Weird SF/F story based on a dream I had.
You entered your apartment, number nine, you’d only lived here a couple weeks. It was already a mess, but that was mostly due to the storms. Rain and wind so strong that they lifted the building and you could see between the bricks. You stepped over the piles of stuff, just wanting to lay down after school. You’d fought with your friend since she thought you were showing off how good at the computer you were, and all you wanted to do was wallow in self-pity for a while. You hadn’t been showing off (well, at first, you did start to when the teacher and other students took notice) but it wasn’t your fault you were just good with technology. You lay down to find your bed wet, a leak in the wall was running across the ceiling and dripping onto your bed. You sighed and headed to the emergency bunks in the laundry room.
When you got to the laundry room you found a number of other tenants already in their bunks, which were numbered with pencil on the flaking white-painted wood of the posts. The numbers didn’t seem to be in any order, where was yours? And what number did you live in again? You mostly remembered where your apartment was, not the number. Was it 18?
“Nine?” A young man asked with a smile, pointing to the bunk next to his, both upper bunks.
“Yes, thanks.” You climbed up, grabbed the dingy threadbare towel from the foot of the bed and put it under your butt, not wanting to deal with 2 wet beds today. You lay your head on the dirty, bare pillow. The guy next to you had very light skin, short black hair, and a bit of beard scruff on his sharp jawbone as he smiled at you. He looked around 2 years older than you, maybe 17.
“Gonna be a big one tonight. Wanna see something?” He asked. You nodded, pushing up to an elbow. He pointed to a little hole in the wall between your bunks, it looked like a brick that had been placed perpendicular to the line of the wall was missing, and you could see out to outside. With the general chaos of the rest of the building, the landlady must have not noticed this. He pressed his head next to yours to see out too.
It was already dark and cloudy out, and the wind was picking up. As thunder rolled across the sky you realized that in staying so late at school, you’d forgotten to have dinner. Too late now. The wind and rain picked up, pounding the side of the building, howling as they whipped around and tried to get in. In the dim light of the laundry room, some spoke softly, others tried to sleep. You stared as a strong gust lifted the building higher than you’d ever seen it, the bricks floated inches apart, the red sky outside clearly visible. You thought you might’ve seen giant thin figures in the flashes of lightning, but couldn’t be sure, and told yourself you were seeing things. The guy next to you reached for a brick, to widen the viewing hole.
“That’s dangerous!” You hissed.
“The spell’s still in place.” He dismissed.
“The spell’s designed to work with the physical building! You’re going to weaken it!” You replied. He heaved out a sigh and crossed his arms, but didn’t remove any other bricks from the wall, which crashed back down a second later, the storm losing strength to hold the building up for so long. It wasn’t done trying to get in, but had used up most of its strength in that first heave, the bricks never got that far apart, or stayed up that long the rest of the night. You got flashes of memory of waiting out the storm here dozens of times before, even though this was your first time in this situation. Eventually you fell asleep.
You trudged to school, you’d toasted a half bagel to try and disguise the staleness, and put peanut butter on top for protein, but it wasn’t much of a breakfast, especially after skipping dinner. You tried to avoid puddles, but it was difficult in such a rainy city. Why hadn’t whoever built this place planned for that? Your sneakers were wet by the time you got to school, as always. You suspected you’d eventually stop trying to avoid the puddles, or save up for waterproof sneakers.
You were going on a class trip today, to a nearby tech building. Your only friend, Grace, was there, her red hair in twin puffs on top of her darker-skinned head to try and make her seem taller. Even taking the soft puffs into account, she was only an inch taller than you. And her hairdo didn’t actually make anyone think she was taller, so she was still the shortest in the class. You stood next to her like normal, but didn’t speak. You weren’t going to speak to her until she apologized for calling you a show-off. On the walk over it started to rain and everyone pulled their hoods up. Grace eyed your waterproof jacket sullenly, but she had waterproof sneakers so you figured you were even. The other students in your class could afford more than one article of waterproof clothing.
At the tech building, you stared at all the differences from normal life. Everything was metal, bolted and fused together to withstand the storms. Was this building even spelled? There were no windows to see outside, and you couldn’t hear the weather, so you could almost forget that the storms exist. Metal doors parted in the middle and slid into the walls when people approached. In one room was an array of computers, situated in a wide arc, with arcing metal posts between them to hold up the metal mesh behind each station.
An image flashed in your mind, this room in ruins, rain pouring in. You dismissed it, that was surely years in the future. The tour guide allowed you to use the computers to work on the report you’d all be writing about the facility and you stepped forward eagerly. You wanted to get your thoughts out before you forgot everything important, before all you remembered was the building itself, and not the people and business inside.
Everyone jumped and screamed as a huge post fell into the room like the walls and ceiling were made of foil, metal screeching as it sheared and tore. The storm whipping outside was suddenly inside and it made your stomach go cold. In the confusion of everyone yelling and crying and running around, Grace grabbed your hand and you ran. You didn’t know if the fallen post was from the storm or something else, but every building in the city was spelled to protect against storms and you didn’t want to think about it.
You and Grace jogged together down deserted streets and alleys, matching pace. Was that the storm you heard behind you, or the metallic footsteps of something twice as tall as a human? You and Grace glanced behind and then at each other.
“Go.” You urged.
“But-” Grace started.
“I’m fine, I can run for a while, but you’re faster.” You reminded her. “Go!” She sprinted ahead to scout the best route. You followed at the same jog, focusing on your friend ahead and not whatever might be behind you.
“Nicole!” Grace waved to you from an open doorway and you ducked inside. The building looked abandoned. The door hung crooked on one hinge, the walls were cracked, hardly anything there aside from trash on the floor. It hadn’t been a residence if the bare concrete floor was anything to go by. But it was dry, and it was hidden. You crept through the dim building together. The next room had a lower floor, which was flooded with dark water, you couldn’t tell how far down the floor actually was.
You remembered navigating this before, some eyepiece allowing you to read invisible writing guiding your way.
“G'head.” You told Grace, pointing out the boxes along one wall, just above the surface of the water and just close enough to step or jump from one to the next, and row of trash heaped along the far wall to the exit door on the opposite corner from you. You suspected the water to be electrocuted, and Grace was lighter than you, and had waterproof sneakers. Plus, if you went first and died, Grace would have to deal with your body in the way, and seeing it happen. Grace nimbly made her way across the water and waited for you. You copied her movements, easily making it across the boxes, you remembered there was invisible writing on this last box but didn’t have time to stop and look. You were going too fast. You braced for impact with the wall, but it still made you lose your footing on the slippery trash piles, one foot sliding down.
You weren’t electrocuted, you just had a wet foot. Apparently the power wasn’t on right now, you had no clue if your vision had been from the past or future. You raced over to Grace and the two of you continued through the strange building.
