Deicide

Amara has been walking for hours. She doesn’t know where she is other than to say that she has never seen this part of the sewer system below the city before. Still, she feels on edge. She can’t shake the feeling that she might stumble across Inquisitors, or some other machines, hunting for humans to pass judgement on at any time. However, this feeling is something she is very used to. It’s all she has ever known in her nineteen years of life.

She’s never seen the surface, the city above, the sun, the sky, any of it. To her it is all a mystery but one that she’s dreamt of many a time. She doubts anything can be as beautiful or spectacular as she what she has imagined, yet she would give anything to see it. Not that she believes that she ever will.

Her eyes dart left and right probing at the shadows beyond the limits of the small running lights that are embedded into the walls on either side of her. They cast off what she would determine is enough light to illuminate her way. But such a thought isn’t enough to stop her mind wandering back to the slaughter earlier. Nothing ever does, and in truth it’ll take days before those memories and images stop lingering at the forefront of her mind. Several times her previous horrors subside just in time for her to witness something of similar abhorrence again. It’s how it always seems to go for her, and she expects it isn’t just her it happens too. But she has to keep moving. If she stops or gives up she’s as good as dead. She knows it. She’s seen it with her own two grey coloured eyes when people, real people like her and not the Inquisitors, lose the will to carry on. It’s heartbreaking and yet she knows better than to try and change and spur them on. They’re lost. Resigned to the fate that will come for them sooner rather than later. Amara refuses to end up like that. She will run and if needs be fight to her very last breath to get out of the city limits. It’s what she’s been trying to do for years but every time she thinks she is getting close to her goal something happens. Whether it’s an attack, a collapse or some other obstacle she always ends up still stuck here in the sewers under the city.

The redheaded woman’s footsteps are as quiet as they can be when you’re forced to traipse through shallow water she doesn’t think are remnants from when the sewers had been in use. To be honest she tries not to think about where the water comes from, especially on the rare occasions when what she finds puddles that are clear and clean looking. That’s when she drinks from the standing water that in most cases are little more than puddles. If she were to consider where the water might have come from she wouldn’t drink it. If that had happened she would not have survived as long as she has.

That gathering back there was the most people she has seen in one place in a very long time. In fact, the last time she remembers a mass of men, women and children similar to that is when she’d been a child. Her parents had been alive then, or at least they were who she called her parents. She isn’t sure whether they really were or not. Not that it matters, she loved them all the same and then one day she stopped because they weren’t around anymore. They didn’t abandon her. They were killed, by the machines. She had to watch but not because the Inquisitors made her. She simply didn’t have the space to turn and look away. And while Amara could have closed her eyes, to do so felt impossible. So she’d watched as they were murdered. She has no other word for it. It was cold, heartless but regimented. Her parents weren’t the only ones that died that day. They’d been travelling with others. Amara can’t remember why or to where. More than likely they were travelling together simply in hopes of staying out of the reach of the machines. It hadn’t worked and after that she’d been alone. It took a long time before she felt able to be around people in any way. Everyone she heard or caught a glimpse of she treated with mistrust unsure whether they were Inquisitors, the new kind that looked like humans in every way except for their eyes.

Amara reaches a fork in the tunnel and stops. She puts her thoughts to bed and considers her options, while listening to the still silence. The solitary woman expects to hear something and is comforted when none reach her ears. It’s peaceful down here she thinks as her eyes flick left, right and then left again. Finally her shoulders slump and she lets out a quiet sigh of resignation having determined that the best avenue to take is unknown to her. Amara wishes she could say this is a first in her life but that would be a lie. Many a time the woman has come across a decision like this. But with each new choice she has taken her confidence has been picked at, for it seems no matter where she goes and what she does violence is never far behind. It makes Amara wonder if the Inquisitors are pursuing her. It’s an insane thought she knows but it’s one that does crawl into her head from time to time. Usually following an appearance made by the Inquisitors, which seem to be becoming ever more frequent.

