Season 01 - Episode 17

‘over the edge’

Iz sits on the stairs and looks over the edge. She has climbed higher than ever before. Far below is the door into The Levels, the one she usually lives by. The next door is many floors above her. Here in between however is some relative peace, the crowds not so thick as to crush.

Scattered platforms jut out below. She has never seen them so full. The cults have stayed away since the EnFo raid but there has been an outright invasion of Inners. Day after day they pour in by the hundred. Wide eyed, terrified and every one of them in the way.

At first she thought it meant income, rich pickings and easy prey. It turns out these Inners have nothing worth stealing. They're as poor as everyone else and what little they bring is soon spent.

Iz scratches her itches absently, reaching in under her clothes. Her sharp nails scrape through the fudgy filth but bring only fleeting relief. As soon as she stops scratching, her skin burns and itches anew.

Her stomach growls but she ignores it. She tried bidding at the food stalls earlier but couldn't even get close. The Inners mobbed them, frantically trading all that they had, overpaying and outbidding everyone else.

She found one likely mark. A fresh green Inner who had decided to get good and drunk before exile. Iz led him down to her usual spot under the stairs only to find some Inner family had moved in. Some woman and a kid who wouldn't stop crying with a guy who might have been dead.

Looking down at the masses, hearing the wails, smelling the fear and the filth, Iz feels nothing but hungry. Life only gets harder, her Mum used to say. It was the only honest thing she ever said.

Iz wonders where to go and what to do, squinting and peering across. The Scapes opposite look as bad if not worse. She wonders idly if the next door up will be better but is sure it will be the same.

A few floors down is a large square platform, suspended over nothing on struts. A food vendor on the outer edge starts to call above the general din. A crowd like Iz has never seen before surges out towards him.

The mob is like boiling liquid, arms flailing for attention. Then a new sound silences the crowd, an anguished groan of metal. The platform shudders and tilts. The vendor's table slides and he is pinned between it and the railings. Everyone on the platform freezes.

Then someone's nerve breaks. They scream and push, trying to get off. The panic spreads like fire and in seconds the crowd is eating itself as everyone tries to flee through everyone else.

The groaning sound returns, even louder this time. As Iz watches, the whole platform sags in slow motion, buckling and breaking away from the main structure of The Scapes. There is a moment of stillness, of a thousand held breaths. Then the whole thing simply drops.

One second there is life, bodies and motion. The next there is nothing, just a big empty space, underlined by fast fading screams. All that remains are raw edges, broken struts and flailing chains. People nearby grip their neighbours and some stumble over the new edge. A few catch themselves and cling to the brink with their fingertips. Most who try to help are pulled over as well.

A few seconds later, the sound of the impact swells back up from below, so loud it is briefly silent. All of The Scapes shudders and shakes and everyone clings on to something. Iz holds the railings and waits to see what else will fall.

A few heartbeats more and The Scapes remain. It seems she might live through the day after all. A space clears along the edge of the fallen platform. A few ragged stragglers remain. Distraught and bereft they kneel and they cry, their tears chasing their loved ones down into the void.

Iz sighs and goes looking for food.

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