A short story.
I don’t know where I am. It’s dark and dank and the smell of decay and abandonment hang heavy in the blackness that surrounds me. There’s that old masonry smell everywhere and also the aroma of stagnant pools. The darkness is deep and seems to absorb any light shone into it, as the dark is feeding on all radiation in the visible spectrum. It’s a darkness that the eyes and brain struggle with and it’s like staring into the void infinitum. The feeling is overwhelming and leaves me reeling and lightheaded.
The darkness surrounds me on all sides. Where there should be a sky, even a night sky, there is only this impenetrable darkness. I can’t explain it but I know I’m in a city and it is ancient yet it feels like the city is underground. But there is nothing to show that I’m underground apart from the lack of sky. There is no echo that you’d expect from being underground, even in a large cavern. Maybe it’s too large to produce an echo.
There are lights suspended on cables that stretch from the buildings on either side of the street; I can see the cable reflecting the light. The light they give off is weak and I find myself concentrating on them as if they are beacons of hope. Perhaps they are. But the light that pools on the floor is poor and only just illuminates the rubble that litters the street. They are also motion activated and stay on for five minutes after you have passed them. Sometimes they just about illuminate the buildings on either side of the street, turning the glassless windows into vacant eyes and giving the buildings a grotesque and ominous appearance.
I wonder who installed them. It’s clear that they aren’t an original part of the city for they are newer and only slightly tarnished. Also the design on the lights looks different, slightly alien. I’m not sure how I know this but I do.
I also have a torch. I don’t know where it came from but it’s a godsend. I shine the torch ahead of me but the darkness eats the light before it’s penetrated more than a few feet. It’s a comfort, but not much.
The silence is the other thing. The silence is almost like a physical assault and has a tangible quality to it which is disturbing. Of course the brain doesn’t like silence so it creates a background white noise but that only makes things worse. Occasionally I hear a drip of water hitting the street. Sometimes there is a tapping noise that will suddenly stop. I don’t know what could cause that but it sounds like metal against stone. A regular tapping of four beats then silence. It sends a chill up my spin and coldness grips me.
Then there’s the shuffling noises. Vermin I suspect. I can hear them in the darkness scrabbling over fallen masonry and snuffling amongst the rusted carcasses of vehicles; just at the edge of my hearing which is unsettling.
Sometimes there’s something else.
The buildings, great stone edifices, jut into the darkness, the soulless windows staring across streets and plazas that were once full of noise, colours and people but are now only inhabited by fallen masonry, rusting hulks of vehicles, the vermin … and other things.
I walk slowly down the street, once a busy thoroughfare, trying not to trip over the rubbish and forlorn reminders of a previous age. I try to picture in my mind people on the pavements and traffic on the road but I can’t. The decay is far too advanced. Also, I don’t know what people lived here. I don’t know their customs or language. I can’t read the faded letters chiselled on the masonry. Who were these people? Where did they go?
I turn a corner and a short street leads to a large open space. The street ends in a T-junction and opposite are large ornate gates now semi-collapsed and rusted. Beyond the gates is the ever present darkness. Every twenty metres or so there are utilitarian lamps that are also motion-activated. Again these are different in design to the original lamps and look newer.
This space was evidently a park once. As I walk along the path, the sound of my footsteps like explosions, I can just make out to my left a lake, stagnant now, and in the weak light a large ornamental fountain sits in the lake like some unspeakable creature. I can’t make out too many details and I don’t know what it’s supposed to represent. Nothing I was familiar with. Occasionally I hear a plop as something breaks the surface and ripples spread out across the lake and I wondered what form of life could inhabit those fetid waters.
As I walk I pass the shades of unfamiliar trees, their skeletal branches loom out of the darkness like tentacles. I shudder. I don’t like this place. It scares me, more so than the streets and decaying buildings. I felt less insecure with the buildings around me. Here I feel completely vulnerable with the just the lake and the ghosts of the trees. I feel like I’m being watched. No, worse, being stalked. I can’t shake the feeling that something is observing me from the darkness. Something that doesn’t come close to the lights. I look behind and see several of the lights are still on, stretching back. There is nothing there. Still the feeling persists.
I decide to leave the park and suppressing a desire to run I find an exit and walk back towards the comfort of the dead buildings and the abandoned streets.
The other thing is I’m unaware of how much time has passed. It feels like I’ve been here for days yet that isn’t possible. I’ve no food or water yet I’m not hungry nor am I thirsty. Maybe only a few hours have passed, if that. It’s the darkness. It alters your perceptions, confuses you. It messes with your mind. I could imagine the darkness taking on a life of its own, rather than being the absence of light.
Back in the streets again the feeling of being watched slowly recedes and I continue to walk into the unknown, shining my torch at buildings and piles of rubble. I’m heading towards the centre of the city. Again it’s a feeling I have that I can’t explain but I know I’m right.
The buildings are beginning to change. The frontages are starting to look more ornate and grander and I guess the shops and businesses that used to be here were of the more expensive and luxurious kind. I could imagine the rich and famous being greeted by obsequious shop managers whilst their chauffeur driven limos waited.
Ahead of me I make out a shape which as I get closer turns out to be a statue. A large round pedestal, taller than me, looms out of the darkness. On top of the pedestal is part of a statue of a man; only his legs are left. The rest of him lies shattered around the pedestal. On the pedestal is an inscription, the best I’ve come across so far.