At one time the solitary woman could go for months without seeing even one machine. Now it feels as though all she would have to do is look into the shadows to find one. It isn’t quite that bad but it might be soon, and that is yet another reason as to why she should get out of the city. If only it were that simple she thinks as the index finger of her right hand hops between one tunnel and other for a few seconds before coming to rest on one, the one that will be taken. Amara frowns not at all satisfied with her decision. Nevertheless it’s been made and unless she wishes to dally any longer, which she does not for fear of being the next victim of the Inquisitors, she’ll have to settle for it. And that is exactly what Amara does following a deep inhale and then much slower exhale.

However, she gets no more than a few metres down this tunnel before almost slipping and ending up on her back. Somehow she manages to steady herself. Her hands having reached out to grab at anything that might give her purchase succeeded in locating an area where the bricks that make up the curved wall have been eroded and made weak by water damage. Amara lets out a sigh of relief as the last thing she wanted to have to do is trudge in the cool air while soaked. It’s bad enough that her feet are wet due to her shoes being well past their best. They weren’t even new when she’d got them. Nothing that humans have or wear is new. It’s all reclaimed in some manner or another.

But with her balance stabilised Amara releases her white knuckle grip on the small section of eroded brick. Tiny particles flake off as she withdraws her hands, the nails of which are battered, rough and caked with thick dirt. Amara pulls her sleeve down to cover her hands. She hates looking at the filth that covers them and would rather look at the dirt speckled and faded green of what she calls a top. In truth it is a rag refashioned into something approaching a jumper, except littered with holes caused by wear and moths. They live down here in the damp with humans as do many other bugs and rodents. The presence of bugs doesn’t affect Amara but it does for others. Apparently there is a fear of bugs, she doesn’t recall the name of it, but to her it’s an irrational phobia. The bugs, the moths and everything else that shares this subterranean space with humans are not dangerous. They simply wish to live out their lives as best they can too. If only the machines would allow us, humans, to do that, Amara thinks as she continues to push forward again. Her pace is slower now and there is a definite throbbing in her left knee. Her brow furrows and she considers that she may have twisted it again. Disappointing is her swift conclusion, though she makes no attempts to slow any further or stop completely. She can’t stop. If she does it could spell the end of her. But you’ve heard nothing for hours? She doesn’t care. That means nothing. Machines, Inquisitors especially, can move silently. She’s seen it and heard nothing as she observed. Again that had been long ago when the older variants, like the one that had killed that man and woman right in front of her earlier today, had been in circulation. In that moment, thoughts of their deaths resonate in her mind and she regrets reminding herself of them and how they died. She knows better than to bring attention to such things as she follows the tunnel left. It isn’t a turn per se but more a gentle diagonal shift. Amara definitely hasn’t been this way before and bites at her lower lip while anxiety sits heavy at the centre of her chest. She doesn’t know that that is what the feeling is called though she knows how to describe it well enough.

Suddenly the running lights on either side of her flicker, all of them. Amara stops and holds her breath. Dread wraps its tendrils around her and she has to consciously resist the urge she feels to gulp. But nothing happens. There is no sound, no feeling of movement around her. She’d like to say that fills her with relief but it doesn’t. It means less than she would like to admit and that means her only option is to turn. There is certainly nothing ahead of her, she can see that much. Yet, she really doesn’t want to turn. She wants to run. It’s a natural response she knows but one that has to be fought. If she runs now and it’s nothing she might alert something that previously wasn’t aware of her presence. Just turn! She does, slowly and silently without pulling either of her feet out of the shallow water. Doing so would undoubtedly result in splashing sounds, however quiet they might be. Her eyes are wide and wait to land on a shape, a form, a figure, but they don’t. There is nothing. Amara waits concerned that maybe the Inquisitors have a new trick that permits them the ability to hide in plain sight. They don’t and so after a couple minutes of tense silent waiting Amara relaxes and lets out her long held breath. It’s ragged but quiet enough that even her ears do not pick it up. That’s good she tells herself in the moments before the redhead turns back the way she’d been headed. However, she doesn’t take a step. Instead she waits and listens. Several more minutes pass without issue, at which point she dares to take a step. The first is slower and more purposeful than it would normally be, but is not met with a response, other than what she would expect, and so Amara takes another, a little quicker this time. Again there is nothing, so she takes a third, then a fourth and a fifth. By the sixth her fears have evaporated and she is confident enough to continue at closer to her normal pace. If not for the throbbing in her knee she would be going quicker still, but alas fate does not favour her to such a degree.