale beyond the bouncing echoes of their voices.

Why didn’t they build this inside the wall, after all, this entire cavernous expanse must’ve taken so much effort, yet the cheaper way of rattling and creaking catwalks was the acceptable norm?

The path became a climb, every footstep resonating a clank of whispers as they mounted each metal step, one at a time, holding tight to the ice-cold rail as they went. Isaac thanked the gloves on his hands that kept away all the crumbling rust.

Steel skeletons of decayed crates loitered here and there, the occasional big drum just waiting in roundness or dents. Isaac glanced back again. “Mind the rail here, it’s loose.”

“Sure, bratan.”

Damn rail. Damn grates. What was the point of a train track if the train wasn’t even going to come to meet you. What sense did it make to have to walk to it? And the food…

Grunting, a boot landed heavily on the next step on the row of many. Exhaustion and breathlessness growing as Isaac climbed the steps to the wide mouth of the tunnel.

Not a scrap of food and only a run down, burnt out cafeteria as thanks for all his weeks frozen in that casket they called a stasis pod. At least… was it weeks? Could weeks lead the facility to the state of… this?

Of course, it might already have been like that, just an ancient facility to start with. Information appeared to be rather scarce.

He let the light die down in a happy moment’s rest for his wrist, gazing at the green signal light of guidance, buzzing gently in the silence. This wasn’t good. His body had been injected with energy back then, it’s the only explanation for what that orange liquid had been, but now all that was left was draining away, and just climbing up these stairs was shredding blur in his vision.

“Where we at?” asked Workman, though Isaac didn’t even answer, as, to his impatience, that was just ridiculous. “Yeye, we at the station, but where is this?” he gestured all around himself, finally a speck of sense.

“Underground. The rest doesn’t matter now.”

“She told me I was gonna be workin’ at city tunnel maintenance. She dun say I’d be napping in a pipe down my mouth.”

“She?”

“Ughm… that one… the one with the white hair, look like she old but not really.”

“What? Just say the name.”

“Name-nothing, it was some strange on… dunno. Oh, she gave me two chocolates, like the one with the hazelnuts and milk and stuff.”

Oh no, he spoke about food and the picture of sugary delight dropping on his salivated tongue came to fruition. Worst of all was milk… it brought him back to the days of youth where he’d always drink it whenever he felt like it. Always there, always delightful…

For one thing, past the storming pain in his stomach, his mouth was no longer as dry.

“Aha, she gave you chocolates too, ye!” The loudness brought him back in a befuddled squint, the moment’s amnesia asking him if he even remembered where he was or who was talking to him… Though, come to think of it, he had no real idea where they were really at. Could it be under the metropolis?

“Huh? I have no idea who you’re talking about. Cut talking about food. Think about something else, yes? The missing. Getting to the train,” and not about tasty things of hot food and water.

With a slap of lips, Isaac staggered on, half ignoring the idle babble of the man behind.

The light had been so small and subtle, but as they had limped closer, its intensity had grown bigger, brighter and taller..

Green. Isaac had always found it a fresh, clean color. Against the gray and red streaks of the stained walls, it only gave this sense of rotting grass, this sickly decay, especially in the round maw of this tunnel.

He sucked deeply, chest aching with emptiness he’d never felt before, hand clamped tight upon the galvanized pipe.

The maintenance path ended here, no other step, no other door, no other shaft. Contemplation wafted around his thoughts: if they should just sit tight and wait for this transport vehicle, but doubts pushed him to action due to the nature of their jobs and the lack of anybody since his awakening. Things just didn’t smell or look ripe, just stagnant and uncertain. And it was this uncertainty that was making his mind shrivel.

Gazing around at the tunnel, Forst grabbed on the rail and slowly hunched off the maintenance platform, but exactly at the moment that he touched the rough cement, the rusty metal snapped and led him to fall on his ass tentativelessly. Echoes reverberated his gloom deep into the tunnel’s guts.

Normally that’d be nothing, but the sheer energy he used to take control of that fall, and the murky blackness below, had blurred him and all he could do was pant. It gave him chill shivers, the sole protector of sanity being the green light’s shine.

His hand waved meaninglessly as the body tried to get him on his feet. Humiliation of such simple actions was not allowed. Worst came when two gruff hands grabbed him by the armpits in a lift.

“Get off me!” he struggled away, falling next to the platform’s edge. One would say that his reaction was utter stupidity, but he saw it as pity. Nobody could help him other than he himself.

With a glare at the puzzled man before him, he propped himself against the wall and slowly got back to his height.

Silence.

Adjusting his wrist, he realized that there was something in his grip: the broken piece of rail. That gave him distaste that he had managed to break company property. Sure it wasn’t his fault the thing was rotten, but he shouldn’t have grabbed onto it in the first place.

