Fools of us All - Chapter 31

“Cool.”

The lack of awe and the eager anticipation in Spin’s voice irked me almost as much as his little smile. Obviously he had no understanding of the difficulty of the mission ahead of us. Luckily I was able to keep a clearer perspective. “Okay, I think I’ve got it,” I said testily. “We can head back down.”

As I had half expected, Spin resisted. “Why bother?” he asked, taking a step outside of the tunnel door. He turned and shivered slightly. “I need to see the sunshine, at least for a little while. It’s so dark and grim down there.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s not much better up here,” I snapped. “The world sucks, Spin, and there isn’t much we can do about it. No one’s happy anymore, no one’s satisfied. People live, work, and die, and that’s it. If you’re lucky, you don’t lose your job and you can die with some dignity, but most of us get thrown out on the street at the slightest provocation, and that’s the end of that.”

A sceptical look replaced the grin. “It can’t be that bad,” he said naively, crossing his arms and leaning against a wall. The tunnel door had opened at the end of a dead end alleyway which happened to frame the religious archival building perfectly. I was starting to get nervous about being spotted.

I was also getting angry with my new friend. “Look at me,” I said, indicating my clothing. My pants were ripped, my shoes had holes in them, and my sweater was dirty, ragged and threadbare, barely covering my grimy t-shirt that was underneath. My hair hadn’t been washed since before this entire ordeal began and was cut unevenly from doing it myself without a mirror a couple of weeks ago. “I’m not atypical. And, as we’ve just discovered, I’m not even the worst that the world has to offer.” I waved my hand at the tunnel. “There’s a whole world down there that is worse off than me!” I put my hands on my hips. “Now are you coming, or do I have to drag you back down the tunnel!”

He regarded me seriously for a long time before half-turning to gaze at the archival building. “If it’s so bad, if nothing can be changed, then what are we doing?” he finally asked.

“We are…” I began, but I couldn’t find an answer. “I don’t know,” I finally said miserably. “I guess I just want answers, even if they don’t change anything. The past year has kept changing, and each change has been worse than before. A year ago I had a small apartment, a cat, a job, friends, and a regular life. Sure, I ignored most of the bad things that were around me, but I had succeeded. I could afford to have an actual marker at my father’s grave instead of number.

“And then someone snatched the rug right out from under my feet and I found myself living on the street, eating worse food than my cat could catch on its own, struggling to survive, only to find out that things were worse than I thought. I find a family but have to start fighting everything I once held dear because it was all built on a lie!” The words were tumbling out of me. I knew I should stop, that every moment exposed was another moment closer to discovery and death, but it was as though I was no longer in control.

“And then, just when I think that I am doing fine again, that I have purpose, I am told that there is this goddamned prophecy about me suddenly everyone I know is killed because of it. And to top it all off, after risking my life and nearly dying to get you here, I find out that everything I knew was a lie, that everyone I knew was a lie.”

The words stopped suddenly and my mouth snapped shut with an audible click. I was breathing hard, clenching my jaw to keep the tears at bay. I had cried enough. “I just need to know some truth, any truth, even if it’s hard to accept.”

Spin turned to look at me again. “Fair enough,” he said mildly. He took a step towards the tunnel, and then stopped. “Just give me another second,” he said, turning to look at the building again, and to breathe the fresh air deeply. “What’s that beeping sound?” he wondered aloud.

I was curious as well. A soft beeping had started, quickening pace as it rang. I looked around, finally letting my eyes rest on the door, which had swung inwards to rest against the tunnel wall. I stepped over to it, placing my ear against it before stepping further into the tunnel so I could look behind it at the wall. “I think it’s coming from the door,” I said, slightly disappointed that there was no corresponding light as I had expected, though why there would be I was not sure.

“I wonder what it means,” mused Spin. As though it were waiting for that exact phrase, the door suddenly slammed shut, moving faster than I had thought possible for such a large and thick door. An ominous sounding series of clicks and similar sounds came from the now shut door.

I blinked a time or two to get my eyes used to the dim light. Stepping cautiously forward, I grabbed the handle and pulled, but the door didn’t budge. Frantically, I began to pull harder, alternating between twisting, pulling, and kicking the door, but nothing would make it move. Hitting the door one final time, I took a deep breath and turned around to face the inky darkness. There was nothing to do but continue on and hope to find him later.

If either of us survived.