CairAndros
October 28th, 2010, 12:24 PM
The solitary lightbulb pulsed on and off; briefly illuminating the ranks of shelves below, before plunging the room back into darkness. A hand snaked along the shelves, searching for a can of food. It eventually found its prize, pulling it down, stowing it safely in the confines of the satchel. More searching proved fruitless. The door to the room was shut, a white X emblazoned upon it marking his passage.
Sinclair trudged along the dimly lit passageways, carefully avoiding the puddles scattered across the floor. Keeping his battered leather satchel pulled tight to his side he mused, as he often did, about how Eden could fall so far.
Eden, the perfect city, designed to be the Utopia of Mankind. The brightest minds of the day were attracted to the freedom it offered. An elite society, free from the constraints of life elsewhere – free to pursue new avenues in science that were disapproved of by the people outside Eden, trying to create the perfect human. Building Eden was no small feat, attached to the sea floor she would escape from the corrupting influences of the surface that her owners strove to eradicate. People arrived in their thousands to reside in Eden, and for a while it was paradise.
Sinclair was one of the engineers in Eden, one of the first to take up the project. Locked away in the underbelly of the city he was blissfully unaware of the unfolding horror above. The people became depressed and aggressive; the smallest of things driving them to suicide or murder. Riots broke out as the Elders attempted to contain the affliction by quarantining the infected sections of the city and imposing a curfew – but like a plague it spread until even the Elders, locked away at the top of City Hall, were stricken.
Living in the underbelly shielded Sinclair from the psychosis. Until the food shipments to the bowels of the city ceased. Venturing to the surface he was confronted by a scene of apocalyptic proportions. Shops ransacked, their goods strewn across the streets, fires smouldered in rubbish bins, bodies lying in the street. Sinclair retreated to the safety of the core, gathering his belongings. Knowing he had to leave and head to the surface to avoid being trapped by whatever was up there.
Sinclair turned a corner, darting into the darkness, concealing himself in an abandoned shop front. A man kneeled in the middle of the street, bathed in the harsh neon lamplight. Towering over him a blade came slashing down, his neck opening; spilling the lifeblood into a waiting container. The man fell to the floor, dead. No sooner had the corpse laid to rest than its murderer was upon it, tearing the clothes off the man to reach the succulent flesh underneath. His knife flashed again, ripping a hole in the abdomen, shoving his left arm inside he removed it, covered in gore, grasping the liver, pulling pieces of it off with his teeth, swallowing it whole and raw. Sinclair stepped backwards into the safety of the shop, cloaking himself in the darkness. Fighting back the urge to vomit, Sinclair lay down – hands clutching his wrench, his only means of staving off the monster should he be spotted.
Hours passed before the man left. He, like the others that roamed Eden, were all that was left of the elitist society. When the affliction passed the survivors were left with an insatiable craving for meat. They ate their way through all of Eden’s vast stockpiles, starting on the animals as those supplies were exhausted. The death of the last animal left them only one option to sate their ravenous hunger.
Sinclair headed back to his refuge, the top floor of the Orchard hotel. Bolting the door he amassed the spoils of his foraging, adding these to the small stockpile of cans already present. Picking up a list from the small, oak coffee table he stared at the one item left on it – a fuse. The fuse was the last item, in a long list, that Sinclair needed to escape Eden in the last Bathysphere. Sensing what was happening with the survivors, plagued with guilt at what they had created, the Elders launched the escape Bathyspheres to stop the spread of the affliction to the surface – all but one fired. Sinclair had spent months painstakingly searching Eden for the parts needed to fix it. Scrutinizing the map, he planned to search the City Hall – one of the few places he hadn’t yet looked. Double checking the locks on the door he retired to his chambers; the emergency escape bag sitting ready – along with the coil of rope that would be attached to the balcony to facilitate his exit by rappelling to safety.
Sinclair drifted into a fitful sleep. Nightmares haunted him; the faces of those he witnessed slaughtered by the monsters roaming the streets plagued him. Their screams echoed in his head, feelings of helplessness flooded back – as unable to aid them now as he was then.
Sinclair awoke, his forehead slick with sweat. Settling back down to sleep, a dull thudding reverberated through the apartment. Rushing into the living room he saw the door start to buckle from the rhythmical hammering. Grabbing all the cans he could, along with the map, he dashed to the bedroom. Throwing everything into the bag he attached the rope to the balcony and paid the length out behind him, starting his descent as the door to the apartment gave way with a sickening splintering. Sinclair hit the ground hard, moving swiftly into the darkness, heading towards City Hall.
