The year was 7007 A.E. Ciel was twelve years old. Just another grimy kid begging for scraps in the underground city of Arkress. She survived by stealing from food vendors. It was a dangerous game, one that forced orphans to learn quickly and run even quicker. It was a risky balancing act between getting enough to survive and stealing too much or too often. Best case, the angry trader would at best hire more [Enforcers] for security. Worst case, they’d be tracked down, and the overzealous ‘guards’ would break a few bones.
Ciel crouched behind some rotted heaps of wooden debris, the hem of her worn gray pants dragging on the ground. Eyeing the newest arrival to Bellum Plaza. The man was arrogant and hadn’t bothered hiring someone to protect his stall, which worked out for her since it made him an easier target than the rest of the merchants who had long wised up to the consequences of doing so. She waited for the man to be distracted by a customer. And waited. And waited some more.
“Urghhhh.” Her hiding spot was sweltering, thanks to the grinding, sparking cogs and machinery rotating beneath her bare feet, barely concealed by a patchwork floor of bolted and screwed brown plates. The air smelled of sickly sweet oil and not much else. Arkress was a city that favored metals immune to rust; people called it the City of Bronze. Normal masonry and bricks didn’t last long thanks to the intense heat and humidity of the forges, especially not with the city’s vertical, multi-floor structure that allowed warmth to rise quickly. The smithies had always been active, but in the past couple of years, it seemed as though they were ramping up production even further. Now, the clanging of metal and the red-hot glow never ceased even deep into the night.
Ciel leaned back against the smooth wall, her eyes trained on the ceiling of Arkress’ underground cavern. Apart from a central spire that extended from the surface to Floor Ten and acted as an ‘elevator’ to the outside world, the rest of the kilometers-high space was buzzing with flying airships. The long, balloon-supported vessels often delivered goods across the city, as its layout made transportation on foot difficult. Very rarely, due to the inherent dangers of cave systems beyond Arkress, they also left on longer voyages to the outside world.
Sometimes, she wished she could be a passenger on those ships. Rising high in the air, far above the violence and poverty of her current life. She yearned to leave the confines of Arkress behind, like a bird leaving its cage, to see the world she’d heard so much about. Another orphan who used to live outside had described it to her. The sky was like a big blue cavern with no ceiling. The sun was like the dim Glintstones that poorly illuminated the city, but so bright that everyone could see it, no matter how far away they were. The ocean, well, she hadn’t truly understood that one and had asked the boy how there could be so much water in one place without drying up.
It didn’t matter. Ciel would just have to see it for herself one day.
An irritated argument startled her out of her reverie. The merchant, whom she’d nearly forgotten about, was haggling with another man about prices, failing to keep a watchful eye on his wares. Both were so tunnel-visioned on the other that they didn’t notice even as she grabbed two of the largest loaves of bread and immediately broke out in a sprint, her oversized shirt flapping in the wind. Two loaves weren’t a lot, but it would let her get by for a couple of days, and it wouldn't cause enough harm to the man’s profits for him to do anything about the theft.
Once it became apparent he had no Skills to prevent theft, she ducked away, scarfing down her first meal in two days, expertly navigating the cramped alleys filled with brass funnels that belched boiling steam. Ciel jumped onto a shortcut, a thin steel beam that bridged the gap where a walkway had originally been. Below was nothing except open air, and a hundred meters down, the glimmering lights of Floor Eight. However, Ciel thought, there was no real indicator of where Floors started and ended. The only differences were the kinds of people who lived there and how many bribes the City Watch took. She hesitated, then clambered inside a circular opening, her age and underweight stature allowing her to squeeze inside. The pipe extended down to Floor One and made the return trip relatively painless.
After accelerating through the winding, narrow ‘tunnel’ for a few minutes, it began leveling out, bleeding off Ciel’s momentum. Following a long period of darkness, the dim light at the end of the tunnel felt especially dazzling, leaving her unable to see as the ride deposited her on the ground, sending her stumbling forward onto wet, hard cobblestones. The glintstones hung several hundred meters overhead, embedded within gargantuan spires of stone that spawned from the ceiling but elongated downwards until the tips nearly brushed the tops of the highest towers on Floor Ten.
