Avril sat on the steps of a narrow building entrance. By all means, not the best place to take a breather but the height to the ground was at its most comfortable for her need so everytime someone entered or exited, she diligently let them pass only to sit back down. Housing in the Hull was always oddly shaped but it was even more prevalent in the lower stratum, where the Sun didn’t reach. Homes had been carved centuries and centuries ago, only proving their mettle by being built of Scarmetal. It provided good enough insulation but from her station, Avril could hear the rummage in the apartment she had recently left. She didn’t mind keeping up with the noise, she still had much on her mind and appreciated the distraction.
“Twelve years old! You would’ve added some real insight, really?”
Her mothers words still rang in her ears. Annoyed, Avril fiddled with her nails, cutting corners into sharp edges that she used on her other hand until one nail gave in. The cycle would meet its end eventually unless she wanted to shed blood, and Avril had seen enough for the year. The noises coming from the hallway had stopped and someone gently tapped her shoulder with a finger. She looked back to face the cleaner. She expected to see their black garb more tainted, but only the gloves showed any sign of wear.
“You done?” Avril said, her frustration spilling through her words.
“Yeah. I done.” The cleaner replied, replicating her tone.
Avril left her seat and let him through. The cleaner mechanically pushed a gurney out of the building. The body laid on top of it was carefully bandaged in black tape. Or was it white? It sat as still as she had found it.
“You’re gonna keep going?” The cleaner asked, both hands pressed on the gurney.
Avril flaunted their notepad, “You bet. List’s not empty.”
“Urgh. Call someone else then, I’m done for the day.”
“Seriously?”
“The Hull’s a pain in the ass! I want out! Call someone else!” The cleaner yelled, rolling the gurney away as fast as they could without it tipping over a railing and down two streets below.
Avril snapped her tongue, going back inside the building. The cleaner hadn’t even closed the door of the apartment behind him. She closed it swiftly while averting her eyes from taking one more peek inside and wrote a note with one of the disposable tablets she’d swiped from City Hall.
APARTMENT VACANT.
DOOR OPEN.
FREE TO TAKE.
Avril clicked twice on the device to confirm it was not to be rewritten and plastered it against the door. She stared at it for a few seconds, took a big breath, catching the smell of anti-bacterial product and headed out of the building.
Walking in the streets at a moderate pace, Avril edited out the number of the building she had just left from her notepad. Nothing more to be done, moving on to the next. The pace of life around was lethargic to say the least. There was movement, people coming and going to wherever they felt like they were needed. Avril was aware most of them would take a second look at her, she had to have become famous around here by now.
Not too much further away now. She wasn’t as good as Raime but she was still a local, she could manage. Getting closer to the center of the lower stratum, the streets got wider and more agitated. Avril reached a round and deserted plaza, serving as an impasse. Its dirty thick glass ceiling offered a non flattering view of the upper level pedestrians. Those architectural choices were meant to serve as a conduit for sunlight to pierce through the multiple layers of the Hull to reach some of the deeper levels. It must have worked at some point, but without weekly deep cleaning of the stomping grounds, the difference had become hard to notice.
With the Sun at its zenith, faint rays lit the plaza, revealing a thick layer of particles dancing in the stale air. Dust, humidity, bacteria, even with the help of Volantis to help the air flow in and out of the lower stratum labyrinth, it was a drop in a bucket to cleanse the Hull’s atmosphere. If terrans hadn’t evolved to their current metabolism, an unkempt environment like this would have been fatal.
Avril’s destination was a building with a nice view of the plaza, piercing through the glass ceiling and continuing onto higher levels. The facade of Scarmetal was covered in multicolored mosaics, trying desperately to flaunt their shades in the face of the Sun. Avril checked the address on her tablet again, no further indication once she was inside the building, she would have to do some investigating. If life in this part of the Hull was anything like her own complex, the noisy ones would be found closest to the entrance, and so she knocked on the nearest door she found. No response. Another door to her right slightly opened instead. Half of a head peeked through, staring her up on down.
“You’re the one who sent a notice to City Hall?” Avril initiated.
