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  I hid behind some bushes and watched on in silence. Even if we were dying off every day to some strange event, there were perhaps a few hundred still celebrating underneath the stars. That might not even include those who didn’t partake in the festivities. I had to be more careful this go around. Or did I? They were drinking, and it was dark. All I needed was something to cover my face.

  The closest table was empty, and no one was close by. I took a seat at the table, walking like I belonged and making sure I was as casual as possible. The night was filled with chatter, a virtual squawk box.

  I forgot how crazy it got Downtown. It was so much livelier than where Olivia and I lived. Olivia would have loved this. If she were here, she’d have the time of her life talking and dancing the night away. Sadly, it would never happen. She was linked to me, and I was linked to dirty lies.

  A variety of instruments covered the tabletop. There was freshly grown food, and spirits that would punch me down into the ground if I partook. There were several flashlights, one that I pocketed, and a lantern in the middle that kept the shadows away. A hooded sweatshirt hung on the back of one of the chairs. I put the sweatshirt on and lifted the hood over my head, finding a certain calm with my cloaked image.

  I didn’t want to waste time if the party came back and found a stranger taking their things they so carelessly left unattended. I managed to keep my calm and not just run through the crowd. I had to exit the party without drawing attention to myself in the crowd of intoxicated youths.

  The strings of a guitar played from somewhere up ahead. People danced underneath a dead tree whose limbs reached out in all directions. Lit candles were placed among the branches, and an eerie glow illuminated the air. It was hauntingly beautiful: the slow dancing, the dead tree with its lights, and the guitar player strumming his instrument to an unhurried, passionate song. For half a second I forgot why I was there, wanting to dance to the slow melody. But those red numbers set me right back on course.

  “Here’s to Adam!” a voice saluted. I passed a table surrounded by six or seven faces all raising a glass to the air.

  “Here, here!” a woman exclaimed. She tilted her glass downward, and spilled some whiskey on the ground. “One last drink. Drink up. Drink up.” She started to cry. The others either tried to consul her or shed tears of their own.

  Was Adam a name I could remember? It wasn’t exactly ringing a bell. Not that I would really remember all the names here; it’d been nearly two years since the beginning. Yet even knowing that another had walked into the darkness it brought me back to the time when I had witnessed the turning.

  Back during The Forgetting, there was a thousand of us. In those early days we starved, disease was rampant, and dozens were shot. But that didn’t even account for the majority of the people who disappeared. That belonged to something inexplicable.

  These people had built this settlement close to the swirling mass of clouds near the city’s midpoint, nicknaming it for what it was: Downtown. It did rain enough in this area, therefore drinking water was most likely the reason for staying so close to these clouds.

  I was there, trying to bargain off items for supplies, before I was ever hated, when it happened for the first time. Screams erupted just outside, and panic evolved into full mayhem. I ran to where the shouting was the loudest: at the barrier.

  The barrier was the border that separated the lighted world from the darkened mass of clouds that never moved out from the center of the city. A twenty-six year old woman, the person turning, or so we later called the process, was already past the barrier, the invisible blockade.

  I tried to pass through the barrier myself but a lingering pain started in my head and traveled my spine before curling my toes. My skin radiated with heat, and it felt like I was melting from the inside out. I couldn’t open my eyes, and it would only get worse after that.

  But this dark walker, as we had called them thereafter, moved through the barrier with ease. They would slowly walk towards the darkest part of the city, so dark we couldn’t see into it.

  Some fought to get to the walker, but none of them lasted; the pain was too unbearable to try for long. How the dark walker could continue on against this pain was impossible to understand. Unless, of course, they weren’t feeling anything at all. After a few more minutes the girl disappeared into the blackness. The dark clouds above shook with thunder while waves of lightning careened across the sky, as if welcoming the girl into the gloom. It was eerie to watch. Even more unnerving was that somehow I understood why this was happening, but just not at that moment.

  Since then I had watched twenty-two individuals walk through that barrier. The first couple times I tried to help, but failed. I’ve watched bigger men than me pushed aside as the dark walker moved toward the unreachable part of this city. These walkers always succeeded breaking through whatever was stopping their departure.

  So I just watched on instead. After each incident, I questioned whoever was present, trying to gain some knowledge or to fathom the process. There was one clue that always kept popping up, the one idea that aligned with everything else, the one factor that everyone usually remembered for some odd reason: their birthday. The dark walker was turning twenty-six.

  The table of drinkers were still sipping their whiskey as I recalled the events of the first turning. The partiers sang, laughed, cried, talked, and did just about everything in-between. They didn’t notice me just staring as I thought about our complicated past. A surge of vulnerability struck me and I tightened my hood. Being cautious was top priory, and getting lost in the past couldn’t happen again.

  The timer soon came into full view, eclipsing a building at the intersection. Those red numbers flickered, predicting my downfall. Plopping on the ground and not caring, I took a seat in the middle of the crowd, and the middle of the mayhem. This didn’t make sense. The timer was somehow synced with my twenty-sixth birthday and dictated my eventual turning. There was no way around this. Everyone turned, and no one was immune to whatever this was.

