“Once again, the Sun rises.”
Raime could hear the hall getting louder through their open door. They grasped the first line of the call, everything was over now. They attempted burrowing in the pillows but all they knew that there was no salvation to be found deep under the blankets. They were awake now and like most days it felt less of a brand new adventure waiting for them and more like something precious had been robbed from deep within their body.
The door blasted open as their neighbor made her way to them without any consideration and slapped at the bottom of their bed. A less accustomed guest could’ve easily looked around their room and deduced noone was present but this one knew better.
“What. Are. You. Still. Sleeping. For!” Avril accentuated the accusation by rhythming her words with increasingly louder slaps.
Raime grunted and buried themselves deeper in their bed. The disgraceful intruder abandoned her percussion to head towards their small window. The growing light of the Sun had already started fading the palette of their small apartment.
“You keep your window open now?” Avril gently lowered the window without locking it, “Come on, I’m serious I’m not waiting for you, everyone’s at Tenor already and the call started.”
Halfway towards accepting their fate of not getting one more second of sleep, Raime proposed another, lighter, grunt that her neighbor interpreted as a question.
“You don’t care about the Knight’s interview with a Doctor? I assumed even you would wake up for that.”
The sentence made Raime rise from their bed at a speed that left them light-headed, their vision blacking out sporadically. They were only wearing a white shirt branded “Yama Best Grill!!!” and gray shorts. Avril was only slightly startled at the outburst, noticed the shirt and raised her eyebrows.
“Wow, cool. I take it from your reaction you didn’t know about it? Where were you yesterday even? Forget it, don’t care, I’m going. See you there.”
As fast as she had entered Avril was gone, not bothering to close the door behind her, leaving Raime stuck in place. They tried to focus their mind and recollect memories from yesterday to deal with the question Avril had asked without bothering to hear an answer. They slowly and sluggishly rose from their bed and headed to their small bathroom, it wasn’t a long walk as they reached the mirror above their unsightly red sink in two elongated strides to stretch their legs. Raime looked like they hadn’t eaten in a week, their mess of dark hair making them look even more disheveled. An attempt at putting order made the bags under their blue-gray eyes even more apparent. Raime had grown to dislike those eyes, giving them a sad and melancholic look, their color barely shifting at night or under the sunlight. No more attempts were made and they slipped into their boots that they always laid under the sink. As they looked down their eyes fell on the black tiled floor, strangely clean. Raime then remembered in vivid details what had led them to this point.
They had been at a food corner in Yama, in the long street caught between the district and the Hull. They had received the day prior a formal invitation by the sole cook as “loyal patrons” alongside two others. All three of them sat on the corner itself, focused on a pile of what they guessed was meat, laid out on the kitchen table. Raime was invited at two on the clock, well after sundown. It had been the first time they were invited by anyone by virtue of being a repeat customer and, even after some internal debate, they came gladly. They sat in the middle surrounded by a tall human, short haired wearing an orange outfit with hints of glittered blue and a myrrh shorter than them both, dressed in black and white. All of them were recurring guests and therefore knew of each other’s presence but had never initiated a dialogue before. They kept a respectful silence, in unspoken agreement that they needed to let cook Balem be the one to lead the way.
And so he came, armed with a great knife that he solemnly put next to the eye-catching meat pile.
“Dear friends,” Balem announced, his voice deep, his stature taking most of the space in the small kitchen, “I brought you all here today because I’ve been blessed with a very special opportunity. To tell you the truth, I’ve been holding on to this in my freezer since the Scavs rode into town and I… it took me a while to grasp the courage to finally lay it on my table.”
The orange wearing man leaned in, his elbows on the counter, eyes wide, “You don’t mean…”
“I mean!” Balem slammed his fist on the table, his voice gripped by emotion.
“This is real meat,” Raime hushed, making the red skinned myrrh look frantically between them and Balem.
Raime had spoken without thinking, instantly following the spark of thought that bloomed in their head following the vague information Balem had given. They had heard rumors over the last few days about an unusual frozen shipment but this, sitting where they were right now, made their heartbeat quicken.
“That’s right!” he pointed at Raime, following their lead and hushing the rest of his sentence, “Not synthetic, the Scavs found real animal meat on their travels, frozen from who knows when!”
“This is blasphemy,” the man in orange whispered, gripping the other side of the counter and trembling in excitement.
