Just Another Day - Part 10

There was something spectral about this city now that the light had faded. The only illumination came from those blaring street-lights which stood like skeletal mourners at some unseen funeral. Ruth hurried on and kept her fear locked away. I could feel it squirming within her, that succulent terror just waiting to be let out. A bank of smog turned the light to a dull green just as Ruth rounded a corner and realised that she had been going the wrong way. Instead, some buried instinct had led her back to Saint Lothar’s Station where that hulking building was cast in an almost beautiful jade light, waiting for Ruth to get closer, tempting her on with every facet of that wonderfully ill-fitting architecture and the promise of sanctuary. Perhaps – the thought sent an involuntary shiver up Ruth’s spine – perhaps this was where Jennifer had fled to. Perhaps she would see her friend one last time.

As soon as these thoughts trickled into her brain Ruth gritted her teeth. Had she not tormented herself enough today? But the station cut down these thoughts, shifting through her worries with its constant, piercing presence. In that instant Ruth realised that if she did not go inside she would regret it for the rest of her life.

She went on and I slunk after her, streaking ahead while clinging to the dark. Yes, yes this was good. Better than I had expected. Nearly there, now.

As Ruth clambered up the concrete stairs she was once again greeted with the St Lothar's rusting rails and green-flecked archways that disappeared into the smog. Had it really only been a few hours earlier that Ruth had stood here, wondering what she was doing so far from home? Now the station was deserted. An alien place washed in that ghastly half-light, yet somehow Ruth felt that she was only now seeing the world in its true form. Despite everything she felt a momentary wash of relief in the pit of her stomach. Finally, something was nearly at an end.

She looked up to the gentle clock tower. Once dubious, the wizard’s study was now a source of immense comfort to Ruth. If Jennifer was anywhere in the world it was within that cosy sanctum.

But, of course, she was not in this world. I know of places, dark places, where space is wrinkled and things can be… stored. Such folds in reality are very useful for my kind. They allow us to hide away our targets until the opportune moment when they may be released back into the world. I had waited long enough before snatching Jennifer for my hidden hoard. In the Place That Must Not Be Seen I heard her hammering, clamouring, hoping to break free, but in vain. There are things that even a wizard cannot know, things that sent a jolt of excitement through my thin body.

Suddenly there was the very real sound of boots on concrete. One step. Two steps. A regular rhythm echoing from the staircase below.

Ruth was coming to see her friend.

There was little time; I scurried to my place, brushing aside the debris and squatting on the cold, damp floor of the wizard’s study. My thoughts were scattered. I needed to focus.

Three steps. Four steps. There was not long left. Would she be able to see me in the moonlight? Would it be better if she did not? For an instant a swell of panic washed over me at the thought that the stage was not yet set with so little time.

Five steps. Six steps. Nearly at the door.

Was I the one being hunted? I did not know anymore. Focus – focus I told myself with a sharp snap – you have waited too long, worked too hard to let this moment slip from your grasp.

A creaking sound. The door screeched as it opened slowly. I raised a scratchy voice and the noise stopped.

“Come closer.”

Why was my voice so shrill and broken? I looked down at myself and realised, by some nervous instinct, my body had morphed into its familiar disguise of the young human girl (pigtails and all) that had greeted Ruth only this morning. Well, so be it. There was no going back now.

Skittish, like a mouse emerging from the winter’s white blanket, Ruth entered the study. It was as cluttered as ever but unlike that morning a chill had settled over the place. There was so little light that it took a moment for Ruth to spot me perching on the hard wood floor, but when she did so her body tensed up, thoughts whirring. I could feel the fear flaring up inside of her, threatening to go cold.

“Come closer,” I repeated, hoping it would have the desired effect. Ruth began shuffling towards me at first with a sudden jerk before her shoulders slumped. Realisation.

Resignation.

That was not good enough. I fought to keep my face impassive.

“So, you are the demon,” Ruth stated, “the one Jennifer kept locked up in her concrete cell, now come to kill me?”

I shook my small head. “Not you.”

“Well then,” she returned, almost impassive but I spotted a slight tremble, “why am I here?”

As I feared the shock had set in. Whatever terror Ruth might have been feeling was numbed by that same touch of relief she felt back on the platform. That same relief that made her suddenly very hard for me to read. I could not understand it and once again I was nearly lost for words.

Focus.

“Don’t you want to know what happened to your friend?”

“Tell me, then.”

An eerie calm had settled over her now, enough to make me uneasy.

“She is locked away from this world. Safe enough, for now.”

If anything, Ruth looked confused.

“There is nothing to be done?”

Was there? I had expected more of a response. As my mind reeled the silence was palpable. Ruth nodded as if we were coming to a twisted understanding.

“Very well then,” she said, “so be it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, a hint of frustration creeping into my voice.

“I mean,” Ruth explained as if talking to a child, “that this world did not deserve her and I certainly never did. If she is gone then… well. Such a colourful spirit could never last forever.”

There was a pause.

“Is that it then?”

Ruth closed her eyes. “This is all I can do.”

I gritted my teeth, some of the illusion beginning to break away, “You could beg, you could make a deal with me, you could do something, anything.”

A slow, sad tide was washing away what was left of Ruth’s apprehension.

“May I leave?” she asked.

For a moment I considered killing the human then and there. But that would not do; it would not change my failure. A waste.

I nodded, my mind elsewhere.

Ruth returned the gesture. “Good evening,” she replied, her voice shaking only a little, before backing out of the study. Behind her the door clicked shut and I was alone again.

A minute passed. And then another, I was still not quite sure what had happened. Far outside the murky window a guttural bark of some street hound could be heard. With that, suddenly the world felt a little more real, a little colder. A sudden lethargy had come over me so I laid down amongst the litter and looked up at the pockmarked ceiling. It seemed to look back with an unfeeling gaze.

That should have worked. It could have… perhaps I made a miscalculation. Was Ruth really so frigid? No, it was something else. All this time I assumed the world would miss Jennifer, when really it was relieved to see her go. Relieved for she was a reminder of all it had lost and could never regain.

Well, so be it then. Let the fireflies dance around those precious few sparks of light before moving on to the next. I would stay out of such things in the future, but for now I felt an odd kinship with the wizard. That old vagrant soul.

Was that really it then? Vacant halls and empty streets being but a court in which the stars fly like tennis balls forever and for no reason. The wind howled and welcomed the fog, ushering it in to obscure the heavens. I screwed up my eyes and stared back at the ceiling but I was just as blind as before.

Another day was coming in which the greying light would fail to wash sunken faces clean. Another day when the sun would scramble over the horizon and the same mistakes would be made anew. Had I scrubbed out the only spot of colour in this dismal picture?

As I waited there for hours a sickly morning began to seep into the darkness just as a horrid realisation was dawning inside of me. My hope had been to shock the world into life but instead I had only given it chance to hide like the wretched creature I had become. By taking Jennifer I had removed the one true source of true illumination I knew that could pierce the modern smog. If I truly wanted to induce terror then letting her live would be far more effective.

But now was not the time for such decisions, not until the morning had come and I could see myself again. When I next opened my eyes, the sun had very nearly breached the horizon. Already the day’s business was rumbling into a ghastly semblance of life. There was even a shrill train’s whistle that shot up from the platform below - one of the few engines that still ran here, heading deeper into the dark city. I winced at the sound and went back to waiting in the lonely train station.