City Hall rose majestically into the upper reaches of the main dome. The lower parts of its marble facade blackened with months of grime yet the top still gleamed in the faint light let in from the sea. From the construction of Eden, Sinclair knew the storage rooms lay beneath the Hall. Heading into the atrium through the gilded revolving doors he was confronted with the rotting remains of the Elders. Maggots swarmed over the decaying flesh, their white bodies bulging from the feast. Teeth and knife marks were clearly visible on their exposed bones.
Pushing on he headed down the narrow, winding stairwell to the storage rooms. A thick blast door and console faced Sinclair when he reached the bottom. Praying it still had power he wiped the thick layer of dust from the console, the password screen flashed in-front of him - a harsh green glow in the blackness. Bypassing the console, Sinclair took it off the wall and proceeded to hack his way into the storage facility.
The door rumbled to life, the locks disengaging with a dull click. Following the door inside Sinclair was unprepared for the sight before him. Row upon row of food lay before him; cans of food and piles of meat. Walking between the towering cases he came upon an unassuming glass fronted case on the wall, he only looked at it by accident; having been examining the cans on the shelf before it. Trying the case, and finding it locked, he smashed the glass with his wrench, pulling a fuse through the shattered remains. Shouting with joy he carefully packed it away in the satchel; he could now escape from this living hell.
He whirled around, cans clattering to the ground behind him. A small girl, her pale skin contrasted vividly against her jet black dress, stood before him. Clutching a tattered teddy she peered at him from behind it with large brown eyes, her chestnut hair framing her oval face. Sinclair lowered his wrench – shocked at seeing a child in Eden after so long; bodies of children had littered the streets when he first emerged from the underbelly. Sitting down on the floor he patted on the space next to him, accepting his invitation she sat beside him.
The two talked, he in his low, rough tones whilst she replied in a high, melodic lilt. She introduced herself as Sofia Ryan. Her parents had been one of the first infected by the psychosis and she had been rescued by her grandfather – one of the Elders – before it took her as well.
“How did you get down here?”, Sinclair asked of her.
“Grandpa put me here to save me from the sickness” she replied, staring up at him.
“You must have been down here for months”, Sinclair remarked, “such a long time for one so young”.
“I am not young, I am nine years old!” Sofia retorted indignantly.
Sinclair agonised over whether to tell her that her grandfather had been murdered, not wanting to distress Sofia. Deciding that he couldn’t take her from the building without passing the corpses he started to explain, gently, about life on the surface. How the affliction had left the survivors hungry for meat and the only way to get it now was to feast on corpses. She asked him if her grandfather was amongst those killed, he could only look at her in reply. Tears came to her eyes, streaming down her face – cascading onto the head of the teddy in her lap. In an attempt to console her he told her about the Bathysphere and how they would both get out of Eden. Gathering her scarce belongings they made for the Bathysphere.
The pair made an odd couple as they made their way through the dank passageways and open plazas of Eden. Reaching their destination without incident they descended the marble stairs, their steps echoing down the corridor.
Replacing the panel on the fusebox Sinclair stood back as the Bathysphere’s controls flickered to life. A soft hum filled the compartment as power flowed through the circuits.
To launch the Bathysphere would destroy the city. The force generated would shatter the already weakened glass panels, a lack of maintenance allowing hairline cracks to develop all over the city, and blow the sole remaining generator. Finalising the launch procedure Sofia screamed, breaking the stillness of the launch pad. The flesh-eater from earlier, the same one that had forced Sinclair’s rapid exit from the Orchard, stood at the end of the passage.
Sinclair leaped from the Bathysphere – slamming the heavy iron door shut, locking Sofia in. He approached the man at the end of the passageway, brandishing the wrench. Sinclair swung, catching him a glancing blow of his left arm – the bone snapping loudly. Bellowing in pain the man launched his assault, his knife flashing as he stabbed at Sinclair. The knife eventually found its target, lodged between Sinclair’s ribs. Sinclair fell to his knees the wrench slipping from his grasp, clattering on the floor beside him.
The man removed his knife, blood oozing from the wound. Sinclair looked at his attacker, his breath coming in long, ragged gasps. The knife was raised once more. A high pitched squeal filled the air as the knife came down across Sinclair’s throat. Roaring in victory the man stopped, knocked to the ground as the Bathysphere rocketed out of Eden. Struggling back to his feet, slipping on the blood soaked floor, a wall of ice cold water rushed over him; entering in through the gap left by the Bathysphere. All over Eden the hairline cracks in the glass joined, the panels shattered flooding Eden.
