Ana could never decide if the Jungle’s nickname was highly apt or comically off. There was barely any plant matter at all to be seen, but it was a dark wilderness of a sort, foreboding and dangerous. It was barely even acknowledged as being the west side of Black Bend anymore. In people’s minds and speech it was simply the Jungle.

By some miracle the moon actually poked through the thickening clouds, granting a hint of visibility. She used the window of opportunity to carefully open the old flashlight she’d taken from one of Sanctuary’s cupboards. She checked to make sure the little bit of folded-up paper was fitted in firmly, keeping the battery in place.

Everything seemed to be in order and so she closed the light and turned it on, seconds before the moon vanished again.

It was all a sorry sight; an aching scar left by the war and subsequent negligence and poor funding. Every single building was either missing a roof or at least one wall, and general opinion was that most of the more intact ones were liable to fall over at any time.

Ana slowly shone the meagre light about, illuminating piles of rubble, lonely doorways, shard-like walls and the occasional bit of protruding metal, the source of many of the injuries she treated at Sanctuary.

She carefully moved over a bit of debris that was just slightly taller than her legs and slid down on the other side. Her foot came down in something like a wedge, reminding her to be careful. These streets had been poorly maintained to begin with. Now they were a prime location for breaking an ankle.

There were still relatively clear routes, but she didn’t have all night to circle around. So she took the direct path until she arrived at a garbage-strewn parking lot. She shone the light around, making sure she wasn’t about to step on someone using garbage for cover against the chill, then carefully walked across, much as she would have on ice, until reaching a relatively clear pedestrian walkway.

The surrounding walls were rather intact but stood closely together and almost seemed to lean in slightly near the top. Like any clear, smooth surface in the area they served as canvas for people with few other outlets and so her light travelled over various sexual obscenities, insults, bizarre ruminations and amateur art.

It was tempting to read it all in passing as a way to keep her mind off things, but unpleasant though this whole thing was she really ought to stay alert.

The Jungle was the city’s festering sore, lurking invisibly in the dark due to the lack of electricity. The mayor didn’t have the means to clear it up and so it was simply left to its own devices save for when people wanted to dispose of garbage in a quick and easy way.

This was where the unwanted went. Here and nowhere else the city’s slowly growing population of destitutes could stay without being bothered by the law. This hell of broken masonry, despair, darkness and reeking air.

She passed by a little home a family had set up by pitching a blanket over a solo standing house corner. Adults and children alike were sleeping and their faces looked drawn and weary as her light travelled over them. She didn’t recognise these people and wasn’t cruel enough to wake them to ask questions.

A little further in she heard an incoherent, slurred singing from one of the ruins. The man’s voice was damaged and wretched and quite familiar to her. She didn’t approach this resident either; he’d been exiled from the Sanctuary for constant belligerence.

One way in which the Jungle lived up to its name was how easy it was to get lost in. With the sky only getting darker it got near impossible to find her way by paying attention to the skyline. That left her with having to further slow down and thoroughly scan everything with the light. She’d come to know this area rather well, but not enough to walk it blindly. There were times when she swore this pile of rubble or that standing wall had changed positions. But she found her way to the old theatre and stopped before the half-destroyed building.

The roof had collapsed, bringing down much of the two upper floors like crushed cans. Parts of the ground floor remained traversable to anyone foolish enough to step beneath the tons and tons of weight being held up by walls with cracks in them. And Ana had previously proven herself such a fool, so why not do it again?

She entered through the once-stylish double doors and into an even deeper darkness. There was a faint damp in the air, hinting at the smell that ruled here whenever rainwater seeped through the ruin up above. The hallway was littered with small bits of ruined cardboard and other small bits of junk that even the truly desperate found no use for. There were faint noises of rats. None of this was unfamiliar to her and Ana simply kept on going at a moderate pace.

The main entrance to the central auditorium was blocked by rubble and so she walked on towards the little entrance near the stage. In the deepest part of the Jungle she was heading into its darkest, most isolated part. And her light had just caught on the door when something stepped out into it.

“Who’s there?!” an addled, miserable voice demanded.

Ana shone the light a bit higher for a second, illuminated a familiar face framed on all sides by scraggly hair. Then she shone it at herself.

