Chapter Text
Fuck.
It was with this thought that George's workday began, staring in horror at the stack of someone else's debts just dumped in front of him. His manager glared at him with a grin and passive hatred and lashed out insult after insult, eager to switch back to shouting like the last time. He had to work in a place where absolutely everyone would want to give their bad work to some young worker as a kind of "practice", because 'he should not sit and work his way through paperwork, he should plough like a fierce man'.
"Yes, yes, I see, can I just start working on all this? Some people don't have a lot of time," George couldn't take it at one point, interrupting his superior's tirade. That didn't seem to be the best idea, for she suddenly pouted at his venom-filled tone and began berating him for another reason - for being a 'damned smart one', who instead of 'helping teamwork' he was 'unhinging the inner idiot, snapping at high-ranking employees'.
I shouldn't have said that, George thought as the woman left his sight. Joking about how much time a person had left was almost forbidden in most social strata, with the exception of the lowest, the Tenbre, where the devastation and sadness was so severe that joking about how much time you had left to exist almost became a kind of tradition for the inhabitants of that level. Thankfully, George is a down-on-his-luck sort of guy - after the death of his uncle, with whom he lived at the lowest point near the cliff that leads to the Otherworld, someone snatched him from the orphanage he'd been in for the second time in his life and sent him to the border of Luce - the second level, where he was now, only slightly higher.
Frankly, he didn't like it here. Normal living conditions began almost at the fourth or fifth level, where he could not hear the howls from the hole beneath the damn place, which with the sweet flutter of thousands of Voices offered to descend lower. God, he just wanted to see what was above! He only knew from books that it was all not fucked up and everybody liked it, but somewhere in his brain there was a succession of "hm, you can just go up the twenty kilometre stairs. what? your legs won't get tired". Here's the thing about his kidnapper leaving him right there, although in fact he should be thanking him for not hanging out right next to that hurricane on the lower layer right now.
The Otherworld gives him mixed feelings, and he cringes. He'd always associated it with death, mostly the death of his uncle, who'd taken him out of a crumbling orphanage a long time ago and taught him some things even he didn't have much knowledge of, frankly. But at least George doesn't work at the bottom.
He looks around the room again - not a soul, just the annoying Otherworld Babble, who has once again chiselled into his head. George throws a sad glance at the pile of papers that was blocking his poorly running clock, so he picks up the first piece of paper, looking over to see what someone wanted again. Why did he go to a shitty letter transmission when almost everyone here needs help, except not from him, but from the government, which cherishes the upper levels, handing them various privileges left and right. He begins to read a text which was apparently written by an adult who has learned the grammar well. Part of the text was well written, only the bottom had childish scribbling.
"Our benefactor, Mecenatte!
It is with heartfelt trepidation that I want to inform you that the level called Holy Lower Luce is suffering a terrible collapse in the economy. We do not have enough food and are being overtaken by devastating unemployment and violence. The Candles of our associates are fading fast due to lack of medical supplies and Errants that sneak into innocent people's homes and extinguish their fires of life.
The people are not strong enough, it is not good enough, Your Excellency, to correct this misunderstanding with their frail hands, with which we want to help you make your stay comfortable, do not punish me, a sinner, for this word.
The cries of the Sacred Otherworld are growing louder and we cannot work to our full potential due to lack of energy. We are just as worried about the state of the Sacred Tenbre level, for they probably have most of the Voices' attacks that lure them into their deadly depths.
We, the people of Holy Lower Luce, pray for your mercy in our direction and resolution of the situation.
Your faithful servant,
Dominica of Lower Luce."
Followed by a child's drawing of a man holding his head and screaming in agony, while the extinguished Candles apparently stand beside him. They should have made a separate block with all the Candles to be protected as in the Upper Levels but no, that's the third level privileges of Erbe, the Errants would damn them. He hid the Candle from time to time in tall shelves, or in a cupboard, or in a hole in the floor, or somewhere else. No, he would wake in a cold sweat in the night, sensing the presence of those strange creatures again. He nearly lost his Fire a couple of times as one of the impudent devils came close to the window, breathing loudly, sniffing for the scent of the Candle.