Now there were pointy shards of rust in the missing spot, so he could just put it… A glance at Workman was given, who just stared with a mild gawk.

“Workman, fix this,” Forst ordered and extended the piece of railing.

“Fix it? Whole thing need be throwing in trash!” Workman shouted to a clash of Forst’s convinced resolve. “Ey! Ya break it, ya fix it,” Workman fussed and crossed his arms in defiance.

“Which of us isthe Supervisor again?” Forst’s lips twitched, he had to be harder than this… “Are you telling me that you’re unable to perform a simple task? Incapable?”

“Huh? Of course I can, but you ‘xpect…” Workman sputtered his words in a rapid contemplation, and then he growled, “You want it fixed, eh? I’ll give ye a fucking fix.”

For a second Forst believed he was to be socked in face with the swing of hand that came at him, and it would’ve been true if that hand hadn’t snatched the rusty piece of metal from him him. Instead of limping to the place of damage, Workman walked normally, though Isaac put that down to frustration and not health.

Joy spread across his brain though, at the fact that he managed to get Workman to comply to his order, which was already a step in the right direction. Though the repair took too short of a time: the broken railing was shoved between the gaps and fixedin place with bent jagged ends that held it clawy.

“There, ha. Brand new. Looks better than before. See?” Workman pulled on it to try and prove that it was fixed well, but he just broke off the edge to it, causing it to fall out again. “Stupid piece of scrap…”

Filthy screeching filled the tunnel’s ears, Workman doing some dark magic by twisting the rod violently. Forstwould’ve stopped him, but didn’t, as the man had equipped his gloves from the opened workbag.

“Ha! Try pull it off now. Ye, you can’t-cuz Grigore fix-did it.” Workman moved to the side with a happy smirk, his eyes speaking expectation. So that was his name, Grigore. It didn’t matter, so Isaac obliged and tried to get close for an inspection with a proper gait, though that only made him wobble funnily.

He wasn’t interested in actually inspecting the job, as he knew well the futility of the order and that the whole point was to see if Workman would comply. There was no expectation of a success, yet somehow he had managed to shove the broken railing back in there.

Reaching out, he lightly tugged on it and nodded.

“It is our responsibility to preserve company property.”

Forst moved away and looked back at the station that now ebbed in the distance. The other side was darkness, the railing disappearing into its mouth.

There wasn’t much of a choice was there? To enter or not to. The tunnel’s ceiling was perfectly rounded with its set of train rails just next to their feet. Normally he’d have chosen to walk in the center, but one stumble was all they’d need to feel the thrill of a few thousand volts crawling up their legs.

“With me, Workman. Keep off the middle, don’t want any accidents.”

“Ye-ye…”

The path sloped gently up, then down and to the right. The echo became stuffy and the air grew warmer. They walked sluggishly until the green light behind was just a memory, but still no train was there to be seen.

Cement desert, skyless of night-no-day.

C7 – Train

It was getting easier, the body somehow acclimatized to the struggle of hunger, of being awake and destiffened. Though what was now the core drive was that of thirst.

Trying not to run his tongue across his lips, Isaac winced at the newly formed cracks that ran his mouth. He figured this assortment of ailments was the only reason he was still lumbering across this dingy tunnel.

Moment’s stop for sporadic breaths; he let the light die down off his cranked flashlight.

“We there yet?” asked Workman again. Instead of giving him the explanation or a basic answer, Isaac just stared at his feet with propped hands against his knees.

If they wouldn’t soon find this aforementioned train, this was going to get ugly, fast. In many ways he asked himself if this was the wrongest choice of all. The instructions said to get to the light, not beyond. Common sense also would spell out to wait, instead of forging on.

His feet moved anew, more or less because Workman was getting ahead, obviously disinterested in waiting along. It would’ve been fine, but this blanketing darkness was not helping, crawling spiders in his imagination.

Though things weren’t normal here, were they? How could he just comply with orders and surroundings that gave nothing but doubt and uncertainty. There should’ve been food, in-person briefings, security… just people in general! Hell, even just cockroaches or rats… like, anything!?

Deeply lost in thought, he bumped into Workman in an unexpected sidestep, but instead of an apology he sent a remark, “I told you to stick with—” but the remark fell as he noticed what Workman was staring at. It was a steel doorway where a nastily scrunched door stood. It was deformed in an unnatural way and allowed for anyone skinny to totter through.

Sure, he was curious, but they had a job to do, “Let’s get to that train.” But Workman did the opposite.

“Where is you, little chocolates.”

“Workman, get back— dammit, we don’t know what’s in there…”

The impudent man stopped as he stepped over the tracks, anxiety buzzing in Isaac’s mind at the bare centimeters his boot was away from the live rail.

“What’s in there is what’s not out here!”

