the twenty fourth day.

i could tell you a story or two.

i used to walk through the cityscape. beneath the bluster, the smoke and despair and fluttering dreams, all mish mashed together and in this putrid fog over the ‘scrapers and taxis. i could weave through the throng of flesh effortlessly. i recognized no names or faces, quietly rolling along pavement on my skates while wearing headphones with nothing but static playing on them, swerving past the youth and the haggard and the holy and the hated all with a few quick flexes of my legs.

and that whole time i spent traversing the peopleflow, i clutched the pulse of the city in the palm of my leather gloved hand. you’ve got no idea what the hell could be so small and so fucking powerful, do you? wrap your mind around that for a second. stick your hand out. closer to me, boy. now feel that finger pressing into your palm? name me an object that would fit right there, and be able to impact this planet down to the core?

speechless.

good.

anyways.

so i’m takin’ that hope. racin’ away from the night on those skates towards home, and suddenly, the blob of people starts to pulsate. wweaving little ridges form from the lines that i can suddenly dart through with ease, instead of the gnashing of fabric and accessories that i was akin to grinding through. the people start to move a bit quicker, the faces start to drop a little bit, and i’m thinking, "caliv, whatin’ the fuck are you doin’, son? these people want nothin’ more than to amscray in the opposite direction, and you keep truckin’ along like there’s a blue light special at the fuckin’ mall."

i didn’t care at the time. something was coursing through me and tellin’ me to race towards the chaos. so i did. i flexed those muscles and torqued those wheels and continued flying towards whatever had the masses in a frenzy. i looked up towards the fog as i rolled, and saw it sparkin’. greasy, blue speckled bolts of what i assumed was lightning were starting to dance around inside the cloud. tiny snakes being sizzled by the sun. i stopped myself from goin’ full bore at that point, and tried to make a little sense out of what could possibly have the fog turning itself into such a cauldron of activity all of a sudden.

a spark seemed to slip out of the cloud and down towards the earth with all the speed of a thin syrup drizzling out of a pinhole in a bag. the bolt found its way to the earth and burst into a fountain of blue goo, tiny bolts shooting from the tip of the spire and darting off in all directions, including towards my body at motion. the flecks were no bigger than raindrops, and counted in the trillions, so i could do nothing but grab the bottom of my jacket and fling it over me like some sort of divine shield. the jacket buckled heavily under the pressure of so many individual points of pressure, but i was able to direct the entire blast into it, then finish the flourish with a quick tug of my hand, sending the jacket down onto the pavement with a…thud.

whatever the hell had settled onto my jacket hardened and cemented itself onto the fabric before i had more than momentarily let go of the cloth. i quickly spun around, and looked in horror as the ooze bolts continued to seep out of the clouds, exploding into the crowds, causing them to let out semi-gasps of surprise before being crushed by the force of the blue goo. the creatures of the city i chose to ignore for ages were actin’ like a human shield for me, giving me a course of temporary escape. i chose to use it, and with three quick steps, i was en route for the metroway; the only sub earth section of rio we had left after the terraform.

i knew i had to book it to the rails. fuck, i had the whole world in my hands. i get crushed, the world goes with it, y’know? there were still people fleeing into, out of, all around the fog, and i didn’t have anything to say to them. i’m not some hero. i’m also not some guy that’s going to bullshit with people to make them feel better about themselves. there’s something falling from the sky. you’re on foot. the rails aren’t there for you when all you have to save yourself is…well, yourself. so i kept the headphones secure on my head, the pick clenched between my two front teeth, and continued trekking for temporary salvation.

the rails were eerily quiet when i rolled up to them a few seconds later. people, oblivious to what faced them all over the city, were still doing some mixture of fleeing, pacing, and stopping to stare hollowly at the fog. i think a few of ’em knew. i think every one of them just didn’t really care anymore. this was their rapture, i guess, and they figured, "hey, at least it is a means to an end. my end." and just lemming’ed their way right off the blue crusted cliff. can’t say i blame ’em, as rio had found a way to be even more dead than what we had managed to make it ourselves. there were posters slathered over the metro entrance, touting the pure energy of yatice brand fusion energy, but the city council had hastily slammed all those posters on the walls to cover up the insurrection and their graffiti and slander of how the world was "doomed to be too perfect" and "ending when everyone is the same" or, at least, that’s what i thought i made out of all of it as i rolled down the steps; no handicapped ramp to make it any easier on my wheels.

i turned around once i reached the bottom of the flight of stairs to take one last peek at the death sky. the fog cloud that was bleeding bolts had started to slowly expand itself, the bolts now reaching further, slinging fatal shrapnel out towards the heavens and earth with more range. i clicked a small white button on the bottom of my shirt, which turned on two thin, wide beams of light from my pant legs. the rails were absolutely barren. for the whole world suddenly coming to a fucking end above me, no one had apparently thought to come down into the earth for salvation.

i didn’t even see the regular bums and whores that populated the dusty walkways that led from clean streets to clean rails; no one had ever thought to keep the go between clean, as well. i knew i had a mile or so of skating to do to get to the rail center, so i clicked my headphones off my head, letting them retract back into my cap. i never carried a phone with me (no one to really contact, no major family other than your ass to keep track of) but i wanted to try to be aware of what was going on in the darkness of the tunnel; the blue goo had already knocked out power throughout the city, apparently, as the only lights i could see were dim, yellow emergency lights that were already flickering like they wanted to give way; an entire city’s energy reserves being tapped at once were probably taxing the e-light system to its foundation.

i slowly glided my away along the path, my white light mixing with the blink yellows, forming this hazy pale path that snaked around a long, lazy corner towards a glass room that housed the rails. i started letting my mind race a little bit at this point; i mean, you’re alone in a tunnel during what could be the end of the fucking world…i certainly wasn’t drawing a blank for words.

