4. Solonell City and the Not-Quite Humans

If Isaac were to describe the inhabitants of the Underside in a phrase, it would be “a bunch of overpowered freaks.” This, of course, was not entirely accurate. There were plenty of regular freaks who were not overpowered at all. Igor, for example, was only a little stronger than an average athletic human. And by human, Isaac meant the people from his world, Earth, Chrowall City. Too many of the supposed “humans” in the Underside had strange powers or weird lifespans or other nonsense for them to qualify.

These differences were apparent from their homes alone. Solonell City, the realm at the end of the Silver Line and the native realm of the not-quite humans, looked a lot like the result of someone trying to describe an urban city to an alien.

The densely crowded buildings were a mishmash of different architectural eras, which, to be fair, wasn’t altogether too different from Earth. The problem was the ratio of these building eras, which was far too evenly split to look remotely unified. The streets were not simple lines and right angles, as they were in Chrowall City, but odd curves, spirals, and other suspicious shapes. As far as Isaac could tell, no one actually traveled on the roads, preferring to walk over them in reasonable straight lines, which made him question why the roads existed in the first place.

The most obvious difference, however, was the fact that the sky was red. It wasn’t a light red either, or some other more calming shade, but a deep crimson that never changed. There were no clouds, not even a sun or moon, to break up the block of red either. It always made Isaac’s head ache when he stared at it for too long.

Still, despite its strangeness, Isaac had to admit that Solonell City was probably his favorite of the Underside’s 8 realms. It was about a 4 on the 1 to 10 “similarity to home” scale, but that was far closer than the other realms, which were all in the negatives.

But then, he was probably feeling sentimental because of the upcoming stops on his request list, so Isaac decided not to put too much chalk in his sudden appreciation for the place.

In his hands, the screen of his tablet glowed softly with the next person.

[OLZU LVL 10 - STAT ADJUSTMENT REQUEST]

[LOCATION - THE INFERNO]

The name was somewhat familiar. After 4 years working in the Underside, he’d ended up learning more names than he would’ve liked. The people who requested stat adjustments and updates were usually the same bunch of overachievers, anyway. Having a good memory also helped. It was one of his few useful skills, though in this case Isaac would’ve preferred not to be able to recite most stat sheets off the top of his head when asked. It wasn’t as though he had any particular use for them.

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Assuming he was remembering correctly, Olzu was a small demon, probably some kind of imp or gargoyle, or at least the Underside Inferno equivalent of them. Isaac actually hadn’t heard from him in about a year, and as a result, his memories of the demon were a bit fuzzy. He frowned, unable to shake the feeling that he was forgetting something important about Olzu’s character.

He shook his head and turned off the tablet screen. Whatever it was, the end result would be the same. It wasn’t as though he could pass off his job to someone else.

Isaac tucked the tablet under his arm, sighed, and turned away from the towering skyscrapers and not-so towering huts of Solonell City to face the singular subway station lying in the distance.

—

There was no one else on the subway train car, which Isaac was grateful for. Travel between the realms was rather common, given how easy it was. One simply had to go to the subway station of their realm, wait for the right line color, then board the train and ride it to the end. There wasn’t a fee, or even a turnstile to jump over.

The one caveat, of course, was that the creature doing the traveling had to be able to fit inside the subway train. If not, then they might have to fly through the realm-connecting tunnels themselves, or perhaps walk if they felt extra daring. If they couldn’t fit in the tunnels, then they were shit out of luck.

(The titans didn’t get around much.)

Isaac settled down against the cool hard seat of the subway car, leaning his head back and closing his eyes as the familiar up and down rhythm of the train took over. The train that ran on the red line was one of the bumpier ones, which perfectly mirrored its counterpart in Chrowall City. According to Lilith, the trains themselves were also parallels of their earth counterparts, but they were so similar that Isaac often couldn’t tell the difference.

Chrowall. He still had work to do when he got back. One of the first things Isaac had learned was that time didn’t flow the same between the Underside and the surface world. Weeks in the Underside became less than a minute when he rode the gold line back. On one hand, it meant he didn’t have to worry about juggling his time in the Underside with his day job, but on the other hand he would’ve had a justifiable excuse to not participate in Lilith’s ideas and therefore would have less work in total. All in all, Isaac thought he’d drawn the short end of the stick.

The train car lurched, and Isaac blinked his eyes open. It was still dark outside the window, traces of torchlight showing only the dark stone of the surrounding tunnel. He stood and slowly made his way off the train car. That was one nice thing about the Underside; the subway doors stayed open for much longer than they did in Chrowall.

The station was empty, and he walked around concrete supporting pillars across the cracked and stained floor. There was a non-functioning escalator right beside the actual stairs, but Isaac stepped up the escalator anyway. For some illogical reason, it made him feel better about the trek.

He could already feel the heat when he wasn’t even halfway up. Isaac slowed down, but even with his deliberate dawdling, he soon reached the top of the escalator-stairs, where the blazing, dry heat was in full force. The fact that it was dry heat was its only saving grace; if it was humid, Isaac was certain he would’ve collapsed on the spot.

Taking another moment to double check his tablet, where the words, [CURRENT LOCATION: THE INFERNO], were flashing on the screen, Isaac inhaled the thick air, suppressed his desire to start coughing, and stepped out of the station.