“Get back here, the train’s this way.”

“Train ain’t anywhere, bratan. Food is. I feel it in me crozzle!”

Isaac glanced down the length of the tunnel, only vista being the buzzing of the flickering lights that luminated the edges of the cylindrical tunnel. He thought a rest would be nice.

A screech of metal drew him back, to see a hunching goblin crawl his way through the crack in the beaten-up door.

“Man, look at this. This room ain’t just put here, it’s summin’ to do with the train. Maybe even got why the train ain’t here.”

The devil on his shoulder had grown too obese to ignore. The chance of anything was better than this endless tunnel. Only problem was the disobedience. He needed to swing this back in his favor.

“Well, what do you see?”

Workman’s head appeared from the crack in the door. “Ey, bring us ya light over. Smells like crackers and salt.”

“Crackers?”

The lead in his bones leaving him, Isaac crossed the rail and hunched down in pursuit of the promise given. He snagged on the heavily beaten-in door on his way through, glaring over his shoulder at the freshly made rip in his Supervisor’s coveralls.

Isaac questioned in the back of his mind what in Dwell had bent the door like this, but his attention was too taken by the room to care.

Small office came into view. Small would’ve been a compliment. Desk with a lamp sat against the wall, some bits and bobs on the table, a control panel with a chair pulled in beneath it. Behind it stood Workman, hunched forward and sniffing about.

“Smell that? Yeah, smell that, I smell it.”

“Breakers,” Isaac commented, torch shining to the box of ceramic tubes mounted to the wall. Workman glanced over his shoulder to see.

Clocking on to the combination of location, size and the equipment about the place, a light chuckle left his lips.

“Oh, it’s a signal box. Keeps an eye on the trains, power surges, controls the tracks.”

“Whas’ the point? Just send cables up with the info to the HQ.”

“And what do you do when a system fails, huh? Or a line disconnects? The trains have to run safely, even when issues get in the way of direct comms.”

“Who told you all this? Thought you were in Supervision.”

“I am,” Isaac shot, but quickly corrected his temper. “I am now. Worked in one of these once. Above ground.”

A shot of pride filled Isaac at his own general knowledge and usefulness, until Workman’s next words spoiled the moment.

“Know to fix breakers then, ya?”

“What?”

“Looksee, I bets the lights all still work, just breaker gone broke-broke.”

“Uh. See, we had electric breakers, the modern ones.”

“Ya can’t fix it. Even the light-ups?”

“Look, it wasn’t my job to maintain the place, just to run it. I wasn’t there long anyway. You’re the maintenance guy, you fix it.”

Silence fell for a beat, both men holding one another’s gaze in the ambiance. “Oh, yah, yah. Mainte-ne-nance guy.”

Workman turned almost sulkily to the breaker board behind him, running his fingers along the cables, tapping the ceramics, tracing where the wires came from, where they went.

“Yea, when was taking the job, told me I’d be City maintenance, electrics all round down there. The tunnel. You think yourself, ‘Yeah, ain’t no tunnels down there’. But there is. Lights, I mean. ‘Lectric. Down in the subway, ye?”

Whatever was he babbling about? Isaac glanced to the ceiling above, lined with tiles of probably polystyrene insulation, many of which were broken or missing, one removed to make space for the fluorescent strip across the center.

“But yea, got lights all over for the workers and stuff. All needs ‘lectric. Yeahh, man. And the city… Shine over here, yea? Need to see what I’m working. City ain’t got like this, ceramics. They told me I’d be working with ceramics? Would’ve laughed and called them, uh… don’t know the Terrish word. Liars, pretty much.”

“What you say is impossible, by the way,” said Isaac, smoothly.

Workman leaned forward and sniffed the inside of one of the ceramic breakers he’d just unscrewed. It was singed inside, his face scrunched at the scent. He glanced to Isaac over his shoulder. “It happened, what more’s to say?”

“That’s not how this works, they can’t lie. Not like that, there’s paperwork you’d sign, contracts. If you’re telling the truth why not just sue them?”

“I ain’t no liar, bratan. Lady with the, chocolate she—”

“You couldn’t even remember her name, so don’t argue you have any better memory of what you signed. And cut it with the ‘bratan’. I’m your Supervisor and you’ll call me such.”

Silence came as Workman’s reply. Silence, and a quiet squeak as he twisted into place a piece of ceramic he’d taken from someplace else.

“We’re jus’ talking. Supervisor.”

He reached out a finger and flicked up a jut of black plastic from the side of the breaker box. Its snap filled the small room and echoed down the tunnel outside. A low buzz started as the snap faded to silence. Slowly, the bulb above started flickering into life.