“Nah. I can guess who yer here for though. Four floors up, two halls down, γ door.”
“Much appreciated.”
The head grumbled and slammed the door shut. Up she goes. The fourth level collided with the glass ceiling, windows in the straight hall provided a unique view of the outside. Closer to the floor, a sweeping view of the plaza, closer to the ceiling, an intimate view of a sea of boots, in the middle, a thick sea of glass that showed its age. The unusual nature of the floor was entertaining to look at for a moment, Avril thought that Raime would find it fun as well though it was more likely they had stood in the exact spot before. Unlike them, Avril was here for a purpose, and she kept on towards her objective.
“Don’t make me say it. I’m not the monster, you wouldn’t have done any better.”
The numbers of doors she had stood in front of since she left U40 and her mother was starting to become muddled in her mind. Fatigue was catching up, she had exhausted her list of contacts for cleaners willing to delve into the Hull, but that realization didn’t stop her from knocking with the same confident cadence she had brought every time before. No response again, but the door sported a makeshift peephole and Avril saw the shift of light from it being opened from the other side. She pretended not to notice, waiting for a potential reaction from the one on the other side. The subtle light receded without giving way for a response. Avril exhaled and knocked again, one knock less than last time.
“What do you want.”
The voice was raspy, unwelcoming, dehydrated maybe. Not out of the ordinary to what she could expect, when someone did answer.
“One of your neighbor’s worried about you. I’m here to check in.”
Two truths, no frills. Avril was treading lightly, there was no use lying about her intent but laying too much at once would be more likely to aggravate the one on the other side. She would adapt to their reactions.
“Worried? Never heard one of them knock, load of nothing you’re saying to me right now.”
“That’s why I’m here, even if they don’t come themselves that doesn’t mean they don’t care.”
Avril was already blurring the truth. She could only interpret the reasons that motivated people from sending notices to City Hall. No information was provided, not even a name, only an address. The hypothetical seemed to have some effect on her interlocutor as a silence hung in the air. She waited for them to reply at their own pace. A gamma symbol on the door of patterned wood had been carved in, even if the symbol and number were also written to the side. It was impossible to guess its real age, people with eccentric tastes still existed after all. She would not mention the door again, the meanings and symbolism of their homes wasn’t a topic she found to be particularly effective at breaking the ice.
“What are you here for then,” asked the one behind the door.
“Talk. We can keep it through the door if you want.”
“Wait a second.”
Avril did, backing up a few steps to give some space. So far, so good. The door opened, leaving way for a disheveled human, who had spent no effort hiding heavy eyebags or shaving an unflattering beard. Even under thick clothing, she could tell they were severely underweight. They didn’t name themselves, avoiding Avril’s eyes, and swiftly closed the door behind them, leading the way back to the stairs. She followed, taking good care in keeping a reasonable distance between them. The slouched figure had to grip the railing firmly as they made their way up. Avril couldn’t help but pay attention to the smell, dust and hard soap. Still a sense of personal hygiene but willingly living in an unkempt environment. The analysis didn’t come with judgment. She did once, even if not out loud, but it rang hollow. It didn’t make her feel better, and there were enough other emotions to deal with in the process to waste time on her own ego.
They stopped at the floor above, the human headed decisively towards a door and knocked heavily on it with a force Avril wouldn’t have guessed they had in them.
“You send the Suit to my door! You’re too scared to go out yourself, should I send her to you next? Answer me!”
The door didn’t answer, leaving them panting. Avril stayed near the stairs, she had managed to say too much with this little. She tried everytime, even in futility, to have a perfect outcome. Still wheezing, the human breezed past her back onto the stairs leading down. Even with his feeble condition, the human rushed down almost three steps at a time, not stopping at their own floor. Avril didn’t keep up the pace, only catching up to them on the ground floor. She walked past the door that had led her upwards. Even if it stayed closed, she could guess the walls were listening. The human stopped in the plaza, still devoid of life, and sat on a bench, heaving. Avril would have picked a better spot to take a breather, not much further from there, but didn’t mention it. She sat next to them, respecting a good distance.
“What’s your name?” Avril asked, her eyes lost in the sky of steps.
