Volume 1 – Chapter 15: Beneath the Surface

The city had become a foreign country. The air dripped with anticipation, and just under the lid of normalcy waited the leering claws of the unthinkable. Rika and I Wiggled through the streets, the shadows long, unnatural, curling, snaking around the corners, wrapping around us.

“I don’t like this,” Rika said, very quietly. She was glancing over her shoulder, and I could feel the tension in the way she moved, in the way she held her body. But there was fear in those eyes Auntie held but still she stood by my side. Stronger than I realized.

“I do,” I said, my own voice tense. I didn’t like it either. But the truth was, I didn’t have a choice. I had to keep moving. We had to keep moving. And the closer we got to the city, the more we were enveloped in heaviness, its heaviness the ground beneath our feet heavy, holding us as we walked closer.

The sky in the morning was pale gray with the sun mostly obscured by heavy clouds above. The streets were hauntingly silent except for occasional distant noises — a muted reverberation of something out of place, an ambient sound so unwelcome that it made you instinctively look over your shoulder.

“There’s something not quite right,” I whispered to myself more than to Rika. I grabbed tightly onto the strap of my bag, the object inside was weighing me down. It felt heavier than ever, as if it was trying to pull me back down with it.

Rika shot me a quick glance. “What do you mean?”

I hesitated, my mind racing. “I don’t know. It’s almost like… like we are being watched. But it’s not just the city. Something’s wrong. We’re not the only ones here.’”

Rika stiffened beside me. “You think somebody’s following us?”

“Maybe.” I had to look over my shoulder again, but there was nothing, only the infinite expanse of concrete and empty stores. “We have to be careful. None of this is trustworthy,” he said.

She didn’t reply, but I could feel her stare. I didn’t have to say it; she was scared too. I could feel it in her stance, in how she kept glancing toward the corners of the buildings, the empty windows like she was anticipating something to jump at us at any given second.

“Breathe, breathe,” I wheezed as I tried to self-soothe. The words that hadn’t passed between us were heavy, and the city rained down upon that silence.” With each footfall, a countdown.

And then I saw it. A flash of green, ahead, at the very edge of my periphery. My heart skipped a beat.

“Rika,” I said, grasping her arm. She regarded me, eyes wide, already on alert.

“I saw it too,” she said, her voice tight.

For a moment we both stood frozen, suspended, listening to the silence around us. There was nothing. No footsteps. No distant sounds. But I knew what I had seen.

“I think we’re not the only ones,” I muttered.

“Stay close,” Rika said, her voice sharp now. She didn’t need to tell me. I knew exactly what she was talking about.

So yes, we walked fast, our footfalls echoing in the quiet, both of us knowing that the danger had been lurking there in the dark for God knows how long. I was still trying to pull it all together in my mind. I had the device in my bag, the cryptic warning, the shadowy figures we’d been seeing everywhere — it all felt like it was building toward something.

But what? And who was behind it?

“I’m really getting tired of this,” Rika muttered. “I’m sick and tired of running.

I couldn’t disagree. I was tired too. But there was no other choice. We had to keep going. We had to find answers.

We came to an intersection, and for a second I thought we were in the clear. But then I heard it — soft, but unmistakable behind us. Footsteps. Slow, deliberate.

“They’re getting nearer,” I whispered, too quietly to hear myself.

Rika nodded, tightening her features into gray. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here.”

“We ran, ducking into an alley squeezed between two disintegrating buildings. It smelled of rot and dust, stale, and the walls seemed to be closing in on us. Rika plastered herself against one side of the alley, and I glued myself to the other, oozing into the shadows.

Now, I could hear footsteps, clearer this time, closer. I heard my heart beating cz knocking against my chest. We had to keep hiding, yes, but how long?

“Do you think they know we’re here?” “My breathing is shallow,” Rika said breathlessly.

“I don’t know,” I said, fear gripping my gut as it had almost every day. “But we’re not going to take any chances.”

We fell silent, breathless, listening, waiting. The footsteps were still there, a weight on my chest. The air in the alley—the air itself—was becoming thick and oppressive, and it was growing hard for me to breathe. And every sound, every slight inflection, was amplified, like the world was pulling in closer.

And then suddenly the footsteps ceased.

The breath I slowly inhaled was closing within my breast. Rika stared up at me, ghost-white but resolute. “What now?” she asked, her voice a near-whisper.

“We keep moving,” I said. “But we have to be cleverer with it. We have to know who did this and we have to know why.”

“Are you ready?” “What do you mean by that?” asked Rika, her tone soft yet firm.

I didn’t answer right away. I didn’t know if I’d be ready for what was coming. I knew one thing for certain, though: I wouldn’t stop now. We couldn’t stop. Not when we were so close to the truth.

Rika’s hand grazed mine, a brief, momentary exploration, but enough. It reminded us that we were not alone in this. That we were all in this together.

“Let’s go,” I said quietly. “We can’t turn back now.”

After sharing that, we exited the alleys and returned to the streets, ready to proceed with whatever was in store. And even though the danger still persisted and the mystery still loomed over us, I didn’t mind; I thought maybe we were on the verge of a kind of greater understanding than either one of us had ever really experienced.

We were going where we had never been before. But we were ready for it. And there would be no turning back.