At last, rest. The whirring of his flashlight came to an end as Isaac’s aching wrist was allowed to fall by his side. He would have given the task of winding to Workman long ago, had that not meant giving over the flashlight: right now his only meaningful badge of rank, and his handsomer uniform.

The chair Isaac fell into had no padding, just a plastic frame, yet still was the greatest relief to him in that moment. He muttered over his shoulder, sighing as the pain in his legs turned to only a sharp tingle. “Check the place out for a guide book, a manual. I’ll see if I can track down this train.”

“What about—”

“Don’t pester me, I have to figure this console out.”

Isaac scanned the console before him, the dim bulbs set into its duck egg yellow plastic. It was pretty useless. Even if Workman had restored power, more than half the bulbs were probably blown and there was no way of telling which, short of ripping the whole console to bits.

As if he could even trust the readings; no idea how long ago this place had been serviced. Were the lines being checked? Were the sensors maintained? Well, no use trying to solve the mystery of this place from here, the least he could do would be to figure out where they were.

Leaning in, trying to ignore the sound of rustling plastic behind him as Workman fiddled with his workbag, Isaac leaned in to the impression of the faded map upon which the lights and controls were set.

No easy ‘you are here’, but if he could just-

“What’s this wrench?” came a voice from behind.

“Uh, huh?” On the wall to the side of the console, perfectly between the door and the breaker board, was a series of tall switches: levers bound in a thick red plastic, bolted to the wall with heavy iron hinges.

“They control the power. They’re like the breakers, but—”

“The mains, yeah. I know how ‘lectric works. This wrench though.”

Half suppressing a huff, Forst leaned closer, squinting beneath the old light’s flicker, seeing a thick wrench of metal jammed inside the connection. “Who can say, must be there for a reason.”

“Want me yank it?”

“No-no!” Isaac shot, flapping at the man to take his hands back from the lump of metal stuffed inside the equipment.

“What if that’s keeping the train hiding away?”

“Don’t argue.”

A long huff escaped Workman as Isaac turned back to the control panel. Touching the raw electrics indeed. Did he have any idea how… Well, Isaac could see his point: anything to get them out of their ‘current’ predicament faster.

“Not much fun, is it. Bet you wish now you’d paid better attention to that contract of yours.”

“Just starving. And cold. So how’d they scam you into signing up work down here?”

“Ah, I found us.”

“Uh?”

“Right here, see? 71B, that’s where we left from. We walked up the catwalk. Here? Now we’re—”

“Alright cool. Now what?”

Isaac licked his lips. Then wished he hadn’t, the taste of iron coating his parched tongue. Rubbing his palm against his lips, Isaac regarded the tracks shown ahead.

Reaching out, he flicked one of the dark switches, the brittle plastic snapping off in Isaac’s hand.

“Typical,” he muttered, jamming it back in the hole, as though trying to disguise what he’d done. Workman made no comment. Trying again, he managed to flick what remained of the switch.

The room filled with a golden glow as the panel’s every light illuminated. Isaac’s brow twisted, fuddled by what he saw. With a hiss, the console flickered then faded to black.

A fit of brief anger taking him, Forst kicked out at the base of the console. The metallic thud echoed down the tunnel outside. Hearing shuffling behind him, Isaac twisted to see over his shoulder.

“Get this back on,” Isaac demanded, though Workman was already making noises at the fuse box behind.

“Nah, ’s blown, whole console’s blown.” Workman regarded the ceramic fuse he held in his hand. “Assholes. See that? Stuffed the whole fookin’ thing with copper wire.”

Chewing his lip as he glanced back to the console, Isaac turned fully to face the man. His first instinct was to ask what the copper wire was for, why it was a problem. But of course, that wasn’t something a Supervisor would need to ask.

“You’re the one who swapped fuses. If the console’s burnt out, that’s on you.”

“Uh! How’m I supposed to know? Know how lazy this is? Should’ve gone get a bigger fuse.”

He moved past Workman and snapped the mains’ switch off, crouching through the bent metal of the door as reverberations bounced away into the darkness of the tunnel.

“Follow.”

Only thing left to try was just finding the blasted train so they could get on with their work… though now mostly food was on Isaac’s mind, food and water and rest. He wanted to groan in a shriek, but failed to do so as Workman was nearby.

There were so many questions, yet only deafness festered around them as neither spoke, nor muttered, nor glanced at one another. In a way it was making every step take longer, ramping up the discomfort, the agony.

“Ey, what if the train is on the other side?” Ah, somehow the thoughts, the newness; they made his awareness go away from the gloom and doom of his existence. In a way, he appreciated it.

“We have the light, it’s here.”

“Ye-ye, light. But did ye see the other way? You see if it got light as well?” That was a valid question, and he scowled at realizing he had not checked, since what if the answer was obvious and the voice had meant the other way…

“No.”

“You didn’ see it?”