“You don’t know?”
“There’s only an address. No notes, no names.”
They scoffed, still breathing heavily, “How does that even work?”
“Well if you really want to know… I get to City Hall, Van Kalkain receives them all in a big pile, I get the part about the Hull and then I get back and get digging.”
“There’s only you huh.”
“You wanted someone else?” Avril looked at them with a sly smile.
She was still treading the waters, but figured her interlocutor still had some sarcasm to spare. She didn’t mind going on their level for that much. Silence hung for a few seconds, Avril couldn’t help but remember she had no cleaner to call anymore. Whatever would happen next would be on her own, and a deep inexorable fatigue chose its best time to start gripping her limbs.
“Lana. My name.”
“I’m Avril, nice to meet.”
Lana had probably known her name already, their seclusion hadn’t impended their awareness of her work around the Hull. Avril couldn’t guess for how long they had chosen to not open their door, how long since they last stepped into this plaza. Their eyes were lost in the gray emptiness, as if looking for something. Lana had taken the initiative, not letting Avril take them by the hand to take the lead, so she would not ask. She figured they wanted to prove something to her.
“So what do you do really, Avril?” Lana asked, staring at the ground, now fixated on the water drains, “You follow these addresses and what?”
“It depends.”
“Depends, huh, you make people go?”
“I can help. Is that what you want?”
Lana’s eyes reflected their age more than their disposition. One of their pupils was shattered, split into three around the iris. The other was intact but pitch black, color of soot. They could have been brown, even green, but facing the light, Avril didn’t entertain a guess. They had closed their door too fast for her to get a peek at how they lived, most likely intentionally. The lack of immediate answer to her question spoke enough by itself. Lana hadn’t left garbage outside, did they keep it all with them? The white garbage bags wouldn’t offer much conversation. Or were they black?
“This place, around here,” Lana swept the plaza with one arm, “I don’t even know how many years ago, every single night and day you could never see the ground, above and below. The air, intoxicated with smoke and alcohol, reeking of grease and sweat and sex and I can still see it. I can still see the bodies crashing into each other, blood exchanged out of every emotion our hearts could bear…”
Avril didn’t interrupt, she could imagine what picture they were relieving. The last decades of the Sun dimming, an unapologetic, unashamed celebration of life. Her mother had recounted as much.
“I should have closed my eyes but I thought of you! I thought of you first and what would be the best for you!”
Avril closed her eyes.
“Can you see it?” Lana asked, almost pleading.
Under her eyelids, all she saw was Raime, shivering in their bathtub, avoiding their gaze. The countless closed doors, the ones that never opened and the ones she had to shut herself. Her mother’s eyes, digging trenches in her mind. All of these images superposed onto each other, slowly fading away as Avril felt sleep take her away. She took a massive inspiration of rancid air and coughed loudly, bolting her wide awake to the surprise of Lana.
“I can’t,” Avril said between two coughs, “I’m twenty-three, all I’ve known is what we’re seeing now.”
“Twenty-three… could you be the last?”
“Hard to know for sure. Doubt I’d get a prize though.”
Avril felt that the realization had taken Lana out of their nostalgic trance. She was unsure about whether it would be positive or not, their expressions were hard to read. Avril felt like they were about to apologize and stopped in their tracks. Was Lana being considerate? The tables had turned fast, she couldn’t help but smile.
“Don’t mind it, I’m here to talk about you.”
“But you can’t understand either, every year since the False Dusk have just blurred together. I feel like I’m already gone, I don’t know why I’m still here.”
“Do you want to go?” Avril asked again, more directly.
She didn’t want to appear forceful, but Lana seemed uncertain. Asking a strict question that left no room for interpretation could be the way for them to sort out how they felt. They must have spent decades, even if not secluded, ruminating over this. Only forming the thought in their head would keep it in a nebulous state, so close that it would haunt all of their waking moments, but far enough away that it could remain hidden, not for anyone else to see.
“I haven’t yet. I’ve had the chance, my friends made a drinking party in Helix. We rarely ever went out of the Hull, it was glorious, you’ve been on top of the hill?”
