Season 02 - Episode 23

‘to drink here’

Ak is thirsty.

He's also exhausted, injured and traumatised but right now, thirst is all he can think of. He has been walking for a long time, he has no idea how long. Several times he has stopped, sat down on the floor, leant against the wall and dozed. Every time he has done this however, he has dreamed of falling and jumped awake in terror before dragged himself back to his feet. He needs to drink.

The dark corridor had twisted and turned for what felt like forever, gradually lightening with each step. As he went, more and more details emerged form the gloom, the texture of the walls, stains on the floor, the outlines of broken lighting units in the ceiling. He needs to drink.

Then, eventually, he rounded a corridor and found a junction ahead, a junction joining the dark corridor to a fully lit one. He chose a direction without thinking about it and then carried on walking. A few corners later and he realised he was already lost. He needs to drink.

These corridors are all lit up but still just as silent and empty as the dark one before. Ak encounters doors now, spaced out down either side, but every one he has tried so far has been locked. It appears to be a residential sector, similar to those he saw far above when he first set out on this journey. He needs to drink.

Here however, instead of bustle and grime, everything is dusty and broken. The silence presses everything flat, holds everything still, and makes him feel like an intruder. He regularly stops and strains his ears but never, ever hears a sound. His own footsteps, even in socks, sound thunderous in comparison and he finds himself tiptoeing along. He needs to drink.

Ak tries another door at random and finds that this one opens. The movement disturbs the long layered dust, puffs up a choking grey cloud. Inside is an ordinary looking room. Sparse, broken down furniture, a stained, stripped bare bed, an oblong of pale on the wall where a vidscreen had once hung. He needs to drink.

He rushes to the basin in the washarea and snatches at both the taps. Nothing happens. He runs a sandpaper tongue over paper dry lips and stares at the spitefully dry spouts. He desperately needs to drink.

Hurrying now, Ak tries other doors and finds a few more open. Every room is the same however, derelict, gutted, empty and dry. His head is throbbing making it hard to go on but he fears if he stops, if he sits down to rest, he will never get started again. He must have something to drink.

Corner after corner, door after door, he finds nothing and nothing and nothing. Then, one more corner on, another door comes into view, a door with a thick silver stripe painted across it. If he doesn't get a drink now he will die.

Ak steps through the door, out onto The Scapes, his footsteps now clanging metallic. These Scapes are also strange, stripped right back with none of the usual platforms or bridges. The great black void between this side and the other, vanishing above and below, echoes the void into which he fell. He doesn't think about any of this.

Falling from above, slow soaking him through, is an endless pitter patter of wet. Ak opens his mouth and tips back his head, gulping down mouthfuls of rin. The falling water tastes acrid and tart and each swallow flips over his stomach. Ak cannot and does not care.

Finally sated, he shakes his head and wipes the stinging rin from his eyes. He pads back inside to continue exploring but now keeps careful track of the turns.

He passes through the desolation of the residential sector and finally reaches a park. The sign at the entrance stops him dead. It claims that this park is in The Forty-Second though he knows this cannot be true. The Forty-Second is a neighbourhood near his apartment, countless floors far above him.

The puzzle of the sign fades quickly however, when he takes a look inside. Open mouthed, he drags his feet and stumbles into the park. At it's centre is a great mound, twenty feet high and several times that across. Ak stares and stares and stares and still cannot believe what he's seeing.

The mound is a pile of bodies.

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