  “You okay?” a nearby woman asked.

  I nodded. I didn’t dare speak, but instead just stood up.

  “Need a drink?” the partier asked.

  I nodded again. I sure as hell could use one. I should keep a level head, but this day was just getting too confusing.

  “Here,” she said, handing me a drink.

  I ventured a quick peek at her. She was attractive, probably a year younger than me. She had long hair and longer legs. The drink she handed me was clear, and tasted harsh. I didn’t mind and chugged the entire glass. I probably shouldn’t have as it might hinder what I was going to attempt to do.

  “Soooo…” she started.

  I handed the glass back to her and wiped my mouth with the back of my sleeve. I wasn’t ordering another, but she must have thought I was. She held out a flask, intending for me to slush back a few more swallows. I declined with a wave and she shrugged, draining the rest of the container herself. The drink corrupted her balance, sending her to the ground. She landed firmly on her ass, and smiled with a foolish grin.

  She twisted on the ground and laughed until something struck her fancy. I could tell she was squinting against the darkness, trying to mouth something out.

  “Is that my sweatshirt?” she asked, fully aware.

  I simply walked away, pretending not to hear, and left the girl on her knees crying thief. I should have never taken that damn drink. Eyes started following my movements, and the guitar strumming stopped abruptly. It was an unwritten law that we don’t steal on nights like tonight, after the turnings. This sweatshirt that now clung to my perspiring back may have just ended my run.

  “Hey Buddy! You know the rules!” someone shouted.

  “Hey, slow down! Get your ass back here!” another exclaimed.

  My pace quickened as I careened towards the front entrance of the skyscraper where the timer was lit. The red color danced across the ground and enlightened my passing form. I started to run. May
be not the smartest thing to do in that moment, but I needed to get out of there.

  An arm caught my shoulder and hung on. They were strong, and weren’t going to let go.

  “Just what in the hell are you doing?” my assailant asked. I looked up at a rather tall, and deeply intoxicated, individual fully capable of pounding me straight into the ground. “Who is this?” A hand reached up and brought down my hood.

  “Holy fucking shit!” someone up ahead shouted. The hand holding on instantly let go, and my assailant took a few steps backwards, appalled by my appearance.

  “What is it?” the girl from whom I had stolen the sweatshirt asked.

  “Jackson?” someone else asked.

  “It can’t be,” the girl stated.

  Events were suddenly spiraling out of control. I was exposed in a society that desired blood. Screams and shouts flew into the air. Looks twisted to horror and frowns became diabolic grins full of spiteful anger.

  “Get him!” someone shouted.

  Chapter 9: The Climb

  The crowd unfolded around me as I bolted around the furious, but slow-witted troop. A few hands reached out, but nothing held. Feet pulverized the ground behind me. Once more I was being chased, though this time at least I knew why.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck…” I whispered. This wasn’t my domain. I didn’t know or even remember the corridors, alleyways, and whatever else was in this part of town. I wasn’t quick enough to keep out of reach forever. Eventually they would catch up, and then I’d be finished.

  Those bright, bold numbers lit up the streets, illuminating the entrance from the main street like an arrow pointing right at the doors. No one was really in this part of the area as it was too close to the barrier to make it habitable. The only faces now were directly behind me, but the numbers were picking up in pursuit.

  “Get back here you devil!” they shouted.

  “Kill him, kill him, kill him…” more voices chanted.

  The crowd hurled more like-minded obscenities at me. I prayed I didn’t trip. They would skin me alive if they caught me. It was almost a guarantee they would take it slow, my death coming long after I’d begged for it to end.

  I burst through the front entrance of the building with the timer. It must have once been an office structure. I made a spilt-second decision and ran directly to the door on the right side, sliding the flashlight out of my pocket and gliding down the stairs as I moved through another doorway. Shouts above tried to unravel which way to go. The door above the stairway slammed open and feet took to the stairs, moving up and down in pursuit.

  I had to hide. The flashlight revealed some kind of custodian’s room. Piping jutted out of the concrete, and there was enough room between the walls to slide through. The piping was old and caked in slime. I held my breath and squeezed into the corner, clicking off my light just before the crowd busted through the door.

  Lanterns cut through the darkness as three men moved into the cramped corridor.

  “Where is that bastard?” one of them asked.

  “I doubt he came this way, there’s no way out,” another answered.

  They looked for a few moments, quickly flashing their lights about as they tried to find some evidence of my arrival.

  “Fuck it, he’s not here, let’s go,” the first one stated.

  They flushed out of the door and I could hear them sprinting back upstairs. Sighing, I realized I was safe, or safer than I had been. I wasn’t going to leave yet, as others could come looking in the same place.

  I leaned back and fell against the wall, sliding to the floor. It was tight back there, but I had enough room to not mind being stuck. It was completely black without the flashlight, and hauntingly quiet. Occasionally I reached out and touched the piping to make sure I was still exactly where I meant to be, fearing that I was somehow moving, lost to a nightmare becoming real.

