chapter 5

This time, Ellie left her apartment more prepared. Behind her shoulders, she held a backpack with a water supply and snacks sufficient for a few days. Also, the girl grabbed the biggest knife she could find in her kitchen, wrapped in a napkin. It would’ve been nice to sharpen it if she had a tool for that. Her gear contained a change of clothes in a zip bag, which she hoped she wouldn’t need. She planned to go down, meet the guy, warn him about the danger, and come back up. Yes, that was the plan.

The law forbade going down to the Bottom but defined no penalty because no one ever returned to receive it. Instead, a severe punishment awaited those who would venture to an upper level. For this, they could kick you to a lower level or even to the Bottom. However, Ellie believed that even if she had never heard of someone’s return, it didn’t mean it was impossible.

Ellie shook with anxiety, her stiff fingers tightening around the straps of her backpack. She recited what she would say to her guide. They arranged a meeting along her route to work so the girl could descend closer to the building she recognized in her dream. She needed to slip down as close as possible to that gap in the fog to shorten the trail on land.

Back home, Ellie used encrypted communication channels to find an ad promising a hellish walk to tickle the nerves. Hundreds of similar offers appeared and disappeared on the dark web every day. The reliability of the performers of such services was nearing zero, but she did not know any other way to get down, and time was short.

Ellie crossed the bridge from her block to the transportation hub, connecting several lines. She boarded an aerocar and got off a few stations later, racing to the meeting spot. It started drizzling again, and Ellie was glad she had put on a warm black sweater under her leather jacket. From the train stop, she headed toward the dark silhouette of a mega-block. Wind joined the rain on the narrow passage between the giant structures, trying to blow her off the level. The small lanterns attached to the protective net around her gleamed dimly, fighting the spreading darkness. Aerocars scurried back and forth between dark mega-blocks decorated with patches of neon.

Her hair hung in wet strands when Ellie made it to the meeting place. The guide was waiting for her inside an inner corridor of the mega-block. The man nodded in acknowledgment and cocked his head at her to follow him. He headed forward without looking back. He was of medium height and dressed in a nondescript black jacket, dark trousers, and boots. A hood covered his head, and a black mask draped his nose and mouth. Several times, they turned into different corridors, and Ellie thought they got lost in a dim maze. Another tunnel led them to a metal door of a technical room.

The man took a key from his pocket, opened the door, and held it for Ellie. After a second’s hesitation, the girl slid inside. Steam rose from the floor, making the room stifling hot. This space resembled an old-fashioned boiler room. They crept deeper, and Ellie began doubting her plan.

“Did you bring the credits?” the man asked, his voice muffled by the mask.

“Yeah, but half now and half when I get back, so you can let me in,” Ellie said, holding out the plastic cards.

The man nodded in agreement, stooped to an inconspicuous latch on the floor, and unlocked it with another key hanging from a metal chain on his belt. The floor was a strong double grate, similar to the ones used for fire escapes, until they were dismantled to prevent people from climbing up. Ellie couldn’t make out what was underneath it.

A latticed trapdoor opened with a groan, and the guide held it so it wouldn’t hit the metal floor.

“Climb in,” he whispered.

“In there?” Ellie wiped her sweaty palms on her pants. “Won’t you go with me? I thought you’d be my guide. How do I find my way out of this block to the street?” Suddenly, it seemed like she was standing at the edge of a cliff. Only one step separated her from the abyss. The danger of her stupid plan finally hit her with full force. She took a tiny step back from the trapdoor.

“There’s a staircase. Go all the way down, and you will go outside through the corridors,” the man said. Suddenly, he grabbed her hand, pressed her back to him, and covered her mouth with his other palm. He reached into her pocket for the rest of the credits.

“I’ll take it in advance, doll. There is little hope of your return.”

He pushed her into the trapdoor and hurriedly closed it behind her. Satisfied with the profit he made, he locked the latch, leaning over the grate. Ellie stuck her fingers into the mesh, gasping for air to scream.

“I’d be quiet if I were you,” the guide said. “You don’t want to attract too much attention, do you?”

Struck by the cruel mess she had gotten herself into, Ellie stared at the guide’s boots through the gaps in the grated floor above her head and stifled an unspent scream in her throat.