“Hence my long and torturous wait. Multiple cooks all over Kunlun gathered in Freeway, including yours truly. Many didn’t take on the offer. I wish I could’ve been as brave as the first one who stepped forward to take a share. But I ended up only following their lead, and here we are.”
The myrrh spoke for the first time, his voice low and stern but shaken, “To think what this poor beast must have endured, living fated to be consumed…”
“An animal like in the stories,” Raime said, their eyes glued to the meat of a glistening rose, laid out in reverence.
Their comrades followed.
“From a time before time.”
“Now at the end of everything.”
“Aye,” Balem interjected with true woe in his voice, “I don’t even know what kind they were, lad named 15 told me the labels had been worn down by time. It is a true honor to handle such an ancestral being and I couldn’t do it by myself. I invited you, my most loyal guests, to partake and honor this unknown beast’s memory.”
“Partake ?”
“Aye!” shouted Balem, picking his knife back up, “Now, we grill!”
All three joined his voice to his, making passersby of Yama’s nightlife turn heads.
The next thing Raime remembered was laying on their side in the bathroom, naked except for a brand new shirt that had been gifted to celebrate the occasion. They had abandoned the seat of the toilet which provided little comfort anymore to cool on the tiles. They could see outside of their window from where they laid, motionless, the cold air gently brushing their face. From the floor, the window provided a small view of the stars, shining proudly above the Hull’s sea of lights. They didn’t attempt counting them but wondered if anyone was doing so at this exact moment, but someone not in their predicament would surely have something better to do.
Raime didn’t keep a clock in their room. Knowing the exact timeline of yesterday’s events would be a pointless exercise. They had spent the day wavering between pure agony and restless sleep, only aware of the passage of time following the path of shadows across their walls every time they were woken up, drenched in sweat. Their only deliberate action had been stepping out of their room at an unknown hour to get fresh water from Avril and her mom’s place, their room wasn’t gifted with a freezer. The most humiliating part of this ordeal had been that something had possessed them to knock on their door before entering. There had been no response but what would they have said if they were welcomed in, would they even have been? Even if they hadn’t crossed either of them during their prowl, Raime thought that getting a portable freezing unit for themselves after all of this would be a sensible endeavor to show a growth of character, if nothing else. When the pain had calmed and their body only felt a profound emptiness. Raime took a long shower and decided they would eat somewhere else for a bit.
Their reminiscence now over, Raime exhaled and yawned, not closing their door behind them as they exited the apartment. Their boots echoed loudly on the metal floor of the hall as they made their way to Tenor’s apartment. This one was more apartment than single room, door wide open, they could already see five other people standing up inside, eyes unblinking. One of them was Avril, her hands on the back of a chair. Now that they were awake, Raime saw that their neighbor was already dressed to leave, her short auburn hair tied up to keep out of her eyes. She was dressed sharply in a seemingly white suit, although the Sun might have already stolen a subtlety of its shades. She was always dressed with an elegance that Raime found impressive but never replicated. Standing half a head taller than them since they were children, Raime attributed their imposing stature to something that they had no business trying to grasp.
They entered the apartment to find even more close and far neighbors strewn across the large main room. Mounted against a wall, Tenor’s monitor already displayed the Knightcall. It had to be the largest screen in the upper stratum, maybe even entire district. Tenor never bragged once since the day he came back with it, every Friday morning he would leave his door especially open for anyone to come watch the call. He’d rarely comment if you ever came, rarer even that he’d say anything after the call ended, but he would never spend his mornings alone again.
The big human himself was seated on a wide chair to the left of the congregation, arms crossed, visibly very focused. There were several chairs and two couches in the room but even the arm stands were taken. Raime didn’t even know half the people that had come by. They decided to keep their shoulder to the side of the door, crossing eyes with Avril, only offering slight thumbs up that were met with an unimpressed roll of eyes.
On the monitor, the Knight was hunched over, looking at their guest, their upper and lower visor closed together as always. Raime didn’t remember the last time they were awake for the Knightcall, they only vaguely recalled sitting between Avril and her mother hearing the Knight announce its call one day, the rest remaining blurry and distant. The obvious concentration of everyone in the room told Raime that the verdict hadn’t been revealed just yet so they crossed their arms and focused on the monitor.
“Now then, Doctor, you’ve introduced yourself and before we get into anything else… I’d like you to share with everyone what you told me prior to us starting, rip the band-aid off quickly if you will.”
