Breaking the Gloaming by J. B. Simmons Page B

works? I had no answers to questions like that.
    Our attic could almost have become a home, if not for the smell. It smelled like burnt hair, excrement, and dead rats. Only it was worse than that, because they were dead men, not rats.
    We left rarely, when our stomachs demanded it. Mersault had been right about the food. We would go to the central square of the Gloaming together and wait for a falling. When it came, there were no longer any new men. There were baskets, full baskets, of real food. Cain’s men, the only armed men, would gather armloads, but it was too much for them to carry. Crumbs would fall as they hauled their loads to the tower where I had lived and reigned. Once they were inside, Mersault and I and other grey men would rush to pick up what we could. A few fights broke out, but not as they once had. Mersault and I would take the food we grabbed and return to the attic hideaway.  
    After I lost count of the fallings, at some number in the twenties, something began to tug me back toward Cain and the tall building. I pretended it was just Zarathus, my sword, restless for action. I pretended I could be satisfied with enough food and more discussions of nothingness in an attic with a lunatic.
    Pretend as I might, there was nowhere to run from the truth. A simple life of food and talk would never satisfy me. I wanted power. I had always wanted power. I no longer craved it for power’s sake, but leading men was what I was born to do. Here in the Gloaming I had ruled men like a strong wind rules the waves. They would obey me on the surface. Underneath, below my influence, their motions were governed by something more powerful. Survival was the moon to their tides. It was such a base reason to go on living.
    I wondered whether the Gloaming made clear what had always been true. Maybe men were all born fallen, and a terrible place like this only exposed our inner natures. We were harsh, unforgiving, and selfish. Men also wanted to survive in the world above, but everything up there was softer, colorful, and better smelling. Down here men needed more order. They needed me to lead them.  
    And so I decided to fight my way back into command. Mersault had only laughed when I told him I was going to kill Cain and regain power.
    Cain had given me the opportunity. After he had attacked me, he continued securing his position and gathering followers. He probably knew I was still alive, and that I would come back for him. Maybe that fear had motivated him, for he had called a meeting. At the prior falling, his men had announced that this meeting would follow the next falling and take place at the top of the tall building. The announcement had sounded almost civilized.
    Mersault came with me to the meeting. We followed the hushed voices and the flow of shadowy figures into the building and up the stairs. The gathering was on the fifth floor, below my former home. Mersault and I moved to a corner of the room, where we had the wall behind us.  
    A few dozen men were there. They kept their distance from each other, but no one attacked. I guessed their stomachs were not empty. They each tried to be no one, to be some fleck of dust on the floor. Their clothes were ragged. A few wore nothing but grime. They held bones and other crude weapons. 
    Cain stood in the center of the room. He towered over the others and missed grazing the ceiling by mere inches. After a few weeks here, no one shines as a physical specimen. But a man like Cain wore scars and dirt as if he was born with them, and the horrors of this place only fed his disposition. He glimmered with brutality. Still, I saw the subtle signs of his stress—his nervous eyes, his shoulder still stiff from the wound I had inflicted. Leading men was no light burden, especially men like these.
    He suddenly yelled out from his enormous chest. He raised his arms and shouted, “Do you not want better than this? Follow me, and you will live in peace. We will all have a