Blinking away the dark spots in her eyes, she walked onwards into a layout of buildings that was even more claustrophobic than the Floor she’d just come from, and far worse off in terms of appearance. The dilapidated structures could hardly be called ‘buildings’, for that implied they were capable of housing people. They were more akin to ‘shacks’ sagging under the weight of their years, their roof and walls caved in, layers of thick blue-green patina so prevalent that no one could see the once-shining bronze underneath.
She winced as a sharp nail jabbed into the heel of her foot briefly; shoes were expensive and she had no money. Finally, her meandering path led her to a hovel - though well-maintained compared to the others. It was still standing and only the thinnest of turquoise films had developed on its surface.
The door hinges creaked as it was opened, revealing a room lacking all but two boxes to act as table and chair, and a bed composed of mainly old sheets and clothes. The original furniture had long been pilfered off by thieves, likely other orphans when the house’s sole inhabitant was gone. Ciel wasn’t quite sure why she kept coming back; it wasn’t as if there was anyone left to welcome her ‘home’. Setting her one remaining loaf of bread down on a wooden crate, Ciel collapsed onto her pallet and fell asleep.
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The girl stands in a bright, sunlit meadow of her own imagination, bare feet sinking into soft soil. A light breeze rushes between fields of wildflowers dyed in every conceivable color, ruffling the tall grasses and spreading her white hair in billowing curtains. The wind is floral and fresh, nothing like the stale, stagnant oil scents of Arkress. The sun gives her a feeling of warmth and fullness that the flames and forges of the city never could. She inhales deeply, her lungs expanding with happiness, and beholds the wide horizon and the infinite blue sky.
Her breath catches in her throat as she spots two familiar silhouettes facing away from her, at the bottom of the hill. The next moment, she is running, running, running, nearly tripping over her legs in her haste.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“Mom! Dad!”
She is almost there now and leaps forward, arms outstretched to hug her parents. Then, they turn, and she stops short.
They have no face. Instead, their features are fuzzy and indistinguishable, smoothed over like a mason spreading cement on bricks. She sees them open their mouths, but the words are harsh and guttural, indecipherable and unintelligible gibberish.
Oh. Right. They’re gone, both of them. They’re dead and she’s forgotten their appearances and even their voices. The illusion of the meadow fades away, replaced by the walls of stone that surround her, trap her, bind her to this accursed city. There is nothing left but the girl and two false, half-baked reproductions of her memory.
Ciel wakes up sweating, cold, and sickened by the realization that in a city of a hundred thousand, she is alone.
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The next morning found Ciel digging through mammoth piles of paraphernalia that people from higher Floors had tossed away; they loved just dropping their trash off the edge of the Floor and letting it fall to be someone else’s problem. The ringed design of Arkress, with higher Floors covering a smaller area and Floor One being the largest as the base, practically encouraged it. If she was lucky, she’d find something that wasn’t completely rusted or ruined and be able to pawn it off for a few bronze coins.
She was walking back to her abandoned house, clutching a few bits and bobs and rolling them between her thin fingers, her head down and her thoughts elsewhere. Distracted by the previous night’s dream, she failed to notice a suspicious dearth of the usual street crowd; drunks, layabouts, scavengers. Then she bumped into someone.
The man was tall and lanky; a beaked plague mask obscured his face and he wore a dark three-piece suit with metal cufflinks. Instantly, alarm bells blared in her head. He was clad in attire that was far too expensive and out of place, like the government officials that occasionally paraded around the city followed by columns of armed escorts. Not even the richest traders in the plaza dressed like that, but there was no reason for someone this influential to be down on Floor One, the abandoned slums.
She turned, trying to— The man grabbed her tightly by her long white hair, eliciting a cry of pain, and then stuffed a purple vial underneath her nose. One sniff of the fumes and Ciel dropped to the ground, her eyes fluttering closed.
The last thing she saw was the glass eyeholes of the mask glinting ominously as the man reached for her.
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Drip.
Drip.
Drip, drip.
Her eyes snapped open and she bolted upright, hands and feet splashing in a freezing liquid. Overhead, stalactites trickled a steady stream of water that contributed to the shallow puddle on the floor. Ciel glanced around wildly as her eyes adjusted to light that was even dimmer than that of Arkress. The rectangular cell was small, barely a few square meters, and underground. The only wall that wasn’t solid rock was blocked with metal bars too close together for even her arm to fit through.