George decides to give permission for this reading, but he cuts the picture off - in case he has to report back, saying he sent such crap to Vita, the fifth level, where the letter would have gone through an extra check before reaching the seventh - Riposo, which was the home of His Excellency and his personal servants, plus the highest-ranking officials and other curmudgeonly brats. It wasn't that George wanted some kind of revolution, but he didn't want to be stuck on the second level forever either, though being from Upper Luce he was doing slightly better than the woman in the letter.
He picks up another letter, which was essentially an exact copy of the previous one, only there it was written by some man on the upper edge of Middle Luce, using not the nicest of words. Of course, George could have rewritten the letter as a normal person and sent the good version, but he just didn't have the time. He still had a stack of letters that he needed to read all by 7, or he just wouldn't have time to run to the shop afterwards for a minimum survival kit.
So he stony-facedly leaves the letter in question for later - he has little time left. George takes another letter in his hands. He wants to scream.
He sighs in frustration, looking out the window, if you could call it that - just a hole cut out of the stone - and whistles resoundingly. He is immediately accosted by a small kind of Otherworldl dog, Kane, which barks at him when he sees the person holding a bundle of tightly bound letters in front of him.
"Come on, take it to Tempo and Karl will pick you up from there, okay, little one?" he gave the pup a pat on the head, to which it barked contentedly and accepted the package before he launched himself through the air straight up to the fourth level, crossing the barriers without a problem. I wish, George thought, I could see the whole world and its beauty. He wants to see all the colours that lurk in the upper levels, rather than the single yellow, black and blue that was on Luce. He could have sworn it was only here and he was not sick of anything, although people sometimes talked about some 'green'.
He looks at his watch and groans - it's almost seven o'clock, so he can get off work and go to the shop. What if they have meat today? Or good milk?
George quickly gathers everything he needs - a fob with a wick inside, his shabby bag, and the remains of the papers he had to sort out already in his little room on the outskirts of Upper Luce. George nearly hops out of the tower on his way to his favourite alleyway, where a pretty old lady with some good goods awaits him, not at a steep price. He nearly knocks over a couple of passers-by, immersed in his own thoughts, sending "pardons" left and right.
George turns the corner and feels a rush of warmth - there aren't many people, so it will be quite heartwarming for him too.
The outside world, for some reason, only seemed bright today. In the last days of May, everything was literally in bloom. Blue and black flowers abounded, yellow crisp grass and leaves were absolutely everywhere, and George enjoyed himself frankly as he walked in a hurry along the stone path.
It was as noisy as usual, with little enthusiasm from people of all types - be it an old man or a child. He walks forward as suddenly he hears a shout near where the old woman usually traded, but thank goodness he sees her in one piece and away from the crowd of people that had gathered somewhere at the end of the alley.
"Grandmother Agnes, is everything okay?" anxiously asked George.
"No way, George," she whispered in a trembling voice. "My niece..."
No.
He moves away from her and pushes his way through the small crowd, which is oohing and aahing. And then George realised.
She was killed.
He immediately felt unwell and backed away.
It was the same way as with his uncle.
He grabs his head and presses himself against the wall.
Killer.
But someone comes up to him and whispers something in his ear, something along the lines of "are you alright?" or something like that. George only buries his hands harder in his hair.
Get me out of here, George prays.
Some one of the Voices of the Otherworld hummed loudly.
Okay.
He didn't realise how he got home. Empty, hungry as a dog and frustrated. He just laid down on the bed and fell into a restless sleep.
George wakes up, shivering with an incomprehensible cold. The night frost seems to have come, which is not often the case here - apparently the Voices in that hole have gone wild and are already sending their air into the Outer World. Even under the warm blanket he was insanely cold, and he shivered in bed, trying not to listen to the annoying Voices.
George hears his name echoing through the window and ignores them. Life has taught him since he was a child not to leave the house at night, or you will be eaten or taken to another dimension - there is no third option. But the Voices are more insistent this time, as if they were not the usual whispering of the winds, but a real howl. He finally sits up in bed, shivering slightly from the indistinct cold. He gets out of bed and, hissing from touching the icy floor, walks to the makeshift wardrobe. George pulled an old jumper from there and pulled it over himself, at the same time getting to the headboard of the bed, or rather behind it.
