our steps reverberating through the rusty metal stairs.
His shoulders tighten in response but he keeps going. At the top he hesitates, peering over a once-elaborate but now-broken stone cornice circling the building. “It’s clear,” he says, struggling only slightly this time as he uses both his arms to haul himself up and over onto the roof.
I follow, landing beside him with a squelch as water leaches from my shoes. That’s when I get a clear view of the Dark City around us and the Neverlands beyond. Or rather, what’s left of them.
At night when I couldn’t sleep I used to imagine what this city was like before the Return. There are a few artifacts left over from the before time. The Protectorate once used an old building as a museum of sorts, as if seeing what life was like before would be an incentive for us to work harder toward a similar future.
One year for my birthday Elias gave me a pass to the museum. I remember taking care the night before to wash my hair and braid it so that it would frizz around my head like a golden crown when I awoke and unwound it. I was nervous going into the museum—I was alone since Elias wasn’t going to spend the credits for two tickets, and I remember tugging the ends of my hair while I waited in line.
I still believed in the Protectorate back then. Believed what they told us about what was best for us and our way of life. Recruiters stood at the doors to the building, their black uniforms so clean and crisp against the grime of the City. This was well before the Rebellion so they were our regal protectors then—respected and trusted.
They marched us past the exhibits quickly, nudging me along when I wanted to stop and gawk. And then some girl started screaming about something, throwing a tantrum, andit distracted everyone else and held up the line so that I suddenly could take all the time I wanted wandering from room to room, examining what existed before.
The walls were covered with photographs: shiny bulletlike machines that sped through the tunnels called subways, sloping parks with families picnicking while kids clutched balloons. Buildings that stood tall, the glare of light bouncing off them so bright that even from the dingy picture I wondered how people back then didn’t go blind.
Every detail of the museum awed me. After that visit I became obsessed with trying to understand what this city had been. I wanted a museum of my own—artifacts to decorate our flat’s bare depressing walls. But most of all I wanted to know what happened to this place when the Return hit. What did it smell like? What did it sound like? How did any of it survive?
That was when I first went down into the subways, hoping there’d be clues of what came before, lost in the darkness. I pushed farther and deeper than I had any right to go—than was reasonably safe if you could ever call the tunnels safe at all.
The pit of barbed wire was a trap from the Return—a tangle of razor-sharp wire strung up to catch and maim Unconsecrated, not a little girl so many generations later.
I shudder, remembering the penetrating bite of each keen edge. The sound of Elias’s panic when he came searching and found me bloody and broken.
Now, standing on the roof and looking down, I understand just a taste of what the Return must have been like. The fires that gutted rows of buildings and tore a gash through the old park. The sound of terror as people screamed and the deadmoaned. The sight of people running through the streets that could never be safe again.
Without thinking, I slip my hand into Catcher’s. Just needing something human to anchor me in the horror of the moment. His fingers wrap around mine, squeezing tight.
The north end of the island, the Neverlands past the Palisade wall a few blocks away, is almost impossible to see through the haze of thick roiling smoke. The wind twists and pulls flames into the sky, trailing dark clouds out over the river. The bridges leading to the mainland
His shoulders tighten in response but he keeps going. At the top he hesitates, peering over a once-elaborate but now-broken stone cornice circling the building. “It’s clear,” he says, struggling only slightly this time as he uses both his arms to haul himself up and over onto the roof.
I follow, landing beside him with a squelch as water leaches from my shoes. That’s when I get a clear view of the Dark City around us and the Neverlands beyond. Or rather, what’s left of them.
At night when I couldn’t sleep I used to imagine what this city was like before the Return. There are a few artifacts left over from the before time. The Protectorate once used an old building as a museum of sorts, as if seeing what life was like before would be an incentive for us to work harder toward a similar future.
One year for my birthday Elias gave me a pass to the museum. I remember taking care the night before to wash my hair and braid it so that it would frizz around my head like a golden crown when I awoke and unwound it. I was nervous going into the museum—I was alone since Elias wasn’t going to spend the credits for two tickets, and I remember tugging the ends of my hair while I waited in line.
I still believed in the Protectorate back then. Believed what they told us about what was best for us and our way of life. Recruiters stood at the doors to the building, their black uniforms so clean and crisp against the grime of the City. This was well before the Rebellion so they were our regal protectors then—respected and trusted.
They marched us past the exhibits quickly, nudging me along when I wanted to stop and gawk. And then some girl started screaming about something, throwing a tantrum, andit distracted everyone else and held up the line so that I suddenly could take all the time I wanted wandering from room to room, examining what existed before.
The walls were covered with photographs: shiny bulletlike machines that sped through the tunnels called subways, sloping parks with families picnicking while kids clutched balloons. Buildings that stood tall, the glare of light bouncing off them so bright that even from the dingy picture I wondered how people back then didn’t go blind.
Every detail of the museum awed me. After that visit I became obsessed with trying to understand what this city had been. I wanted a museum of my own—artifacts to decorate our flat’s bare depressing walls. But most of all I wanted to know what happened to this place when the Return hit. What did it smell like? What did it sound like? How did any of it survive?
That was when I first went down into the subways, hoping there’d be clues of what came before, lost in the darkness. I pushed farther and deeper than I had any right to go—than was reasonably safe if you could ever call the tunnels safe at all.
The pit of barbed wire was a trap from the Return—a tangle of razor-sharp wire strung up to catch and maim Unconsecrated, not a little girl so many generations later.
I shudder, remembering the penetrating bite of each keen edge. The sound of Elias’s panic when he came searching and found me bloody and broken.
Now, standing on the roof and looking down, I understand just a taste of what the Return must have been like. The fires that gutted rows of buildings and tore a gash through the old park. The sound of terror as people screamed and the deadmoaned. The sight of people running through the streets that could never be safe again.
Without thinking, I slip my hand into Catcher’s. Just needing something human to anchor me in the horror of the moment. His fingers wrap around mine, squeezing tight.
The north end of the island, the Neverlands past the Palisade wall a few blocks away, is almost impossible to see through the haze of thick roiling smoke. The wind twists and pulls flames into the sky, trailing dark clouds out over the river. The bridges leading to the mainland
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