“How am I going to get back if you’ve locked this trapdoor with a key?” she hissed. “I didn’t agree with this! This latch must remain unlocked.”

“So that something could crawl up here from the Bottom? Good luck, doll. You will need it there.”

With a snort, as if he had said something witty, the man sauntered away, fumbling the new credits between his fingers. Ellie stood on the metal steps under the grate, and with a sinking heart, she heard the steel door of the boiler room lock with a key on the other side.

That click left Ellie stunned as she dealt with her new circumstances. Desperation hit her in waves, caused by the impossibility of rewinding just a few seconds so that she wouldn’t be only a few inches below her previous life. Ellie sat motionless for several minutes, taking in her new reality, then finally looked around.

The metal staircase led farther down. As far as she could see, it ended in a similar boiler room one floor below. The girl’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she began her descent. She placed her feet on each tread with unhurried care until she found herself in an identical chamber below. Unlike the previous one, this room was in a state of greater neglect. No one had used it for a long time.

Ellie did not linger and sneaked down the next flight of stairs. The girl grew bolder with each flight, going down faster, although she still tried to move quietly. Eventually, she reached the ground floor. The air became cooler and humid, and Ellie commended herself again for wearing warm clothes. Dark silhouettes of the bulky equipment in the boiler room loomed over her, cold and neglected. The girl approached the metal door and gently pressed the handle. The door opened with ease, and she sighed with relief. Of course, roaming the Bottom was scary, but better than being locked in a boiler room. She reminded herself of why she came here in the first place. She needed to hurry.

So far, Ellie had met no one on her way down and hoped it would also be this way outside. She pushed the door, but something blocked it on the other side. Careful not to make noise, she tried to squeeze through the opening. Her backpack was stuck in the gap. Ellie yanked it hard and collapsed onto a pile of junk, blocking the door. Empty, half-rotten cardboard boxes, chunks of broken plastic, and scrap metal fell to the ground in a horrid cacophony. The sound of metal disks bouncing on the ground was shocking, piercing the nauseating silence for dozens of meters. Ellie froze for a second, inwardly cringing at the loud ringing in her sensitive ears. As the last metal nut stopped its trajectory, Ellie heard a dull thump of bare feet in the parallel corridor. An explosion of adrenaline made her leap up, quietly pick up a metal lid, and retreat in the opposite direction of the noise.

The stomping slowed. Something turned into the tunnel Ellie was in, creeping toward that damn junk pile. It sniffed and snorted impatiently, looking for the source of the noise. Ellie squeezed into a niche of an abandoned apartment door, the metal surface cool against her shoulder blades.

The beast passed the boiler door and moved toward the niche where the girl was clinging to the wall. Her heart was racing, and the girl hoped the creature couldn’t hear its frantic beat.

Ellie clenched the rusty pot lid in her hand. Her throat became as dry as the desert, but she was afraid to swallow so as not to betray herself. Ellie lifted the lid with two fingers and flung it like a throwing disc. It flew into the boiler room, still ajar, and hit the concrete wall of the boiler room with a piercing bang. Then, with an even greater noise, it rolled over the floor.

The creature flinched and rushed back to the pile of trash. With a human-like moan, it tore through the junk with clawed paws, snorting in annoyance until it grabbed the edge of the door and yanked it open, almost ripping it off its hinges. The monster hurried up the stairs.

Ellie heard the beast ascend, its growling fading in the distance. After a few flights of stairs, it howled with frustration. Ellie assumed the animal knew precisely where it was going: to its feeder. The girl bent over in relief, gasping for air. She didn’t notice she was trying not to breathe all this time.

Ellie crawled from her alcove and sneaked away from the screeching creature. Would it return after climbing to the very top of the stairs? Ellie cursed the guide who pushed her into the trapdoor. If she survived this, she would make him go down this route himself. If she survived this, she would definitely figure out how to get even. With that plan in mind, Ellie drifted through the labyrinth of dark corridors, looking for a way out of the mega-block.

She didn’t remember the order and number of turns the guide had taken multiple floors above, but finally, she discerned light at the end of the tunnel. Her heart pounded with a mix of hope and dread. After reaching the tunnel’s end, she leaned against the wall to study the inner yard. A moldy fountain stood in the center of the block yard, surrounded by statues with so much dirt and garlands of trash on them that Ellie couldn’t recognize what they depicted. Bare corpses of neglected trees stuck out of massive flower pots, decorating the perimeter. Ellie raised her head, catching a glimpse of the city from below for the first time. The interweaving aerocar tracks and bridges between the blocks resembled a cobweb. Fluorescent neon signs winked brightly at her, illuminating the traffic bustle.