“It’s me, Sam,” she replied calmly, using the voice she always did back at Sanctuary.

Some of the belligerence faded from the man’s manner, but not all of it.

“Hello, Ana,” he said roughly. “What are you doing in Hell?”

“Can you first tell me how your leg is doing?” she asked.

The man hesitated, his sour face not changing for the worse or better.

“S’ okay,” he admitted with obvious reluctance. “A bit stiff.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” she said. “I could have done better, if you’d let me tend to it in Sanctuary.”

“Don’t need a place at the pity table,” the man said. “Now why are you here?”

“I am looking for Kylis. Have you seen him?”

“Kylis is a crazy pissant!” Sam spat. “Why do you bother?”

“Because he’s had a bad turn. I worry.”

Ana shone the light a bit more on the man. She was vary of upsetting him, but did notice the ratty backpack before aiming the light lower again.

“Did you come here to go through his belongings while he’s lost?” she asked, keeping condemnation out of her voice.

“I need things too,” Sam said defensively. “And this really is a jungle. Piss on Kylis if he can’t look after himself.”

Ana took a breath.

“Sam, please do not let pain make you cruel,” she said.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Easy for you to say,” he grumbled.

“No, Sam,” she said earnestly. “It isn’t.”

Something made her aim the light up at her own face again, giving him a good view.

“If I could shrink my heart so it didn’t hurt so much all the time, I would,” she told him. “But I can’t.”

She wanted to stop, or thought she did, but some kind of knot was coming undone and tying it back was just too painful.

“Do you know how many late hours I spend in Sanctuary, tending to people, listening to them, playing music, making sure people have blankets, getting donations from people? Because I don’t, Sam. I don’t keep track anymore. I can barely remember seeing the daylight. I watch women come in with black eyes and men come in with needle marks in their skin, and I give them all a place to stay. I talk to mistreated children with no hope in the world. And I do none of this because it is easy. I wanted to be a musician, Sam. That’s what I wanted with my life. But I chose all of this.”

“Eh, you’re a sucker,” the man muttered.

Ana was used to the verbal abuse of the suffering and despairing, both directed at herself and others. But somehow her armour had slipped and this one hit harder than usual. Sam could see as much and he hit one of those quick mood swings she was also used to seeing.

The tall man hunched his broad shoulders and seemed to be fighting tears.

“I... I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean it... I... I’m just a shit. This is a place of shits.”

“It’s alright,” Ana said and worked to put her armour back on. She waited for him to recover a bit before asking again. “But really, have you seen Kylis?”

“No,” Sam mumbled, staring at the floor. “Not for a few days. He’s been more weird than usual. I think he might not come back this time. And...”

He gestured back the way he’d come.

“And I didn’t take anything. There is nothing to take.”

“Well, I want to look the place over for myself. Please let me pass.”

She advanced and he stepped aside. As she came to the door she stopped next to the man.

“Please consider looking by at Sanctuary,” she said. “You can play a board game with someone, or maybe take a turn at the piano. We’ve had it fixed again. I urge you to do something. I have never found isolation to be healthy.”

“You know it though, don’t you?” Sam asked pointedly. “Isolation, I mean?”

Ana hesitated.

“Good night, Sam.”

She entered the auditorium. Behind her Sam shuffled off without further comment.

The place was as sorry a sight as any other part of the Jungle; arguably more so in its own way given the sheer contrast brought on by hints of destroyed beauty and elegance.

Some of the audience seats had been removed or stripped of their coverings, but no one who set foot in here could mistake this place’s intended purpose. Ana shone her light up to check if the ceiling was caving in a bit more since her last visit, but couldn’t really be sure. What did seem certain was that if the building suffered any further collapses this room would not survive. Nor would anyone inside of it at the time.

Kylis’s occasional dwelling was up on the stage, and so Ana clambered up onto the battered, debris-strewn wooden platform. Contrary to Sam’s statement about nothing remaining she did spot some of those fat, stubby candles Kylis used to light his odd home. She took out a box of matches and knelt down to light a couple. The homeless didn’t like having any of their meagre possessions messed with, but she wasn’t planning to stay long enough for them to burn noticeably.

She just didn’t care for how utterly the darkness pressed in in this place. Nor could she imagine any lonelier place than a stage before an empty row of seats. Ana swept her light over the rows, wondering why in the world the man chose to stay here.