“I have.”
Raime had taken her to the top once, shortly after she’d began following notices from City Hall. The first few had taken a severe toll, Avril guessed it was Raime’s way to cheer her up. It didn’t help much but seeing them this eager to console her had been enough to keep her from sinking deeper.
“The view from up there was something…” Lana continued, enamored in the memory, “We drank and we drank and once the Sun had set, a few started running down the hill to the east. I followed the flow, I was loving this but I stopped halfway down when I realized they had no intention of stopping. They ran and they ran until they wouldn’t be able to stand. I didn’t look, once I understood I turned away and went back here, back home. And then I went on. They never came back, I never stepped outside of the Hull again. I avoided the rest of the people I knew, I didn’t want to know if they had decided to go. I moved around less and less until one day I had my hand on the door and I couldn’t bring myself to put the weight on my hand to open it. So I didn’t.”
Avril thought about the door that Lana had ruthlessly hammered on earlier, how much of that action carried real resentment? It had only answered with silence. She didn’t want to guess in their stead, Lana had willingly shared a lot with little motivation from her. They had done most of the work, all she could do now was stay here as long as they needed.
Lana looked to her, no tears in their eyes, “I didn’t want to go then, I blamed them for leaving me. But it was never fair, we should’ve all left then, drowned in the colorful lights and all happy we lived.”
It’s not a sentiment she had shared before, unlike Lana who had it robbed from them. There was a cruel logic to the world as it was, one those young enough weren’t privy on. The ones that had to confront the False Dusk could only live with it, or let go. Most people in the city barely thought about it every day, Avril knew as much, but she had decided to be there for those who had to face this reality as it breathed down their necks. She only offered a comprehensive nod to Lana.
“I expected you to be more… supportive,” Lana added, “Not that I mind.”
“I am supportive, no?”
“You’re not trying to dissuade me, is what I’m saying.”
Avril smiled, “I’m here to be here, not to change the world, besides I have the feeling you made up your mind already.”
Maybe Lana wouldn’t have minded asking, Avril decided instead to show that she had listened. There was nothing more for her to say. She saw the bridge of Lana’s nose react, they tried to hide it by rising from their seat.
“Will you come back?” Lana asked, “In two days. I’ll be ready.”
“I will.”
Lana didn’t reply, only bowing their head. She let them go back inside their building, still seating on the bench. She brought out her tablet and slid the address up the list, which kept going. Going back for one more would probably make her collapse on the way. She turned off the tablet and laid her back against the bench, sighing. In the newfound silence, the plaza really turned into a mausoleum. She tried to replace every storefront, every balcony like Lana had described them, bursting with people eager to feel everything they could. People still lived here, maybe most of the same people that had partied on these tiles, stood and screamed on the bench she sat on. Maybe they had become bored, maybe they shut themselves off, maybe they moved to more lively districts like Yama and Versal. Visiting these addresses made Avril feel like she had aged above her mother but the extent of what was lost was simply not hers to grasp.
“I was ready, I made myself ready for you. If I hadn’t taken them in, everything would’ve been perfect.”
If at that moment, her mother realized how vicious that sentence had been to hear, she didn’t show it, or she didn’t let herself show it. Recklessly going door to door, without stopping, had been a way to flee this overwhelming conversation. Avril dreaded going back to their apartment. With her credentials, she could easily find a nice apartment in Byzance, or maybe the Fringes for some more quiet. She imagined her mother taking the aerobus, something she openly loathed, to visit her to the far edges of the city to apologize. Alina would plead, “Please, oh please, dear daughter. I can’t cook my own food, I can’t clean behind me, I can’t take out the garbage. Please, oh please, come back!” Avril started hallucinating the second she closed her eyes. There would be much better places to take a big nap but the strength needed for that ordeal was fading away. Avril would reply, “No! You have to become independent young lady! You won’t always have me to swaddle you around, it’s time for you to step into the big world by yourself!” Avril laughed under her breath, physically incapable of holding herself back anymore.
“You’re so weird.”