“No, there wasn’t any,” Isaac lied, since he didn’t trust himself to be capable of going back if Workman would defy him and turn around. At any rate, if he were to be proven to have deceived him, that would’ve meant they had found the salvation on wheels.

“Did you find anything useful in there?” To Isaac’s question Workman adjusted his uniform and coughed as his workbag jingled.

“Lotta blown fuses, old fuse sockets, wires and dust.”

“You’re pretty familiar with that. How so?”

“Grandpa’s old place. Had exactly the same buggers. He din’ like to touch ‘em so I’d gotta fix ‘em. He’d also do the copper wire trick to reuse a fuse, goddamn dementia-head.”

“Least you learned something.”

“But ain’t just him, I’ve seen at hotels and government buildings, using the same old stuff… but you know, if it ain’t broken don’t touch. Zap.”

“Surely the government had—”

“Zap.”

“There’s no way they—”

“Zap!”

“Fu— shut up! You can’t tell me that—”

“There, the choo-choo,” cut through the jovial whistle that would’ve slashed Isaac’s nerve if not for the relief upon seeing the train… at what appeared to be the end of the tunnel, though the end wasn’t something expected or remotely acceptable.

Collapsed, sticking rebar, crumbled rubble and no path in sight, the only leftover of survival being the steel train that somehow had missed being caved in on.

“Surely it chugs on coal, ey, Supervisor? Ha-ha!”

Well damned might it be, they had found it to smile’s relent.

C8 – Departure?

Flecks of thousands swam in the dimming bright, touching skin, glove, cement. Their destination as known as a blind wail of seething droplets.

Iron in his mouth winced at the dulling of the excitement as Isaac exhaled the dumbfounded stress that’d plagued him all throughout the journey of hardship.

He’d have asked for more time in that zone of calm, but Workman filled the void with his babbles of illegibility.

Stepping closer to shine a path for Workman, the train’s body now took shape. It was old, just like the rest of the place. Scrappy and battered, its entire pilot with the shape of snowplow, though one of countless welds of imprecision.

It’s size was disappointing, as he could nearly see into the cabin through the filth-grimed windows. It looked like a small tank, though at another bellow from Workman and the inspection towards the back, it showed its long frame that could’ve been considered a compensation for the trodden height.

“Ey, Super. Need light!” shouted Workman from the back. For a moment Isaac was to retort at the nickname but decided to let it go due to the nature of their success.

As he stepped by its side, he could see the small wheels, the sheets of metal that had been fused to the frame as if giving it more protection, though he suspected it was just to cover the holes of rust beneath.

Grunts… scraping… what was Workman doing?

“Wait, you can’t see—” Isaac tried, but as he shone at the noises, Workman had already climbed the little bars and onto the train.

Light now glancing upon him, Workman turned back, mouth grinning and arms raised in a triumphant ‘ta-dah’.

Huh, well it was good to know of the nocturnal capabilities of his subordinate. Personally he’d never risk it after his little event at the platform. Everything around here was a predator waiting to break off to stab or throw you off.

Stopping before those same steps, he glanced at the collapsed tunnel nearby. There was what looked like a passenger wagon, half covered in rubble. The metal frame bent like marzipan beneath the collapse. The part that gave him a shiver was the question to how they’d go about disconnecting the solid obsidian claw attaching the engine carriage to that one. Somehow he hated the potential answer.

Passing on the torch to Workman and grabbing firmly to the rails, he heaved himself off the ground. This weakness was festering faintness in him, but reinvigoration of hope steeled his nerves and he pulled through without losing mind and eye.

Good thing was that Workman didn’t try to help him, which was a sign that active listening was achieved. The door leading inside was opened, with just a moment’s hesitance by those rust-crusted hinges.

A small corridor bringing them closer to the front. This closed-off box had a strange abandoned vibe to it, yet somehow achieved coziness, at least over the vastness of the tunnel and the blackness that whispered.

They stopped before some kind of electrical panel that had its little casing fully exposed, a yellow light indicating residual power. The scribble on the metal said ‘PRESS, Bob’ in its dark, marker-likeness, right under a big red button.

Under no circumstances did Isaac think they should do that before—

“No!” Isaac screamed as Workman shoved his finger into the button at a speed that shouldn’t have been possible. Isaac pushed him away, the grinding of something in the wall poking goosebumps on his skin as the lights flickered all across the corridor.

He tried to find anything that might stop the process but there were no other functional buttons, just those old damn ceramic fuses in different sizes. Maybe everything would be alright, maybe—

In violence the big fuse crackled wildly in smoke and coughs and blew up in a manner that cracked and flung the piece of protective glass at its front, grazing too closely over Isaac’s head.

“Why the f— why’d you do that, Workman?!”