There, in a box, behind the boards, stands his Candle, burning peacefully, exuding neither odour nor smoke. Like an ornament that surely doesn't tell exactly how long a person has left to live. He saw rare people praying to an unknown god, who, in fact, was mostly piecing together children's tales of monsters, and asking him for help and an extension of life. George didn't believe in it and practically snorted at the way some people were falling on their knees in all seriousness before the nonexistent.
Although many believed it was the Supreme Ruler himself, his description fit very well. No one mostly knew what he really looked like, because getting to Riposo and meeting the Mecenatte himself in person was, frankly, unrealistic. George didn't know a single person who could even get that high up. Sure, Karl, his friend from Above, sometimes went down and back up and down on some urgent business, but according to him, he had never gone above the fifth level. He only described how empty and quiet it was, as if it was a dead place.
He sat down on the cold floor and rested his chin on his knees, wrapping his arms around his legs at the same time. The boy stared languidly at the Fire that never went out, counting down how long he had left. He was almost twenty-five years old, so he checked the length of the Candle at the time he had been given it at his coming of age and realised - there would still be twenty years, he had no need to worry.
But he is afraid of death. Afraid in a way that makes him shiver at the thought that one day his Candle will fade away and fly into that vortex of the Voices, just like the Candle of the uncle he killed. George vaguely remembered exactly what had happened then, only the smell of burning and a tearful apology just before the chasm that led to the rift between the two worlds. Only the trinket he had taken with him from the first level reminded him that it had not been a dream.
The Voices from the street call more and more, and George bites his lip nervously. Something is begging him so vehemently to get out, to give himself over to the wind and play a fun game called the crate. Surely the Wotses - the millions of voices-creatures, are on a loose shouting like lunatics, which is, of course, as it should be. George slides the board up, hiding the Candle far into the bowels of that very box, cautiously getting up. He's already walked at night a couple of times in his life, and hasn't really met anyone. At least not yet.
Maybe he needs to freshen up.
"Let it all go to the Other'," George finally sighed, not even thinking that his shoes would come in handy in this cold.
He stepped over the threshold of his house, having first checked to see if there were any of the very creatures that liked to end someone's life as a joke. Realising that they had probably gone closer to the centre of the level, where there were the most people, George stepped out onto a rocky path, with yellow grass growing through the stones. He walks to the very edge of the level - to where the Barrier already begins.
Here comes the precipice, which is so pleasant and peaceful to him. A couple of rocks, in their own custom and lack of physics, hang in the air, and George sits down on the steady end of the path, dangling his bare feet into the precipice. He looks down and sees a darkening funnel that happily beckons him over.
George, by nature, patiently ignores this, and looks up and down, breathing the dusty air of the second level. It's so quiet and pleasant... He leans back and lies down on the cold stones, looking up at the artificial sky that was falling away from the Barrier in chunks and dripping on everyone's nerves in every way. Okay, he'd lied about the silence, anyone from the Higher levels here would die or go crazy because of the Voices and their volume.
"Hello," someone suddenly said, and George shuddered as if half the creatures known to the mankind had just attacked him. He sat up abruptly and turned around, gripping the rocks beneath him with force, but all he saw was some tall man with curly hair staring pensively into nowhere.
"Wh... Ahem..." he was ready to blurt out a loud 'who are you?' but realised that the few people living next door might give him away to his superiors and he would be sent back down.
"I see you're being called out as well?" the stranger said quietly, making it a rhetorical question. "You'd better not go out, you know."
"You too, sir," George snapped. "And don't scare people like that."
"Oh, I apologize. It's just that I'm unaccustomed to being so low that I forget that you, Luce residents, are too intimidated by harsh language," the stranger sat down elegantly next to George as he continued to look forward. He noticed that the man had a mark on his wrist, so he's, apparently, a high-level idiot. "It's strange, isn't it?"