The drizzle that started at the upper level followed Ellie here. It soaked the dirt in the yard, turning it into a greenish swamp with a putrid stench. Ellie missed the fresh air from above, even mixed with the smell of machine oil, strong at the transport hubs. Venturing into the open space seemed too risky, so she crept out of the tunnel, still clinging to the wall.

The ominous sound of someone’s squelching steps stopped Ellie in her tracks. A monster roamed the yard. It resembled the critters that feasted on the young man’s body she had carelessly rushed to save. Ellie was sure a similar animal had run upstairs in its futile pursuit, although she didn’t take a good look at it in the dark tunnel.

Like most mega-blocks, this one was of black stone. The girl’s black clothes allowed her to blend in with the wall. Afraid to move, she peeked at the monster from the corner of her eye. The body was human-like, with almost no hair except for long, thin fur on the protruding ears and paws. The creature straightened up, almost like a human, and dug its claws into the mud and garbage that filled the fountain. Walking on all fours seemed more comfortable for this monster because of how its body bent awkwardly when standing straight. Narrow eyes glistened beneath ample skin folds as the beast threw its head up and sniffed. Ellie pressed her back harder into the wall. Could the monster smell her?

After what felt like an eternity, the monster fished a half-rotten rodent carcass from the fountain and nibbled on it without appetite. Disappointed with the taste, the creature tossed it aside. With unexpected speed, it reached the wall in several jumps and crawled into a frameless window, disappearing inside.

Ellie moved her jaw to loosen the tense muscles. She scanned the broken windows above her and, on light feet, she sneaked across the yard toward the opposite corridor that would lead her into the old town.

Once she hid in the shadow of the opposite tunnel, she clung to the wall again, trying to even her breathing. In her entire life, she couldn’t remember being this scared. This tunnel appeared cleaner than the previous one, with rare garbage piles that the girl now cautiously avoided. Some apartments had broken doors and reeked of death. Ellie tried not to linger in front of the empty doorways, skirting them along the opposite wall in case one of those doorless apartments was occupied by someone or something.

When she reached the end of the corridor, she peered at the remains of the old city. In some places, heaps of junk and dirt had swollen into massive mounds with protruding scrap metal. A once-bustling central street resembled a desolate burial ground. Traditional cars parked on the side of the road looked like rusted skeletons of long-extinct animals, and the houses stared at her with broken, mournful windows.

Ellie emerged from her hiding spot and carefully navigated the street, sidestepping enormous puddles of uncertain depth. The girl tried not to even breathe near the wobbly heaps of garbage from which something could fall and betray her presence.

It was like her dream, except for the suffocating smell of rot and mold. She reached an intersection that once had a traffic light above that now looked like a bent-over monster dangling its shaggy paws. The girl crossed the perpendicular street and turned left. Her hazy memories suggested that the granite-fronted house was only a few blocks away.

Ellie examined the surrounding buildings: the lower windows were broken, rags fluttered from the empty frames, and the upper floors were boarded up. The girl felt sympathy for the people banished from the upper levels. Now she knew it was impossible to survive on the Bottom, at least on her own. If monsters didn’t eat you, you’d die of hunger. There was no food on the Bottom, only desolation and misery. Once she found the guy, she would find a way back up to her level. She had to.

The putrid stench made Ellie dizzy, and the endless plane, walkable in any direction, mesmerized and terrified Ellie. She was used to living high in the sky, sometimes imagining a gaping chasm opening under the city and swallowing it whole.

Ellie was sneaking closer to her goal. A dozen steps away from the granite building, she felt relieved to be on time. The scene from her dream had not yet happened.

The closest pile of junk wobbled with a groan; its layers of broken plastic and metal were about to topple down. Ellie took a step back from it, expecting a monster behind it, and freaked out when something jumped on her from behind and grabbed her by the neck. Choked by a professional elbow grip, her body hung like a rag doll. Ellie’s mind plunged into the void. Everything had been in vain.