“Huh? I did what it say, see?”

“What if it said ‘kill yourself’?”

He squinted at the button. “It don’t say that.”

“Well obviously no—” caught in a daze as his vision blurred, Isaac propped himself against the steel and tried to find calm between his labored breaths. Stress was leaking out of him in droves to the extent of fear over his own life. Was his heart going to explode?

Something touched him, more like pulled, though all that was was the likely silhouette of Workman. Coldness touched upon his rump. He was sitting down. Words shook his ears but nothing could go through the piercing tinnitus.

Ugh… his eyes kept defocusing, awareness gone…

If this kept going, it would spell disaster in terms of being able to solve basic problems. Worst of all: he feared hallucinations.

Focusing as much as possible to calm down and reduce his heartbeat, his ears slowly tuned in and finally were able to understand.

“—no button be there to kill me, no-no. This the one, see?” Workman lowered himself to eye level and showed Isaac the big fuse: black, charry and melted. “Is a piece of banana peel. See it was even cracked. It’s the engine, but I don’t see the ‘kill yourself’ fuse.”

Trying to stand, faintness again overtook him, his head falling back as all the strength in his body faded. He opened his eyes a few moments later to see Workman still babbling excuses for his stupidity. His heart pounded a constant rhythm in his chest.

It slowly dawned on him that this is what dying felt like.

“Just… forget it, what’s done is done.” Scolding, arguments, the damages done to company property: these were issues for another day, another time.

Wasn’t easy but with some grunts he was on his feet. Holding himself upright against the metal rail on the wall, Isaac tried and eventually managed to focus through the induced haze. Things were brighter, lights shining in the corridor and basking the tunnel.

In a few hours he wouldn’t manage even that. Time was running out. He had to find energy to put in his body, or…

“Tell me plain, what do we need to get this moving?”

“Well, less you wanna drag whole tunnel with you, we gotta disconnect other carriage.”

“Obviously.”

“So how bout that be your job. I’ll give flip-flop to the engine and ask ‘lil mice inside whassup.”

Through the mist of trying to keep up with what was said, Isaac didn’t even care to rebuke Workman for instructing him on what to do.

“What about light, there’s just one flashlight.”

“Yee, I’ll be needing it.”

Instinctively, Isaac’s hand closed tighter around the torch. Workman huffed and waved his hands towards him in defiance.

“You’ve got the light uh the train to see by, all you gotta do is check around how it’s attached. Meanwhile me’s gotta check all through the engine murk. Who needs light more, ah?”

How did he have so much energy still? Isaac felt he could barely walk. Arguing being the last priority on his mind, he handed over the flashlight and shuffled through the metal archway to the steps down from the train.

“Get oil over my torch, and I’ll—”

“Starve me? Yea, ho-ho.”

From outside, the black murk of the train’s windows had been transformed into a soft golden glow. Dim though it was, as the glow of speckled dust pierced the bowels of the tunnel, the darkness only grew darker and inexplainable, the cloud of dust shrouding its real face.

A sigh broke unevenly as his foot crunched on the broken rock and concrete strewn around, his heart still pounding a rhythm of desperation.

Glancing over his shoulder at a clang of metal and muffled shouts, Isaac saw Workman clambering atop the train. Calling out to get down seemed like too much work in that moment to care.

Besides, he knew what he was doing. Probably.

As he watched, Workman managed to find some kind of catch that popped the engine’s cover and had his hands, and Isaac’s flashlight, already pushed inside.

How did he have such energy still? It was so unfair. They’d both had their stomachs pumped-empty. Well, this Gregor, or whatever it was… was shorter, thinner too. Maybe the weight was making a difference? Or maybe it was that chocolate he kept bringing up. Why didn’t I get chocolate? Why didn’t I get Supervisor? Why Workman? He didn’t even—

A bang ripped through his musings, an explosion, or maybe just a pop being amplified by this echoing tube. He startled back, palms covering his ears and yelling out, “What happened? Hey, you there?”

“Nuthin’, nuthin’,” echoed Workman’s reply. “Just uh, making lil test of the uh… When mouse goes pop-pop you know you gotta find… new mouse. Fuse module, y’know? How ya going on?”

Nothing he said made sense. It seemed to be the norm for Workman. Was it the language barrier or just the exhaustion? He seemed to articulate well enough when he wanted. No matter. If Workman couldn’t fix the engine, Isaac sure as anything knew he couldn’t.

By the gold light of the train, Forst took in the situation. He’d known all along they were underground, but seeing for himself the thick concrete that these walls were made of, glimpsing behind the curtain that made this place, kept them separated from the miles of dirt and rock above?

It was haunting.

Especially so seeing it collapsed, the debris, the shards of concrete and twisted fingers of rebar groping, clawing from all corners of its decaying remains… All too clearly he saw how quickly this place could turn.