what the flyin’ fuck is all this? is this the rapture that all the holy roller zilians have been preachin’ about? i wonder if there’s even anyone left up there at this point. fuck. the last of t

he rio people being me; what a fucked up choice for survivor the cosmos made. fuck it, i need to get out of here, hopefully the rails still work.

the glass door was locked down when i attempted to shake it open. i tried to think of ways to open the door without leaving a gaping hole in the compound, but if whatever the fuck is outside can just shatter through humanity like it was nothing, it’ll be able to-

as i started to drift back to do a rolling kick through the door, the ceiling inside the rails buckled and pooled down like suction was swirling from the rails themselves. a cascade of stone, earth, and brick came flooding into the compound, crashing into the glass and shattering it with a force that blew me off my skates and directly onto the pavement.

 

I brushed off some of the chaff and glass that had littered itself on my brown jacket and picked myself up, letting gravity roll me to the base of the fallen building, yawning its way up towards the surface, where the purple fog was still raining the weighted gunk all over the land. flecks of the goo were rolling down the building, collecting random bits of stone, paper, and flesh until they rolled by my feet, the size of bowling balls by the time they plummeted down the twenty or so stories of concrete. I didn’t want to risk going up the building and being turned into a statue, so I looked over towards the now open rails. The blinking yellow lights didn’t seem to extend all the way into the corridor, as I could only see roughly four or five of them before trailing off into the darkness. I pushed myself over to the start of the safety railings along side the rails; the smooth, sleek glass that worked as a base concerned me. In the darkness, one cracked pane could send me plummeting into who the hell knows what beneath the rail surfaces. Given that I built a few of these corridors in my teens, I knew the pests, vermin, and creeps that lined the muck under the pristine exterior. 

A fitting metaphor for this fucking shithole, before all this bullshit started, anyways.

As I started down the first of the four lit up beacons, I saw a huddled mass of blankets and clothes next to one of the ladders that led down into the muck, or the "Muddy Barrens" as Rio inhabitants liked to refer to it as. Curiosity piqued, I peered down the ladder into the darkness and cleared my throat long enough to utter my first words since this tragedy began.

"Is there anyone alive down there?" My thin, raspy voice barely registered an echo down into the darkness.

There was a brief delay, then a scurrying, rattling noise next to the ladder.

Great. Fucking rats.

There was a faint whimper, then a tiny voice rang out. "Yeah…what the fuck is going on out there? You piraneers moving the fucking trains around again or somethin’? Because I have squatters rights and-"

I cut her off. "No. I’m under no one’s authority, but you need to get the hell out of there if you know what’s best for you." My voice cracked as I realized just how much the world above her has actually changed. 

I heard a scoff. "Just who the fuck are you to tell me what’s best for me? You think I’d be housed out in a fucking mud pit if I had any self-worth? Or guidance? Or anyone? I’m not going anywhere with some random kid who could very well just be looking to steal my fucking spot." I heard her get to the rungs of the ladder and peer up. I caught a glimpse of her face; dust and dirt had caked liberally on her pale complexion, making her look more like a native New Brazilian than she really was. I guessed she was in her early 20’s, and shockingly, her hair seemed somewhat well-kept, and her shirt was clean and unwrinkled. I turned the light in my shoes on, trying to get a better look at her, but when I leaned my skate down to peer down the shaft, my other foot slipped as a tremor shook the rail. I rolled just far enough to plunge down the shaft, hitting two of the rails with the back of my head as I crashed into the waiting girl with a thud and a spluck of the soft mud and clay.

I wasn’t knocked out, but I was hurt badly enough to where I couldn’t find the energy to pick myself off of the girl, who was squirming and grunting underneath me. After a few seconds, I finally rolled off of her, finding myself face first in Rio’s legendary mud. It smelled sickeningly sweet, and one deep breath of it was enough for me to begin violently coughing, a feat that caused the girl to chuckle a bit, as she pushed herself against the wall, still seated. It was so dark, I saw nothing but a white and brown blob in the wall area where she had located herself.

"You think that’s…pretty funny, huh."

Another giggle. "You upsiders are pretty clumsy, from what I’ve seen. I shouldn’t have been so shocked to see you nearly kill yourself trying to climb a ladder. They have those things up there…right?"

I shrugged in what I thought was her direction, finally able to sit up, myself.

"You don’t dress like the rest of the upsiders, though…are you a courier or somethin’?"

I cocked my head to the side, confused. "How did you see me? Do you have cameras down here or something?"

A third giggle, this one softer, less nervous than the previous two. "Noooooo. I can see you right now. You can’t see me, I assume? You’re so used to everything being bright and shiny shiny. I have some light down here, if you really need it. One sec, por favor." She said the Spanish words with such an intentionally bad accent, I assumed she was a transplant from somewhere in the Sectional America region. The dialect was too strong to be Unified America, but I wasn’t particularly keen on the differences between the two; I hadn’t done many deliveries to that region since the Third Civil War a few years back. The girl-blob stood up and walked to the ladder, pushing two unseen buttons. The first caused a small motor to whir, and the faint light from the railway dimmed completely as a cover shuttered the manhole. The second button made an impeccably tiny light pop on from above us, which was only faintly brighter than the railway lights. The tiny girl-blob had now become a tiny-girl figure; she looked ghostly from afar, and she hadn’t moved from the buttons since hitting them, which made me slightly uncomfortable.

I rubbed my eyes in the darkness. "I still can’t see shit, really."

She finally took a step forward. I saw a tiny glint on the side of her shirt. She grinned just enough for me to see her teeth locked into a sly smile.

"Good."