  After no one had returned for some time, I let myself step back out. I clicked the flashlight on and tried to wipe the black ooze that leaked from the rotting piping off my clothes but only managed to spread it further. The ooze was thick and disgusting, smelling almost worse than it looked.

  Something about the old, broken pipes struck me as familiar. These were water pipes, and must have flowed up the rest of the skyscraper. A network of metal jutted out in all directions before burying itself into the walls and beyond. Control panels, if that was what they were, rested on the far side of the room, though they lacked power to operate.

  I hovered close to the old instruments and wiped away years of grime and dust. Gauges and mechanisms that might have once worked all registered absolutely nothing. Some were dented and broken, like someone had taken a crowbar to the system.

  “Tell me something,” I whispered, wishing the machines could talk. I moved towards the door, and rested an ear against the wood to listen for my pursuers. Wherever they were, they weren’t in the stairwell anymore.

  Slowly, I pushed open the door, half thinking someone would be waiting. I squeezed through the door and switched off the light in mid process, reassuring myself that no one would be there. I strained my eyesight against the darkness, looking for a sign that someone was still around.

  When I saw nothing, I hesitantly clicked the light back on and made my way up the stairs. I stopped at a half-opened door and ventured a glance out. A crowd was waiting in the building’s main lobby. Some searched while others argued. Their numbers had dwindled since initially forming, but there were still enough to not dare an escape.

  There was no way of leaving out the front entrance now, but I wasn’t ready to leave anyway. What I came for waited probably thirty stories up. I turned back to the stairs and started the climb.

  After ten floors I reassured myself that no one was up this high. During the next fifteen floors I was sweating through the sweatshirt that I just couldn’t convince myself to get rid of. Upon reaching floor forty-one, my feet were raw and maybe bleeding, but a whoosh of wind caught me by surprise as I looked down at quite a view.

  There was nothing but steel rods, loose chunks of building material, and open air where there used to be a wall. This was where the sky scraper had somehow managed to crack and lean to its left without completely falling apart. Floor forty-one was now the last floor that I could levelly stand upon.

  The office complex was leaning at an extreme angle, nearly horizontal. The crack in the building had caused a massive portion of the wall, which was now the ceiling, to crack and fall off. The floor was now the just windows, most of which no longer held glass panels.

  Rubble was piled all over while some of it must have caused such an impact that it tore right through where I needed to walk. The hole in the ceiling traveled through four more stories before becoming whole again. Rot consumed parts of the walls and most of the furniture. Everything felt upside down, backwards and inside out. At least somehow the actual walls were intact and looked decently able to hold weight.

  Hopefully after a few stories I could look closer at what I had come for: the timer. But a slight problem reared its head as I stared down through the cracks in the floor. The far side of this building was over the barrier. I had never been so high up while trying to cross over, but could only assume the effects would be the same. If the pain came at the wrong moment it could send me straight out one of those glass-free windows.

  I took a deep breath and crept slowly forward. The floor pitched at a slight, upward angle. Desks, tables, and bookcases made formidable obstacles. Some rested in the open windows, as gravity hadn’t taken a toll just yet. I turned my flashlight’s beam to see a clear path against the hateful red glare.

  Gently, gingerly, I climbed around, through, or over whatever was in the way, stepping where the support appeared best. The walls moaned and creaked, but held. My heartbeat stuck to my throat while my temples throbbed. It was far colder up there too, my breath coming out in long, visible waves. I was thankful I didn’t toss the sweatshirt away on the climb.

  The flashlight�
��s beam cascaded over the open floor. It was weird to see the stairwell above me hanging on by threads of steel rods. Some objects were still latched to the walls, held on by cords plugged into outlets. Light fixtures were fastened to the walls on my left and right, upside down. Paintings swung gently in the wind, thin wires screwed into the plaster the only thing keeping them from falling through the holes in the floor. Though the mess was disorienting, nothing compared to looking down.

  I soon came upon a soft, cream-colored sofa that lurched halfway through an opening. Unlike gravity, the weather hadn’t been so kind to it. Rain had brought mold and the couch was literally being eaten away. I looked down through the opening and saw that the sofa would eventually fall through, smashing to the ground after a long fall. Just thinking about it made a shiver run up my back.

  I made my way through the next few floors with relative ease, until floor forty-five came into view. The floor had crumbled away. The steel rods that once lined the wall were pushed outwards, as if some sort of force had blown right through it. The opening carried on for about a full floor before the building became solid once more.

  I was grateful to have ceiling once more between me and the dark clouds, but had no idea how I was going to get to the other side of the broken building. That red glow of the numbers had increased tenfold, indicating how very close I was to the source.

  A humming came from up ahead as something mechanical buzzed to life. Machinery that only electricity could power was operating, and my mind was at work trying to understand what it meant. However, I had to first solve the dilemma of how to cross this breach.

  I looked at the left wall and saw it was intact. I took off the extra hoodie and my shirt, pulling the shirt to thick shreds and wrapping it around my hands. Then I put the hoodie back on. Aiming for the first vertical row of windows, I cautiously climbed into the open air. I reached the top window and started to move horizontally, crossing the few feet between windows without an issue while making sure not to look down.