The train would be zero safety, the frame of the passenger carriage had buckled under the weight of the collapse like it wasn’t even there. Why would an unweightable heap of rocks care for a few centimeters of metal?

Stepping closer to the husk of broken glass and mangled metal, he tried to keep himself steady as he looked at the problem at hand. Every time he let his mind wander on the fragility of the moment, deep panic always came soon after, breathless and blurry.

Quite relievingly, Isaac found himself looking at a standard train coupling, the type he’d seen many times before. Or what was left of one. That was the problem; where the luck ended.

Isaac gave it a few kicks, but wasn’t impressed by the result. The pressure of the tunnel falling on the train had over-strained the metal of the coupling, bending it badly out of shape. The release catch was right there in front of him, but it all too clearly wasn’t going to budge easily.

Crouching down low, pushing his face up close against the mechanism, Forst reached out and gave the latch a shove. A layer of grime came off in his hand, but the more interesting outcome was the wiggle, the slight shift of motion between the two train knuckles, even bent as they were.

Pulling himself up with fresh excitement, a boot came smacking down squarely on the latch. It turned, dug deep into the twisted remains and stuck itself in place. Again the boot came smacking down, although this time it barely budged at all. Isaac’s balance failed him, arms dancing the empty air for something to grab and finding nothing but the aloof, unhelpful air.

“Orughta’ve been an acrobat, hah. Moves like that.”

“Shut your mouth,” grunted Isaac, sat hunched on a piece of fallen concrete, glancing across as the gnome of a human wandered over to him. “You get the engine up yet?”

“Nah, just need some bits. Got lotta tools I need in mah bag, but fuses? Nah. Gonna go take a walk back down up that room, get em there.”

“Yeah.”

“How bout you, sup with this?”

“We were pretty lucky,” he answered, slapping the thick metal of a coupler knuckle. “Mechanism still works, just the metal’s twisted too much to separate.”

Workman glanced between the two carriages and the couplers, his face growing to a glower as he seemed to be struggling to process what he’d been told. Maybe he wasn’t so full of energy after all.

“We fookin’ stuck here,” he shot, sudden rage taking him. “Gonna fookin’ suck and die here ain’t we? How’s that ‘good news’, lil pencil bratan?”

“Oh, it ju— pencil bratan? What did you call me?”

“Yeah. Cuz yo ass skinny.”

Shaking his head slowly, mouth agasp in disbelief, Isaac decided they’d skip that conversation. “The latch just needs a hard smack, I’m pretty sure—”

Instantly Workman jolted towards the latch.

“I already tried that. We need something with more force than a boot. A crowbar, or something.”

“Ain’t got none!”

Knuckles turning white at this infuriating creature he had to deal with, Isaac let the sarcasm flow, “Yeah, neither I ain’t. Get me?”

“So what we do?” Workman growled, smacking his palms together as he looked about the darkness. “Look, wait here. I’ll go get the fuses, something there might help with this. Right? Yeah. You go check inside other carriage. Yeah-yeah?”

“In there?”

“Might even find your magic crowbar in there. Might even find Bob!” Workman said, walking away up the emptiness of the tunnel, illuminated by the dull beams of the train.

“I’m not going in there, there’s a tunnel’s collapsed on it. That place is a death trap!”

Turning back, arms outstretched to the unseen skies above in praise, Workman started singing, clear and loud, voice echoing across the dust-ridden floors and cracked concrete walls… “Deathtrap-deathtrap! Welcome to Deep Dwell. Deathtraps of every kind! For ya wonder and amazement, see mice running in little maze. We even starve them first for your amusement! Nothing like a little zap-zap for…”

Babbling and babbling as he walked, the sound of Workman’s voice slowly grew impossible to understand, his song reverberating and mixing with his babbles of before, until it was all just one noise.

The light of his flashlight faded in the distance. Then so did Workman’s voice.

For a moment, Isaac thought he’d be happy for some silence and solitude. But then the itchy doubt, the anxieties, the sickening isolation of this inhuman hell he was surrounded by… it crept in.

Pulling himself once more to his feet, he gazed out at the empty tunnel, tingling dread dancing down his spine.

Wonder if he’ll be back soon.

C9 – Rumble

It took a long time for Isaac to shuffle his way back to the entrance of the train; took even longer to climb up those few metal steps to get inside.

Its condition was as grim as the rest of the place: rusted plating, exposed wires and a layer of grime over every surface. Boots creaked as he moved across the rubber-padded floor. Between the bulk of the control panel and the torn up fabric of the driver’s seat, Isaac peered yet again down the tunnel of the temperedly illuminated path, where some time ago Workman had backtracked into the black within.