Avril snapped her neck to the side, Raime had taken the place of Lana to her right, sitting on the bench with two loaves in hand. Were they still dreaming? They wore her clothes, her cyan suit. Most importantly they looked fine, last time Avril had laid eyes on them, Raime looked like a husk of their former selves. Slouching and cowering inside their bed, unable to speak. Raime’s eyes had regained their light, those bright irises that always looked towards the world in fear and incomprehension didn’t reflect the deep absence they had seen when they locked eyes in their bathroom.
“Are you real?” Avril asked, swiping their hands vertically across her face in an attempt to wake up.
“That’s up for debate apparently, but I’m here though,” Raime replied nonchalantly, handing over one of the hand sized loaves to her, “Got some filled bread if you want.”
Avril gladly took the offer, ripping the wrapping off and biting fiercely into it, “How d’you find me?”
“Oh it’s easy, I asked around; “Hey, have you seen a scary human in a suit?” and I just followed the directions from there.”
“I’m terrifying huh,” Avril snorted, almost choking on their meal, “Well, with you dressed like that should we form an anti-Cors?”
“Eh.”
There it was, Avril stopped chewing as she spotted a slight smile forming across Raime’s face. Her heart skipped a beat, it had barely taken a full day to see it again but sitting on that bathroom floor had really made her think she would never see Raime laugh with her again. She was wide awake now, and had to force herself to stop from staring, leaving Raime to bite down in their own loaf.
“I took the ones with legumes, it’s not that bad huh.”
Avril nodded, she hadn’t registered the choice at first but she could comprehend if Raime wanted to lay off the meat for a while, even synthetic. Dust still danced in the air as they ate, a few passerby left and entered buildings, shooting them quick looks of passing curiosity. They had to be amusingly out of place, dining here of all places. Maybe this was the most activity this plaza had seen for decades. The thought felt warm.
“I don’t really want to talk about it but did you have a talk with mom?” Avril asked.
“Yeah, she… wasn’t totally nice about it.”
Avril felt a massive wave of frustration crash against her head. She had expressly asked that her mother be more gentle with Raime considering what they just went though. Had she completely ignored her plight and laid all of her rage on them as well?
“What did she say to you?”
“Oh not much, she seemed pretty tired so it was over quickly but she told me about the thing with Prys and Tenor and said I was an anomaly…”
“Did she really use that word.”
“She called me a monster.”
“Figured,” Avril sighed, “You should’ve punched her in the teeth.”
“No way, then she would’ve been right about me, no?”
“True, I should’ve punched her in the teeth.”
Raime chuckled, catching Avril’s attention again, “What do you think? About all of this?”
The question took her aback. Avril had already noted from earlier that Raime asked for directions from strangers to find her, something she’d never seen them do. Raime would gladly prefer getting lost, figuratively and not, over accosting anyone not from floor 3. She always took them for someone with a silent curiosity, asking her a personal question directly like this was a first. She thought a moment about her answer.
Between the moment she had laid eyes on Raime in the elevator and when she left her mother after their confrontation, it had felt like the world had deconstructed and reformed itself around her. Forcing herself to go back to her doors uninterrupted had succeeded in sobering her. Life went on, noone she had encountered today even knew Raime’s name. It all felt so far away now, Raime was looking at her, expecting an answer. Avril’s eyes landed on their hands. She couldn’t remember the last time she held them in her own, she couldn’t remember the heat of their body. What would happen if she grabbed them right now, would she be taken in? Replaced as Prys was? Even if now, Raime had nothing missing, nothing to replace, would they accept her body as their own?
“My mother ended up seeing you as the antagonist of her own story, that doesn’t have to mean anything for you,” Avril replied, keeping her hands to herself, swiping them against each other to lose the crumbs of her finished meal.
“But I’m still dangerous.”
Avril couldn’t escape meeting their eyes again. She could see Raime had made up their mind as well, they were asking if their relationship would change in any way. It was a pointless question, one she wouldn’t deign answering but if they needed reassurance that they hadn’t become alone in the world, then she’ll be here. The thoughts of leaving the Hull behind had abandoned her, it hadn’t taken much.
“Then be careful,” Avril smiled.