“Do you see something here that no one else does, Kylis?” she asked the absent man as she gazed out into the desolate space. “Is there applause and adoration? And if so, what chases you out of here?”

Aside from the candles, Sam had been pretty much right. There was next to nothing here, aside from worn bits of cardboard and empty food containers. Kylis usually had a simple bed laid out here but the blanket was gone, leaving only rags.

However, like so many others around these parts, the man liked to write his thoughts down with pen or chalk. In the hope of finding some hint as to his current thought patterns she turned her light on the platform’s floor and the nearby walls.

Kylis’s observations, if they could be called that, were spread out at various heights and angles, unpunctuated and with no clear connection between them. Yet habit made her put them in a left-to-right order.

I cannot see.

Please someone ring the bell.

The truth has died.

The nightmare lives.

Suffocating.

Suffocating.

Where is the bell?

Lost in darkness.

Suffocating.

Where is the dawn?

Her eyes lingered on that last part, written on the floor by Kylis’s makeshift bed. It felt familiar, but then it wasn’t a complex metaphor. These were dark days and the city could badly do with a dawn of some sort.

She nudged one of the rags out of the way, checking for anything more underneath the clumsily scribbled question. Her light shone on something that had been hidden, and Ana’s eyes widened. She pushed more rags and garbage out of the way, getting a clearer picture. She also looked at the rags more closely and realised they were remains of Kylis’s blanket. Someone had torn it apart and strewn the bits wildly around.

There on the wood where Kylis had slept were four long, symmetrical gouges. She knelt and put her fingers on the marks. Her hands weren’t big but the comparison still made the dimension of whatever had done this seem odd. And human fingernails didn’t do this kind of damage to solid wood.

Her imagination conjured up a person wearing some sort of metal claw gauntlet, stalking the darkest, most lawless part of the city to act out violent impulses. It seemed a touch far-fetched, but what other explanation was there?

A sound out in the hallway gave her a bit of a start?

“Sam?” she said as she turned the light back on the door?

There was no response.

“Kylis? It’s Ana.”

There was no response. Only another sound.

“Hello?” she said.

In the utter silence of the destroyed building she could just barely make out the faint noises of someone slowly moving along the hallway, trudging on and dislodging debris and garbage as they went along.

Ana turned the flashlight off, then carefully brought her foot down on the candles, putting them out. The darkness engulfed her fully, leaving her with only her own heartbeat and the barely audible footsteps.

She let memory guide her to the edge of the platform and felt about for the edge with her foot. She found it just as the person seemed to reach the doorway. The sounds ceased and so Ana held still and held her breath.

The new arrival simply stood there and Ana’s instincts made her do likewise, still with her foot on the edge. Her mind sought an innocent explanation for this, but always returned to the fact that someone had entered with no light and an obvious attempt at stealth.

They started moving again, slowly walking into the auditorium. Ana did her best to keep track of the footsteps as she slowly and carefully sat down on the edge and lowered her feet to the floor. Then she embarked on mirroring the intruder’s progress, circling around towards the door as they moved further into the auditorium.

She didn’t hear breathing and every sound from that other person seemed intended to be quiet. There was simply too much stuff lying about on the floor and Ana herself had to rely on memory and cautious sweeps with her feet to move around it.

Her hand touched the wall in almost the same instance as she heard a creak of wood from the stage. It was almost directly behind her. She felt around to the left where she believed the doorway to be, but found only more wall. She felt around to the right, but still found nothing.

There were more creaks from the stage.

She hated this, but there was only one way out for either of them and she had to act. She tried shuffling to the left. Her foot hit something, making a soft noise.

The stage fell silent and Ana held her breath. The seconds felt terribly long, but then the creaks started up again, feeling a bit more loud and aggressive. She risked sweeping her foot around and continue feeling for a couple of more steps. Her hand finally found nothing at all and she stepped through the doorway. After a few steps she gambled on the flashlight, cupping her hand around the front of it for a narrower beam, just enough to remind her of the debris layout.

The intruder felt louder, or perhaps it was some echoing effect, but whichever it was Ana maintained an even pace, staying silent and cautious until stepping back out beneath the dark, miserable sky.

Then she ran.