Isaac shivered. He didn’t want to know how long it went on for. A labyrinth of tunnels without a soul in sight. It was almost amusing that the closest thing to a sign of life he’d seen, besides the creature Workman, had been a button marked ‘Bob’.

Pulling himself away from the view, Isaac turned to the back end of the engine carriage, the source of the golden light that felt so inviting in this chill-decaying box.

It was spacious, surprisingly so. A few short meters, but homely so they were. Two benches of a crimson fabric were set against the walls, relatively clean and only marginally torn. Already he felt the gnawing urge to rest his head upon the surface, just to feel its softness against his aching spine.

A small electric heater was just beside one of them. Reaching out a thumb, the button smoothly clicked and the device rushed into life. Damn, something didn’t blow up for once.

That was as much as he could take. The relief he felt to sit down on a surface with actual padding made him sigh a groan like he’d never sighed before. He wouldn’t have cared, even if Workman had been around.

Pushing his palms open against the blow of the heater, Isaac’s head dipped in the strain of his own consciousness.

Sleeping was not an option, not in this condition. The seductive pull of exhaustion, the siren song of rest. All it would take for his body to give in to the vibrant echoes of his decline, was for him to allow it. There’d be no coming back. He had to find food. Had to find water.

Desperate defiance overtook him as he pulled himself back to his feet. He feared this was his last chance to make it, the last shot of adrenaline he had left to survive. The urge to vomit was irresistible, held off only by the absence of anything to vomit.

Turning aside, shivering, sweating, checking the shelves along the walls of the cart: all of them empty, the buzz in his deranged mind stinging louder and sharper than the many florescent beams all around. He stumbled as he turned, rasping into the silent dispassion of the carriage, grabbing, clutching to something of leather to steady himself.

It was… Workman’s sack? But what made that crunch sound as he’d grabbed upon it?

Reaching out an unsteady hand, trembling fingers managed to find hold on the metal hoop of the zipper. Pulling it down, he reached inside the synthetic fabric, fingers clasping around a packet of plastic and… crumbs.

Crumbs?

A packet of crackers, half eaten. Somehow preserved and fresh, quite unlike everything else he’d seen so far.

The sweetest scent he’d ever smelled followed it, a rich creaminess that enveloped his senses. He pulled the first from its brightly colored packet, teeth crunching on its dry, bready desire.

Eating it was laborsome, without water or cheese and a mouth drier than brick dust, yet this was no reason to complain. Gulping down the broken crumbs a deep gurgle arose from his chest. This was probably the last thing his stomach was expecting these days as food.

He attacked the packet, scoffing a dozen in barely a minute. Each one harder to swallow than the next, he forced himself to eat anyway, until only a dozen or so were left.

While his lips were still parched, his throat itchy and sore from the half chewed crackers he’d forced down there, he at least had something inside him.

Sighing in relief, leaning back against the carriage wall, he glanced absently over the packet. Plain crackers. No salt, no sugar. Never had sugarless crackers tasted so sweet. Had it been in his bag all along? They were so fresh.

A crack-lipped grimace of a smile breaking on his face, Isaac shook his head. Unbelievable. So that was how he was so spry. He glanced down to Workman’s bag. Mouthful of water indeed, he probably had sparkling wine in there!

On a thought around, the ambiance fainted… weakened, as if his thoughts were getting louder and vivid, while a sudden movement of air rustled against his neck, from back towards the collapsed end of the tunnel. Nevertheless, just as he was to press his hand further inside that mystery sack of tools and treasures, the world just shook.

Isaac fell, barely grabbing himself by the metal poles as his head came within millimeters of smacking heavily on the wall. The train shook, the lights flickered, a thunderous groan, the raging growl of some cave monster ripped through the silence, the loudest noise he’d heard since waking up.

The lights died. Laid panting on the floor, trying not to move, he craned his head at the window. It couldn’t even be seen in the black, let alone anything outside of it.

Eyes still fixed in that space where he knew the window was, Isaac groped the floor for his flashlight, but he remembered it was with Workman. So his hand returned only a half eaten packet of crackers. Well, that was a good find anyway.

Something snapped in the small corridor by the entrance of the train, drawing a startled shudder as Isaac snapped to face it. But it seemed the snap was good news, as the orange lights flickered back into comfort, and all of a sudden the phantoms of monsters and ghosts oozed off his mind.

No. No, no. No monsters down here. Just him and Workman. Workman was a creature of his own kind, but whatever that noise was, it was no living thing.

Pulling himself back up on the chair, even the heater drew back to life. Anxiously nibbling on another cracker, he gazed even still at the window. Sounded more like a rumble, really. There’s already been one cave-in right here, it was probably just another.

Soothed to the soft whir of the electric fan, Isaac let his head come to rest against the red fabric of the chair.

The munching slowly stopped.