Three floors down, barely enough to warrant using the small elevator on most days, Raime slid down the ground floor hall and got out in the street. Leaving complex U40 behind, the constant noise of the waking stratum welcomed them as they spied a neighbor in the opposite complex trying his hardest to fit a massive couch through the entrance. He noticed them in a desperate attempt to put his back muscles against the furniture.
“Raime! Come help me with this won’t you? Everyone’s pissy about the Knight or whatever and nobody wants to help!” the human cried, sweating bullets, heaving fast and shallow breaths.
Raime would’ve been stumped to remember that person’s name but he hadn’t hesitated in identifying them, which came as a surprise. Raime’s lack of a full stomach, necessary vitamins and hydration would’ve provided little help but they didn’t want to start the day whining.
“Just leave it outside, your porch is sheltered from torrents. Would look nice.”
“Outside? That one’s mine! Hauled it all the way from Versal!”
How does one person even manage that? Why would he even go through this much trouble? Knowing the answers barely interested Raime and the questions didn’t leave their mouth.
“Can’t anyway. Got work.”
“Ha! You, work? Come on, I’ll give you a pack of gum for your troubles,” his hysterics soon faded as Raime walked away and the weight of the couch pressed heavier against his back, “No!”
All of them lived in the heart of the Hull, a labyrinthine city in itself, at the east edge of Last Kunlun. They were surrounded by gigantic walls that belonged to a ship which supposedly landed on Terra long ago. So long ago that only theories surrounded the reason for its arrival and if it had crashed or not. The absence of any concrete information about its past also invited other theories regarding the origins of the Hull itself; a primordial fortress, a monster’s den, a divine gift. Why would those be more far-fetched than a derelict ship, predating all recorded history? Not many cared anymore, centuries later, the carcass had been stripped bare and people had built homes in the hold. Corridors were linked together or welded shut to build makeshift streets. Buildings were originally formed out of the ship’s utilitarian design but generations of eager residents added their own mark, painting over the distinct red of the metal that permeated everything.
This strange material, dubbed Scarmetal, which the entirety of the Hull’s wall was also made of, had never been able to be replicated and efforts to do so eventually stopped. The walls themselves were impenetrable and what little they could harvest from the inside of the Hull was too inconvenient to repurpose. Scarmetal didn’t conduct electricity and was too thick to be of any help to Volantis canals so any additional plates or components ended up being used for decoration, mostly prized by other districts. This process of constantly taking apart and putting back together this makeshift district was a wordless endeavor, an unregulated task that simply happened as naturally as erosion.
Inside the Hull’s walls, the ground level was up to interpretation, streets led to apartments that led to elevators for more levels than you could imagine only to leave you on another street. The non euclidean architecture of it all made it categorically impossible for visitors to find their way through it. Numbers were used, sometimes, on streets and buildings. But they were often written in bygone languages and didn’t make any directional sense. Trying to follow some kind of pattern would leave you lost with only a deep sense of frustration to your name.
An attempt was made to build each street so that sunlight could peek through at some point in the day, but the closer you got to the bottom, the more street lamps made up for the lack of sky.
Raime followed the streets down their usual route. Only someone who had lived in the Hull’s cradle for at least a decade could navigate its maze without stopping every few minutes. However, Raime took some amount of pride in knowing they were especially competent in finding their way through the district and the city itself. The sun had barely started its course, street lights were still guiding them as their varied colors slowly faded.
Raime lived in the Larboard upper stratum, getting out of the Hull wouldn’t be a short task but their path was efficient. Three streets down that led them deeper in, then an elevator six floors down leaving them below ground. When the doors opened, an inch deep stream of dark water made its way inside and coursed through their legs, seeping inside cracks in the small elevator. Raime was only slightly surprised as they looked up to find a very tired looking human, buckets and a pump in each hand, misery painted on his face.
“Didn’t you see the note..?” his voice wasn’t accusatory, only overwhelmed by the prospect of repairs.
Had Raime seen a note? Their path felt so automatic and all they could think about on the way was where to eat so they could’ve easily missed it.
“Nah, entered from 8th, someone must’ve recycled it.”
Raime hopped out of the way between buckets, making small ripples in the murky water. The lie wasn’t deliberate, they decided to gamble on probabilities.
“Fuckers, fuckers, City Hall has so much tablets to spare, lazy fuckers…” the human mumbled to himself, promptly ignoring Raime to get the pump started.
Raime swiftly escaped before voicing any further comment, any satisfaction they got by navigating the situation flawlessly was tarnished by the prospect of not being able to take the same route when they’d come back tonight. Leaving the dank air of the leaking lowest levels, they only needed to head up two wide flights of stairs and was only a few steps away from the Grande Gate.
The one and only entrance of the Hull if you didn’t fancy taking a dive from the walls had been there before the first mad soul even considered living inside. “That bitch is cut straight in half.” was famously the first comment ever carved on the inside of the hull. The sentence had been translated in over sixty different written languages, making it impossible for the Hull’s residents of today to know which one had been the original. It was the only part of the wall that was regularly cleaned, the district didn’t bother with appearances but the memento mattered still.
Most importantly, the message rang true. The Hull’s massive wall, two hundred and thirty meters tall at its highest point, was severed in half in the middle of the Larboard wall. Looking at it on a bigger scale, the wall had likely been blown open from the inside, the edges of the cut curved outwards as if leading into the city. As for what power could violently force open a material that millennia of civilizations and technology from outer worlds hadn’t managed to cut through, Raime couldn’t care less.
They were finally out, the morning breeze giving them chills. Their new shirt wasn’t long sleeved and they would feel it for the next few hours. The Grande Gate led to the largest street of Last Kunlun, likely the noisiest as well, all three bus lines converging through it and spanning all the way to City Hall. Raime had theorized that people who lived on it were proud of the view but also liked being on that side of the wall better. There was a flow of people around them, more going in the Hull than going out, but the entrance was so large it had been rare for them to have to use their shoulders to pierce through a crowd. The imposing exit made everything around them echo, but the waking city didn’t provide much noise at this hour.
Raime looked up to the pale gray sky. Not a beautiful day or anything, but the air would get warmer and their stomach would be full before long. They still felt some discomfort being out this early, they hadn’t grown to appreciate what sunlight brought around them. The question of whether they’d ever get used to it came as less important than finding some food, fast. To their right, Yama and its buzzing activity was dying down as the rays of the Sun, even if still blocked by the Hull, were fading the vibrant warm colors of its packed blocks of buildings. They decided against going back there for a recovery meal, and non hesitantly headed left.