George grimaced slightly as he shifted his gaze to the tattoo on his arm - the usual flame with a deuce at the bottom - the symbol of Luce level inhabitants, the light. The stranger had the intricate tattoo of a person with a book - a stranger from Mente, sixth level, and therefore insanely smart and clever. Strange, why did he end up in such a backwater?
"I see that you have come down from the heights to, excuse me, almost the very bottom. Did the residents' letters really make it?" George asked as politely as possible. Wouldn't want to lose a place where he had lived for so fucking long to some idiot reporting to His Excellence. Dictatorship's a nuisance to everyone, lots of filthy rats, but it's a way of life. "You're probably not used to hearing screams from the Abyss, are you?"
"The letters arrived, a year ago," the man said in a casual, slightly cold voice. "It's just that no one but me reads them and puts, forgive me, his candlestick on it. And that, by the way, is illegal."
"Laws just don't apply here," George sighed. "You haven't seen the first level yet. It's even less civilized out on Tenbre."
The stranger remained stone calm on his face, but George could sense he was nervous or something. He shivered from the cold.
"Have you been there? I thought it was impossible to get out of the first levels and that people were born there and still live there," the man looked sceptically at George. "Did you escape from there?"
"It's a long story. I don't know where I was born, but I'll probably always have the second level tag," George bit his lip.
"Are you an orphan?"
George swallowed loudly.
"I don't feel very comfortable talking about it, sorry. Inferior people have their own horrors too."
The stranger fell silent. George took advantage of this and looked him over: a quality uniform, consisting of a dark blue jacket and trousers, and a puffy shirt with ruffles, a flag unknown to George on his shoulder. Leather boots that probably cost more than George's house with all the furniture he owns. He sighed, averting his gaze back to the Otherworld.
"I was born on level three," the stranger suddenly spoke, making George twitch slightly. "Erbe, admittedly, it's a little cleaner, but the conditions are the same," George threw a wry glance in the speaker's direction.
"I've always wanted to get a glimpse of the third level. What if there's something there other than yellow and blue?" he sighed.
"But we're sitting on green grass."
"It's yellow, isn't it?
The stranger pressed his lips together and snorted disapprovingly.
"I think, dear friend, you have colour blindness."
"What is it?"
"You can't see some colours, that's all."
They fell silent, thinking about something of their own.
"Aren't you afraid to leave your candle up there?" George asked cautiously.
"Afraid. I am scared to know that one exhalation or movement and you'll be back there again," he pointed to the entrance to the Otherworld.
"Again?"
"All humans are reborn sooner or later, no matter how much they tell us all these tales about how no one from there," the stranger nodded at the funnel. "Comes back. I've died before, on Erbe, then been reborn on the sixth. It's kind of a privilege to know what happened to you in that life, and there's a lot to know, it's Mente."
George remained silent, suspecting that the man in front of him was lying.
"If you don't mind, what is your name?" he asked.
The man in front of George froze as if he'd been caught red-handed. He turned his head sharply and looked at the lad with the kind of indifference and serenity that is characteristic only of...
"The Wotses would damn you!" George whispered through his teeth, rising sharply from his seat and backing away. "I knew it, you..."
"Me," the man smiled vaguely. "George, please, just let me explain."
Doppio is a creature that lures people out at night and takes their souls to the Otherworld in exchange for their request. Long limbs, a hollow, darkening gaze that pours bloody tears. Tends to appear in the dark. He wants this doppelganger go fuck off.
"I remember you said you wanted to go to Erbe? Wait, dear, I can do anything, just stop and touch my hand," the creature grinned, increasing in size. Doppios were usually insanely few here, they only wandered on the highest levels except for the seventh, but then what was this insolent creature doing here?
"Fuck you..."
He had no time to speak, for there was no stone under his foot, and George plunged one foot into the abyss, bending the other leg sharply because of it, and cried out in pain. He almost fell straight into the hole, swarming with voices that stubbornly shouted his name over and over again. George tries to crawl away on his hands, but is kicked in the side, whereupon he shrieks again and plummets, holding on to the flying rocks with both hands with his dear life.