Her shoulder burned with scorching agony. Glancing down, her eyes met the 077 branded deeply underneath her collarbone. The skin was seared black and uneven, a stark difference from her otherwise pale skin.
Before she could dwell on the pain, the clang of an opening door assaulted her ears. Two voices, one gleeful and cocky, the other defiant, filtered through the corridor from the cell to her left. The angle prevented her from seeing the faces of either.
“Hey! Z-016, time for your appointment with the Doctor!”
“...”
“What’s wrong~ Was the beating I gave you last night not enough?” There is the echo of a fist on flesh.
“...!”
“Serves you right. What’s the point of sticking to your idiotic beliefs when you’re going to die soon anyway? ‘Monks of Eflana’, my ass.” This man’s voice reminded her of the ‘guards’ from Bellum Plaza. Petty, simple-minded thugs drunk on the tiny amount of authority they’d been given.
“Did you become mute? Say something!”
In response, there was a low gurgle and a splatter of liquid, then the thump of a body falling to the floor.
The guard spoke again after a few moments. “He’s dead? Gods damn it, what am I going to tell the Doctor…We’re already short on experiment fodder.” His boots clopping on the ground made her tense, but he seemed to retreat further into the dungeon rather than approaching her.
Ciel felt a warm sensation on her left hand. She looked down and saw the dead monk’s expanding pool of blood slowly merge with the water, staining everything a deep, dark, red.
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Ciel shivered, not least because of fear but also from the cold. Years spent in Arkress, with its perpetual heat and conductive metals, had done nothing to prepare her for the bone-deep chill of her present circumstances. Her soaked clothes hadn’t done her any favors either, remaining firmly drenched no matter how much time passed. Even though the guard had left to go talk to this ‘Doctor’, the dungeon refused to fall silent. Various snifflings and muttered prayers from the other prisoners could be heard, along with feral growls.
A spoken voice jerked her upright, this time raspy from disuse.
“Hey, kid. You’re new. What happened to the monk on your left?” A dark shadow shifted in the corner of the opposite cell, dragging itself closer to the bars. Instinctively, she recoiled from the sight. The man had a body that looked… for lack of a better word, half-dead. His entire right side was mottled with black spots of decay, and hair and dead skin sloughed onto the ground with every movement he made.
“Oh, stop staring, will you? I know I’m not the prettiest sight around, but too much and you’re gonna make me blush.” His lips stretched upwards in a twisted smile, revealing a mouth full of missing teeth. As she watched, he spat out another one. “I asked you a question.”
“H-he’s dead. The monk, I mean,” Ciel stuttered.
“I can see that. His corpse is still there, for gods’ sake. He killed himself when that idiot guard came to get him, didn’t he? Some of the stronger-willed ones do that. Else they’d have to go through the Doctor’s experiments.” For someone so unsettling, he talked a lot. Now that she had some time to look truly, the unrotted remainder of his face appeared quite young. Between twenty to thirty years of age, at most.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the guy who kidnapped and put all of us in here, the ‘Doctor’, is running experiments, and we’re his test subjects. Ironic name, I know.” He gestured at the code 031 branded into his scarred, pale flesh. “Arkress is on the verge of war. You’ve noticed that the forges have been churning out weapons day and night in the past few years, haven’t you? I don’t know for certain who the enemy is, but it’s not too far-fetched to think that these experiments are another way Arkress is preparing. Just one man can’t kidnap this many people and keep them hidden. This stuff is outlawed for a reason. He must have backers high up in the government.”
“But what is he doing with us?” Ciel didn’t understand what sort of experiments would help Arkress win a war.
“Again, I don’t know if he does the same experiment on everyone, but in my case, he injected me with some weird potion that increased my mana capacity. The side effects are what changed me into what I look like now. He might be trying to create more mages for the military to use. [Fireball]s are way better at obliterating soldiers than a sword, at low levels.” There was silence for a moment as she absorbed the sudden influx of information. Then she asked her final question.
“Do you think any of us will ever get out of here?”
And the man, whose name she had never asked for and that he had never volunteered, crushed her hopes in one simple word.
“No.” There was a quiet laugh, full of bitterness and sorrow as if he had forgotten what the genuine article sounded like. “Welcome to hell, kid.”