Sofia gazed out of the viewport on the bottom of the Bathysphere as the few remaining lights in Eden flickered and died. Reaching into her backpack she pulled out a lump of raw meat, chewing on it as the Eden faded from view. By the time the Bathysphere reached the surface the meat was long gone, her hunger barely sated.
Sinclair trudged along the dimly lit passageways, carefully avoiding the puddles scattered across the floor. Keeping his battered leather satchel pulled tight to his side he mused, as he often did, about how Eden could fall so far.
Eden, the perfect city, designed to be the Utopia of Mankind. The brightest minds of the day were attracted to the freedom it offered. An elite society, free from the constraints of life elsewhere – free to pursue new avenues in science that were disapproved of by the people outside Eden, trying to create the perfect human. Building Eden was no small feat, attached to the sea floor she would escape from the corrupting influences of the surface that her owners strove to eradicate. People arrived in their thousands to reside in Eden, and for a while it was paradise.
Sinclair was one of the engineers in Eden, one of the first to take up the project. Locked away in the underbelly of the city he was blissfully unaware of the unfolding horror above. The people became depressed and aggressive; the smallest of things driving them to suicide or murder. Riots broke out as the Elders attempted to contain the affliction by quarantining the infected sections of the city and imposing a curfew – but like a plague it spread until even the Elders, locked away at the top of City Hall, were stricken.
Living in the underbelly shielded Sinclair from the psychosis. Until the food shipments to the bowels of the city ceased. Venturing to the surface he was confronted by a scene of apocalyptic proportions. Shops ransacked, their goods strewn across the streets, fires smouldered in rubbish bins, bodies lying in the street. Sinclair retreated to the safety of the core, gathering his belongings. Knowing he had to leave and head to the surface to avoid being trapped by whatever was up there.
Sinclair turned a corner, darting into the darkness, concealing himself in an abandoned shop front. A man kneeled in the middle of the street, bathed in the harsh neon lamplight. Towering over him a blade came slashing down, his neck opening; spilling the lifeblood into a waiting container. The man fell to the floor, dead. No sooner had the corpse laid to rest than its murderer was upon it, tearing the clothes off the man to reach the succulent flesh underneath. His knife flashed again, ripping a hole in the abdomen, shoving his left arm inside he removed it, covered in gore, grasping the liver, pulling pieces of it off with his teeth, swallowing it whole and raw. Sinclair stepped backwards into the safety of the shop, cloaking himself in the darkness. Fighting back the urge to vomit, Sinclair lay down – hands clutching his wrench, his only means of staving off the monster should he be spotted.
Hours passed before the man left. He, like the others that roamed Eden, were all that was left of the elitist society. When the affliction passed the survivors were left with an insatiable craving for meat. They ate their way through all of Eden’s vast stockpiles, starting on the animals as those supplies were exhausted. The death of the last animal left them only one option to sate their ravenous hunger.
Sinclair headed back to his refuge, the top floor of the Orchard hotel. Bolting the door he amassed the spoils of his foraging, adding these to the small stockpile of cans already present. Picking up a list from the small, oak coffee table he stared at the one item left on it – a fuse. The fuse was the last item, in a long list, that Sinclair needed to escape Eden in the last Bathysphere. Sensing what was happening with the survivors, plagued with guilt at what they had created, the Elders launched the escape Bathyspheres to stop the spread of the affliction to the surface – all but one fired. Sinclair had spent months painstakingly searching Eden for the parts needed to fix it. Scrutinizing the map, he planned to search the City Hall – one of the few places he hadn’t yet looked. Double checking the locks on the door he retired to his chambers; the emergency escape bag sitting ready – along with the coil of rope that would be attached to the balcony to facilitate his exit by rappelling to safety.
Sinclair drifted into a fitful sleep. Nightmares haunted him; the faces of those he witnessed slaughtered by the monsters roaming the streets plagued him. Their screams echoed in his head, feelings of helplessness flooded back – as unable to aid them now as he was then.
Sinclair awoke, his forehead slick with sweat. Settling back down to sleep, a dull thudding reverberated through the apartment. Rushing into the living room he saw the door start to buckle from the rhythmical hammering. Grabbing all the cans he could, along with the map, he dashed to the bedroom. Throwing everything into the bag he attached the rope to the balcony and paid the length out behind him, starting his descent as the door to the apartment gave way with a sickening splintering. Sinclair hit the ground hard, moving swiftly into the darkness, heading towards City Hall.
City Hall rose majestically into the upper reaches of the main dome. The lower parts of its marble facade blackened with months of grime yet the top still gleamed in the faint light let in from the sea. From the construction of Eden, Sinclair knew the storage rooms lay beneath the Hall. Heading into the atrium through the gilded revolving doors he was confronted with the rotting remains of the Elders. Maggots swarmed over the decaying flesh, their white bodies bulging from the feast. Teeth and knife marks were clearly visible on their exposed bones.