"Bad Georgie, very, very bad," the creature murmured, shoving the stone away from the main path, causing him to fly through the air, getting closer and closer to the Barrier.
The Barrier hits anyone on contact with it with some kind of discharge, so the only way to get to another level is up the stairs, where there's a small hole in the barrier. George already sees this bluish layer of energy, and realises - either he falls down into the Otherworld, or he gets hit by the Barrier and the same thing happens.
He lets go of the stone, and he hears the laughter of voices around him.
George woke up in a cold sweat on the floor, curled up in a ball and holding his hair. It was still dark outside the window, which meant he could be punished for screaming in the night, but he didn't really care now - he wanted to rip the nightmare out of his head, throw it straight into the head of that idiot Mecenatte, for that he was doing nothing for the good of his population. Absolute monarchy, the Errantias would damn him..
He looks down at his trembling hands, noticing only an old burn on his fingers. George covers his face with his hands and, almost screaming, flinches occasionally on the cold floor. Too many memories, too many hints, too...
Suddenly George squats up, causing his eyes to go dark, and crawls over to the candle box. Hurriedly, he pushes back the ugly boards and sighs in relief. His Candle is still burning, and he brings his icy hands to it, warming them. It feels so... Strange. Strange that the thing in front of you from a particularly strong gust of air can end your life, leaving only the blue Light of Souls with it.
Sometimes you want to be in a place where nothing affects exactly how long you have left to live. Not knowing the date of your death, to be exact.
Each day the realisation makes him suffer, overcome something, cling to the last stones on the cliff to not fall into the distant black abyss that so beckons with an annoying whisper in his head. George always knew what he had to do and how to live his life. Like a timetable calculated in seconds.
His uncle's silhouette always flashed before his eyes, who was the only person who understood his childhood experiences. George was still punishing himself for killing him, without even realising it. It rubbed right into his heart and produced destruction from within.
For him, having blood relatives was incomprehensible. He lives alone, works alone, sits alone until late at night, and he can't change that. Those who could have been there for him had probably died long ago or abandoned him for the glorious life Higher. Sometimes he didn't know if he was mortal or if he simply had no soul at all, for everything inside was somehow empty and unpleasant. Communicating with the only people in his life only made the hole deeper.
Something inside him had long understood the inevitable. He was not blind. Somewhere in the depths of his empty soul there was an awareness of what was happening.
Every thing has a beginning and an end. Be it anything - mountains will weatherize, people will die, seas will become empty, life will die, even the universe itself may fall into oblivion. All other sentient beings will also die. The Otherworld will accept absolutely everyone with open arms, then condemn them to eternal wandering and howling.
He lives in a world where death is common thing and everything that happened had only one reaction. Tears, helpless cries and eternal emptiness.
George sighs convulsively, cursing himself for such philosophical thoughts. He needs to rest, for tomorrow he will probably have even more work to sort out than today. But he chooses something else.
Gently getting back to his feet he looked around to make sure he hadn't hurt himself or smelled blood anywhere, then went to his desk. There was a half-burned work candle there, thank God it wasn't his, but a regular one that was used as a light. He picks up an antique book, flipping to a favourite page. George whispers something to himself, then lights the candle with something unknown. No, it wasn't magic - mortals like him couldn't do something like that in their lifetimes - it was just a regular collection of 'petitions for dummies', for "everyone who believes in His Excellency's omnipotence receives a grain of His divine soul, which grants mortals a life of well-being." In fact, he could simply recite the long phrase and everything would be done, except that it gave him a headache, as if his blood pressure had been spiked as if he had been placed in a parcel that a Kane carried back and forth at the speed of light.
George was embarrassed by the fact that they were literally ruled by "deity", if that was what it was. Everyone he met believed in it sacredly, except for a few people. Even Karlos kept up with his higher brethren and bowed before the book every Sunday, as he said. At the same time his friend always looked nervous.
He picks up a small notebook and a special pen that should have been changed by now. He begins to write:
"Dear Diary,
I'm really scared. I'm scared of what's going to happen soon. I don't like what His Excellency, bloody Mecenatte, is doing.