“No shot,” interjected someone Raime didn’t recognize who was sitting on the couch.
The Doctor whose name Raime had missed shifted in his seat, “Yes. I came here at the behest of your invitation and my colleagues’ insistence and I fully intend on being as open with you as I can. But… I cannot talk about the Sun.”
A loud and collective “Fuck!” resonated throughout the complex, echoed by the majority of the population of Last Kunlun who was awake, likely to the express displeasure of those who weren’t.
“But you’re all working on it still? It’s not something you’re procrastinating on because oh well who cares anymore, right?”
“Yes, of course, I just didn’t come with any satisfying updates for you all. On behalf of the Repository, we apologize.”
“That’s only mildly comforting,” Avril’s mother said, rising to her feet, she had sat in the chair where her daughter rested behind, “Well it’s been disappointing but it was disappointing alongside all of you beautiful souls.”
The room groaned and most people begrudgingly got up to leave, not paying attention to whatever was happening on the monitor anymore. They all gathered whatever belongings they had brought with them, all kinds of unopened bottles now sadly stowed away, and bid their farewells to the host. Raime ducked out of the way to let the wave of people exit the apartment, they could see a varied spectrum of emotions painting their faces but the most positive ones only showed apathy.
“Nice shirt!” exclaimed one of them, who they ignored.
There were only four people remaining including them, Tenor hadn’t moved, his eyes still fixed on the monitor. Was he really unfazed by what happened? No use in asking him now anyhow.
Avril approached them, “Barely more dressed than when I last saw you, don’t you have your “something” today?”
Raime closed their eyes and furrowed their brow in deep contemplation. Yesterday had been one of if not the least impressive they’d felt in their already unimpressive life. The thought of lying to Avril straight faced was worth considering.
“I tried the meat the Scavs brought.”
Avril repressed a slight grin, as if a part of her had expected them to say this.
“Raw?”
“Please, grilled.”
“But you still got knocked out for the entire day?”
Raime nodded slightly, trying to wash away the embarrassment now that they were confident things wouldn’t get worse from there.
“Was it worth it at least? The meat?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Raime sighed, looking behind her to not meet her eyes.
“I’ll believe you on that, be more careful next time then,” Avril smiled and waved goodbye to Tenor, who only offered a low grunt in reply.
Raime nodded slightly as she made her way out of the apartment.
“Bring some water for us when you get back!” Avril shouted at them from three steps down the stairs.
Raime snapped around too fast and staggered as they found themselves light headed again, gripping the door’s frame to not fall over. They weren’t in pain anymore but they needed to eat something before sundown, probably a simple meal. With vegetable sticks. Finding their balance, they looked at Tenor again, still lost in the Knight’s dialogue.
“I won’t disclose how I got in touch with you, I also like my secrets. But I wonder, are you in contact with the Cors? What most people here think is that you have some kind of relationship we don’t hear about, an understanding at least,you keep information flowing for the benefit of everyone.”
“We do not have any special contact with them. We have never directly exchanged words, though I can say that it’s not because we’ve ignored them. You’re the first person to reach out to us in a long time.”
Raime could’ve kept listening, at another time they could have cared a bit more about it, but even the crucial avoided question that led most of the room to turn away and go about their day only left them indifferent. Raime didn’t have their own radio, at most they caught some words of the Knightcall from Tenor’s open door. Their presence permeated so much of their daily life without even paying attention that Raime had grown used to having their voice always ring somewhere, even if they didn’t want to hear it. Looking around the room, following the eyes of those that stayed, in desperate expectation, Raime felt a bit bad for them though. Even they knew that getting a Doctor to come to the city was an impressive and unique encounter which everyone will only remember as a disappointing afterthought in another day in Last Kunlun. Well, maybe not everyone.
“You’ll tell me if they said anything interesting tomorrow?” Raime said as they leaned near Tenor’s shoulder.
He grunted in the same cadence as when Avril had taken her leave. Raime left the apartment as well, they quickly came back to their room and switched the shorts for a pair of black pants left neatly folded on an empty desk below the window. The pants had been black by design but now covered with so many paint stains you could be mistaken in thinking it was a custom piece by a designer. In truth, Raime only kept it because it fit and didn’t have holes in it. They slowly closed their door, still faintly hearing Tenor’s monitor. When the door clicked shut, they headed down the stairs, moved by a confidence that surprised them.