Chapter Text
I was torn out from my sleep by a deafening crack of the pavement. Anyone else would get up and go look. But that isn't me. I ain't doing this today. I had a weird enough dream, and now reality too…
Nuh uh. I muttered, rolling over to my other side. Tho…
I'd have to get up anyway, might as well look. Once I open my eyes my outgrown hair immediately falls into my face, and I immediately tie it up into a bun (when did it get that long? Anyway.) peering through the dirty window I finally noticed: the fissure. A huge one at that… seems a couple meters in diameter.
While going down the stairs to get a better look at it I nearly tripped over my own legs and fell face first into the concrete.
When I opened the front door the sun assaulted my retinas with unexpected vigor. “What did I even do to you, Sun?” I took a couple steps and crouched down near the border of the rift… seems like the asphalt just collapsed. Happens all the time around here because the ground is unstable.
There was a bunch of steel beams underneath, which look like they go miles deep.
Maybe city communications, but certainly didn't look like it. There aren't any markings and… right. A guy in a hard hat and a fluorescent vest approached me, holding a roll of caution tape.
“Get the hell outta here, you psycho! You wanna fall down there or what?”
Seemed convincing enough to me. I walked back into my flat and sat down in front of my computer. When I powered it on there was a notification. My latest thread on the paranormal forum went viral. I was a sensation! A niche one at that, and they didn't even know my name because everything in here is anonymous. Maybe that's the whole point.
Then a user posted a thread, related to the fissure. Turns out this wasn't the first, but it was definitely the biggest one yet, and I felt like I was kinda lucky to witness it firsthand. I typed back a response and in a minute got a private message.
“I'm the crack anon, you seem to know what you're doing”
Strong opening, I'll give them that… well, crack anon, shoot.
“how many of those rifts are
there?”
the response was instant, they had to know that from the top of their head.
“More than twenty. I counted every sighting, and even saw some of them with my own two eyes. But yours is definitely the biggest one yet.”
“should i consider myself lucky then?”
“Definitely. Matter of fact, I'm going to that part of the city today. Can you show me where that is?”
“I'll have to get your number then or something…”
“sec.”
A couple minutes later my phone rang. How did they get my number? And the hum of my computer seemed to intensify briefly. I need to clear my temp files.
“Hello?” The anon answered. her voice had a kind of nasal quality to it and she was sniffling.
Rhinitis maybe?
“Yes! It's me.” It came out way more enthusiastic to be considered cool.
“What's your name anyway? I don't want to call you crack OP the whole time.” The voice giggled. “I'm Emma by the way.” - she sniffled.
“Alright then, Emma. I'm Ed. Short for nothing. So, when are you coming?”
“I think in a few hours… evening maybe?” I heard her blow her nose.
“Better go while the sun's still up. Better view then.”
“Right, right. Yes of course.” She sounded apologetic…
“See ya then. I'll be home the whole time. Call and I'll come down to show you the crack” that didn't come out right at all…
“See you!” She chirped and hung up. And here I was. She'll probably want to come here after I'll show her the whole thing… maybe this isn't that bad?
In retrospect it certainly was that bad. After I showed Emma the rift in the asphalt, which was just me standing in front of the caution tape because I was too scared to cross the line and her sticking her head in the opening. Then, being as naive and stupid as always, I invited her inside.
Common courtesy my ass.
I couldn't even pretend to have a semblance of cleanliness in there. Turns out the place reeks. Not stinks, reeks. It was like a gas chamber in there. And it was obvious even to me, after just fifteen minutes outside. Nevermind for her…
Emma didn't say a word. I hastily threw everything on the floor, including the countless socks, a pile of clothes and what smelled like week old takeout, finally clearing space for her to sit on the bed. And then I had to run down to the corner shop and buy something to eat.
Another mistake. She was allergic to nearly everything, even the potato chips and dried fish. And the cheap beer I bought wasn't even a beer. It was something called an IPA.
The more you know…
We ended up eating my whole gummy bear stash instead, which consisted of three whole party bags, mind you.
After a heated discussion we ended with an unsettled conclusion: those rifts, cracks, openings, whatever, were clearly signs. The city's warnings. Some of the openings formed strange symbols that certainly weren't accidental. Or maybe they were. But the first option was way more interesting right now. We concluded that The city was asking for help.
“See?”- Emma gestured animatedly near the monitor.
“Those are clearly cues! They look like numbers!”
“And what number is that?” I pointed at a particularly elaborate fissure.
“As if I know! Looks like a five to me.” She answered without skipping a beat.
“That's clearly a nine! See, the line is connected here.” I poked the monitor accidentally.
“It's a five!”
“Nine!”
“Five!”
“Fine! Even if it is a five, what's in it for us? We still have no idea what that means.” I reasoned.
“Maybe someone already figured it out.”- she suggested.
“Let's check”
And just like that I opened up the forum again.
But not a single soul seemed to care, because when we opened the site, my “crack thread” was clearly overshadowed by another bigfoot sighting somewhere in Ohio.
We didn't notice how the night took over.
Desperately wanting to compensate for the dire state of my home, I insisted on paying for her taxi, thus spending the last twenty bucks I had.
At least I felt better about myself. I hope the driver wasn't a creep.
After that I collapsed on the bed, exhausted and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
This time I wasn't woken up by screaming. That was nice. What wasn't nice was the fact that I was woken up by my stomach and a violent toothache. What did we eat? Stretching my neck almost painfully I looked at the clock. 2 pm. How late did she even stay?