The nightmares are getting worse day by day. I am beginning to suspect that it is no longer my psyche, but these creatures from the Otherworld that are keeping me awake even when they are weak. Today they have been calling out to me stronger than usual, and I don't like it one bit. There is a hypothesis that this is already a deliberate action on the part of the authorities.
I'm thinking more and more about what my life would be like if I were even a couple of levels higher. Would I be able to see colours? Know what 'green' and 'red' are? What year is going on up there now?
I feel really bad.
20.05.xxxx"
Hands are trembling, and some sort of guilt creeps up his back. Sure, Mecenatte seems to be trying to improve something, but he's doing a pretty lousy job of it. But even for such a thought, he mentally slaps himself, as his conscience and sense of duty to the place where he was born screams that this is absolutely wrong.
George merely closes his notebook and tucks it under the stack of papers that served as a good hiding place for the object. He moves the burning candle closer and rests his head on the hands that lay on the table. He stares at the trembling source of heat, shivering slightly at the unpleasant chill that runs down his bare feet. He needs to get some sleep.
Maybe someday he can see a higher level.
George's eyes close and the work candle continues to burn, faintly illuminating a dark room that seemed home only to the Candle itself, but not to its owner.
"It's so sweet, you know?"
"What do you mean?" Schlatt tilted his head questioningly, looking into his ornate mirror.
"That you're treating your people like that," the figure in the mirror quirked his head.
"I don't give a damn about those scum that don't deserve the same fate as the High Ones. They were born there, so let them live there, let them live! No one complains to me, I just do the little things that are my job as head secretary of your fucking fantasy," James blurted out in the same breath, jabbing angrily at his smooth reflection.
"It's not my fault that some people don't know how to hold on their own and use any means to rush straight to the throne after doing so, having first Ruler to the Otherworld for decades of decay."
"These creatures that are now swarming all over the country are your doing."
The mirror only burst into a pleasant laugh, which quickly turned into a nervous and raucous one.
"Oh, my dear, I had nothing to do with it at all. You yourself broke the basic Barrier between worlds and let them in, and these freaky critters are only too happy to be here," the silhouette in the mirror began circling the small room made of maroon-grey stones in a dark shadow, "Schlatt, I see that your time may be coming to an end in the coming years. You should stop abusing your privileges."
"Says the one who's now imprisoned, idiot," James snapped back, something he immediately regretted. A pale, clawed hand floated out of the mirror and gripped his neck tightly, squeezing unpleasantly. Not to cut off oxygen, but someone else's fingers on your neck never felt pleasant.
"Watch your mouth, mortal," it hissed from the other end. "You and I have a quid pro quo, remember? I'm still waiting for your part. I did mine when I was still in the Outerworld."
"I'm working on it," Schlatt said squeamishly, pulling the hand away from his neck with a little effort. Surely there will be a mark, if not anything else. "We're not all as big and fancy as you are."
"Well, well, don't be angry, I was only reminding you," the hand disappeared back into the mirror and was hidden behind its master's back. "I advise you to hide that mirror."
"But I've been setting it up for nearly twenty-four hours so you can tell me your oh-so-important thing, which, by the way, you forgot," James crossed his arms over his chest.
"I beg your pardon, dear friend, but you will even have to break this mirror. His Excellency," it said the last phrase with an intonation that literally dripped with venom and hatred. "Might find out that I have some connections and contacts with the Outerworld. James, please keep this a secret, because if even one soul finds out I'm here, they'll come after both of us."
"You never clarified your big news."
"Ah yes, what was I saying. Be careful," the creature chuckled, whereupon the mirror seemed to turn off and Schlatt saw his reflection in the mirror.
"Son of a bitch," James growled, unaccustomedly taking the mirror in his hands before placing it behind a thick cabinet.
Not two minutes after his conversation with his old friend, the ground beneath him shakes and faint screams reach the seventh level from the sixth. James immediately jumps out the door and walks over to the fence to look down through the Barrier. Something was clearly burning, and some kind of fireball almost flew into Schlatt's face, unknowingly passing through the level defences.
Crap.