Pushing on he headed down the narrow, winding stairwell to the storage rooms. A thick blast door and console faced Sinclair when he reached the bottom. Praying it still had power he wiped the thick layer of dust from the console, the password screen flashed in-front of him - a harsh green glow in the blackness. Bypassing the console, Sinclair took it off the wall and proceeded to hack his way into the storage facility.
The door rumbled to life, the locks disengaging with a dull click. Following the door inside Sinclair was unprepared for the sight before him. Row upon row of food lay before him; cans of food and piles of meat. Walking between the towering cases he came upon an unassuming glass fronted case on the wall, he only looked at it by accident; having been examining the cans on the shelf before it. Trying the case, and finding it locked, he smashed the glass with his wrench, pulling a fuse through the shattered remains. Shouting with joy he carefully packed it away in the satchel; he could now escape from this living hell.
He whirled around, cans clattering to the ground behind him. A small girl, her pale skin contrasted vividly against her jet black dress, stood before him. Clutching a tattered teddy she peered at him from behind it with large brown eyes, her chestnut hair framing her oval face. Sinclair lowered his wrench – shocked at seeing a child in Eden after so long; bodies of children had littered the streets when he first emerged from the underbelly. Sitting down on the floor he patted on the space next to him, accepting his invitation she sat beside him.
The two talked, he in his low, rough tones whilst she replied in a high, melodic lilt. She introduced herself as Sofia Ryan. Her parents had been one of the first infected by the psychosis and she had been rescued by her grandfather – one of the Elders – before it took her as well.
“How did you get down here?”, Sinclair asked of her.
“Grandpa put me here to save me from the sickness” she replied, staring up at him.
“You must have been down here for months”, Sinclair remarked, “such a long time for one so young”.
“I am not young, I am nine years old!” Sofia retorted indignantly.
Sinclair agonised over whether to tell her that her grandfather had been murdered, not wanting to distress Sofia. Deciding that he couldn’t take her from the building without passing the corpses he started to explain, gently, about life on the surface. How the affliction had left the survivors hungry for meat and the only way to get it now was to feast on corpses. She asked him if her grandfather was amongst those killed, he could only look at her in reply. Tears came to her eyes, streaming down her face – cascading onto the head of the teddy in her lap. In an attempt to console her he told her about the Bathysphere and how they would both get out of Eden. Gathering her scarce belongings they made for the Bathysphere.
The pair made an odd couple as they made their way through the dank passageways and open plazas of Eden. Reaching their destination without incident they descended the marble stairs, their steps echoing down the corridor.
Replacing the panel on the fusebox Sinclair stood back as the Bathysphere’s controls flickered to life. A soft hum filled the compartment as power flowed through the circuits.
To launch the Bathysphere would destroy the city. The force generated would shatter the already weakened glass panels, a lack of maintenance allowing hairline cracks to develop all over the city, and blow the sole remaining generator. Finalising the launch procedure Sofia screamed, breaking the stillness of the launch pad. The flesh-eater from earlier, the same one that had forced Sinclair’s rapid exit from the Orchard, stood at the end of the passage.
Sinclair leaped from the Bathysphere – slamming the heavy iron door shut, locking Sofia in. He approached the man at the end of the passageway, brandishing the wrench. Sinclair swung, catching him a glancing blow of his left arm – the bone snapping loudly. Bellowing in pain the man launched his assault, his knife flashing as he stabbed at Sinclair. The knife eventually found its target, lodged between Sinclair’s ribs. Sinclair fell to his knees the wrench slipping from his grasp, clattering on the floor beside him.
The man removed his knife, blood oozing from the wound. Sinclair looked at his attacker, his breath coming in long, ragged gasps. The knife was raised once more. A high pitched squeal filled the air as the knife came down across Sinclair’s throat. Roaring in victory the man stopped, knocked to the ground as the Bathysphere rocketed out of Eden. Struggling back to his feet, slipping on the blood soaked floor, a wall of ice cold water rushed over him; entering in through the gap left by the Bathysphere. All over Eden the hairline cracks in the glass joined, the panels shattered flooding Eden.
Sofia gazed out of the viewport on the bottom of the Bathysphere as the few remaining lights in Eden flickered and died. Reaching into her backpack she pulled out a lump of raw meat, chewing on it as the Eden faded from view. By the time the Bathysphere reached the surface the meat was long gone, her hunger barely sated.