Doesn't matter. As soon as I rolled over I heard crinkling of a wrapper. Right. Gummy bears.
Next My ears were assaulted violently by the doorbell. Damn the five senses.
“Maybe if I pretend I'm not here whoever that is will go away? They had to. Nobody is patient enough anyway.” following my brilliant strategy, i pressed my pillow over my head and screwed my eyes shut, As if it'll somehow help.
Silly me. The ringing didn't stop. And when it finally did, came the knocks. I swore whoever that was will surely knock it down. I can't afford a whole new front door.
Begrudgingly, I stood up shuffled towards the sound. I wanted to yell at them to stop but my vocal cords refused to cooperate.
“What do you want?” I tried to sound as threatening as possible, but it came out exhausted and barely audible instead. Great, just great.
“You look like shit.”
How could I forget.
“Come in”.
I can't possibly have my friend waiting. That'd be a dick move, and honestly I'm starting to like human contact, especially after yesterday's incident. it's nice to have someone acknowledge your mess and not even bat an eye.
Walking in, Bruce tripped over a stray shirt and fell down, cursing the entirety of my bloodline in the process. I helped him up, of course, having to somehow compensate for being the reason he fell in the first place.
“Don't tell me you still didn't take this out.” he pointed at the trash bag sitting by the front door. I was lucky it didn't start to leak.
“Eh?” I shrugged apologetically. It's hard to care about trash when you've just discovered the very place you live in might be collapsing right before your eyes.
“And they don't even moderate those countless yeti threads!” I rambled on…
“You already told me about it. What if people just don't care about your whole catastrophe thing?” Bruce tried to gently lead me down the path of looking for a job.
“But they live here! Besides, those cracks cause property damage.”
“Then it's not expensive enough to care about. Give it a year or so, and the mayor will probably be asking you to donate to some “save the city” project”
“Or just cut pay.” I suggested.
“What's that to you? You're unemployed anyway”
“Yeah …” right.
“Speaking of…” Bruce tried again…
“Eh! shut up, will you? I'm in the process!”
“You've been “in the process”- Bruce did the air quotes- for five whole months!”
“So? I'm… I…”
“You didn't even look at the applications.” Bruce has always had a penchant for guessing. This was getting downright eerie.
“I got rejected!”
Technically it was true. I did go to the job center once. In retrospect it was, of course, painfully obvious I didn't do anything. I didn't even try. But you can't blame me! There's an urgent mystery in the city! And right under my window too. It's way more important than stable income. Who even cares about income when you've got your hometown collapsing right under your nose!
Bruce wasn't convinced. He was deep in the nine to five pipeline. He tried reasoning with me, but I resisted.
“You're making excuses!”
“Excuse is something unimportant! This is a reason!”
Technically i was right.
But Bruce was blinded by greed.
“There are fissures in the roads all the time, everywhere! And nobody cares!”
“Because they don't see them!”
“Do you ever see me obsessing over potholes!?” Bruce was right. As always.
“No! But this isn't a pothole situation! There are whole structures underneath!”
“Yeah, right. Those are called sewers, smartass!”
“Sewers aren't made from steel beams!”
“Whatever. You're just making excuses to stay unemployed. And I'm not giving you anything anymore! Time for a change, Ed. Long overdue.” There was a hint of something akin to affection and… sympathy in his tone. Suddenly I felt like a lazy asshole. Which I basically was, but that's a whole ‘nother thing.
“Whatever…”
Bruce sighed heavily and stood up. He was trying to control his anger issues, he told me a few months ago. He was making progress. Because he didn't slam me into the wall, like I knew he wanted. Instead, he just left.
Quietly.
And didn't give me a single buck. Serves me right. I stayed right where I was, sitting on the bed. The electricity was humming louder than usual. I swore I could hear a hint of rhythm in it. I really need to check the wiring, or there might be a fire someday… someday.
After browsing the forum and writing a few posts about the cracks, again, I decided to go to sleep, knowing deep down nobody would pay attention. But I could at least try. Today was exhausting. Emotions were never my strong suit, and Bruce left without a word, so there was a lingering uncertainty.
Oh how I despise it.
The sheer powerlessness. You can always be the strongest in the room, but if you've got no information to work with you might as well be as useless as me right now. I don't even know what causes these rifts, or what those symbols mean, or are they symbols at all? And I'm already trying to gather clout around it. No. I'm spreading awareness, that's different. I'm doing the right thing. Probably.
Today's dream was by far one of the strangest. It was one of those where you didn't know you were dreaming right until you woke up. I saw a strange landscape: of my city, but it was all ruins and rumble, and the sky was transparent, like at night, but the sun was still up. And it was red instead of the usual retina-burning white.
The asphalt collapsed all the way, revealing that our skyscrapers were all standing on some kind of enormous steel structure that was hidden underground all this time.
It was eerie, and definitely some kind of warning. But the observer in the dream didn't feel like me. It felt like I was watching through somebody else's eyes.
And that someone was another version of me, maybe.
Nah, that's a stretch.
I couldn't possibly know all that just from a dream. And if i could i certainly would've forgotten something like that. Still weird as hell.
I logged it into my old, dusty dream journal I forgot about in middle school. My handwriting didn't change at all. It's still as messy and stringy as it was back then. People say it's a symptom of something. I think: why change something that already works? Then I got a brilliant idea: post it on the forum.
So I did, behaving like the digital panopticon inhabitant I was, laying my every detail I could remember out in the open in now flickering form of neat, green text on the monitor.
Perfect.