V coughed some more in the tunnel. I took the initiative to close the trapdoor behind us, making sure no more mist would follow us, and suddenly, we were in complete darkness.
"V?" I called, my ears hearing his coughs but my fingers closing on empty air.
"cough!-Here-cough!"
A flicker materialized in the darkness, and V appeared right behind it. His hands were busy making a turning move around a lamp, with a soft grinding noise.
"cough!-Continue-cough!" he handed the lamp to me, and I understood I had to go on with the movement. The part he was moving was a handle. I seized it and imitated the turning movement. As I did, the light from the lamp turned stronger, lighting up the whole tunnel around us.
In front of me, V was still coughing. He had gotten rid of the backpack on his shoulders, already opening it and seizing the water bottle in it. He poured some in the palm of his hand and abundantly splashed his face with it.
"Are you OK?" I asked, knowing very well he wasn't.
He coughed more, bringing the water bottle to his lips to drink some before spitting it to the ground.
"cough!-Are-you-cough!-OK?-cough!" he asked me back, opening one teary eye to check on me.
"I'm fine," I answered sincerely, "but what about you?" I crouched next to him, my hands continuing the movement on the lamp. I had no idea how it worked, and I was scared we would lose light if I stopped.
V moved from his crouching position to sit against the wall of the tunnel, catching his breath. While he had removed his scarf already, I realized I still had mine, and his finger came to pull on it to free my face.
"How come..." he coughed, his red mouth and nose taking deep breaths, his eyes injected with blood, examining me. "You opened your eyes-cough!-too. I saw you. How come... Cough!"
I remained silent, still turning the handle of the lamp.
"It should be enough now-cough!" V said, taking the lamp from my hands and placing it on the backpack. "Do you need some?" he offered the water bottle.
I took it to my lips, not because I felt the need to clear my airways, but to wash the chemical taste in my mouth. Even though the mist had not affected me as much as V, the misty air I had breathed had left a strange taste in my saliva.
"Maybe machinas are less sensitive to mosquito mist?" I suggested, feeling strange at the idea that for once, there was something that made me appear like a true robot.
"That must be it," V sniffed, finally breathing better.
We shared a Fruit Fizzler snacking bar to replace the bad taste in our mouths.
"Wow, I didn't think it would be that bad," V said, splashing more water on his face. "Let's get going, we're on a time limit," he said as he checked his watch.
My cute backpack back on his shoulders, he cranked the lamp a bit more, and explained to me how it works when I inquired about it.
"I found it by the ladder the first time I visited," he recalled. "Thanks to it, I knew these tunnels pre-dated the existence of the City. We don't do this type of lamp anymore," he explained, in the tone of someone who knew about historical artefacts.
"How were you so sure it would still be there?" I asked. After all, it had been a few years since he said he had visited this place.
"No one uses these tunnels anymore. It used to serve repairs, maintenance... Anything that needed to be done behind the scenes of the City. But now, no humans come down here. Not themselves, anyway. They send tiny robots, controlled from afar. These human-sized tunnels have become useless."
It felt like one long, continuous underpass, with the same dark grey walls.
"I don't remember these tracks... But I probably forgot," V indicated the narrow, parallel metal rails laid into the ground.
As he said, it was probably abandoned, as we could guess from the amount of spiderwebs and dust around. We both squealed in fear as a rat ran down our feet. I used to see them all the time running down the roads of the Belt, and it disgusted me as much today.
"I was scared too," V laughed, letting go of the crank to take my hand.
Both my hands came around his, and I muffled a laugh behind his shoulder. Why was I enjoying this moment so much? The tunnel was nothing special. To the contrary, it was dirty and dusty. However, there was something so intimate about the idea of V taking me to a secretive place, only he knew about. It made me feel so special.
We walked for at least half an hour, maybe more. V entertained all the questions I had for him along the journey.
"My parents bought this plot a long time ago, even before having their first child," he explained, "The houses were built much later, when the City decided to develop a neighborhood of contributors. I never had the answers, but I am pretty sure my parents bought it because it had access to this place we're going... I don't see why else."
"Why would they need that place?"
"Their research projects always seemed to be on the fence of lawfulness..." V scoffed, "They probably needed access to outside information or technology... I suppose this was a smuggling spot between the City and the rest of the world, ever since the borders became stricter for intercity trade."
As usual, V was patient enough to answer all my questions. I didn't know what smuggling was, or what he meant by stricter borders or intercity trade.
I also didn't know if it was the quiet darkness of the tunnels, the fact we just had our first fight, or simply the way he was holding my hand now, but I felt close enough to V to ask questions I wasn't sure he would be happy about.
"V... Where are your parents?"
Taking a quick peek at his face, he showed no emotion.
"I don't know," he answered after a long pause.
His face didn't betray any feeling, but his hand in mine tensed a little.
"We might be close," he said as the tunnel began to slope upward.
Until now, the path had only descended. This final stretch was the hardest yet, the incline growing sharper with every step, until, suddenly, the tunnel ended in a wall. There was nowhere left to go. But V angled the lamp upward, and that's when I saw it: a door, right above us. It was far wider than the one in the atrium.
The tunnel here had low enough ceilings that we could reach the door with our arms and push it slowly, but surely. Tons of dust and soil fell as we opened it. V gave me the lamp and the backpack, hissing himself out of the tunnel. The next second, his hands extended to me. I grabbed them, and he pulled me outside the tunnel.
But it didn't feel like outside yet. I moved the light around the place we had arrived in. It was dark, cramped, and had a strong smell of mold.
"You stay here," V said. "I'll go check first and come back when I'm sure it's safe, OK?"
I was so busy detailing our surroundings with the lamp, I didn't even see the door V opened and closed behind him. He must have also remembered the smugglers, and might fear we wouldn't be alone in that place.
Now that my eyes had adjusted to the new space, I realized it was made of old wooden planks, and the broken interstices between them let some outside light come through.
We had truly left the City then.
I got closer to the walls, trying to see through the gaps, but nothing much was visible, and what I could see, I couldn't identify. I cranked the lamp some more, lighting up more of the dusty wood.
That's when I saw inscriptions. I crouched down in front of it, my fingers grazing the old words on the wood. It wasn't engraved, like I thought initially. It was written with ink.
Alma + Elio
=
Vincent
A big heart encircled the names together.
I knew instantly what it was. I had seen the name Vincent written everywhere in V's notes when I snooped around his office.
Vincent.
V.
Was this the name his parents gave him? They gave him his brother's name, Vincent? Their first child who passed away? I couldn't believe it.
No wonder V couldn't bear the idea of keeping this name.
Alma and Elio. His parents probably.
What was wrong with them? How could they do this to their own child? Giving their first son's name to V, only to discard him when he didn't appear to be an exact copy of their first child...
Poor V. He had done nothing to deserve to be treated like that.
I realized I was observing the marks a child had left behind. How old did V said his brother was when he passed? Six years old?
My heart tightened as I stared at the inscription the young child had made to remember a loving family. His brother and his parents may have used to come here? V had said his brother was a miracle, that his parents had tried for a long time to conceive him.
What a miracle it was, I thought, that V still became an amazing, caring person with such absent, cruel parents.
What a miracle he was.
Just as my heart ached even more, I heard his steps coming back.
"It's safe, you can come out," I heard his voice before he even appeared. A door opened wide, the light from the outside pouring in, revealing more of the old wooden shed we had arrived in.
At first, the light was too bright. Too warm, too golden. I stepped out, blinking fast.
My first sight of the place felt... endless. Rolling waves of pale sand stretched in every direction. The curves of the dune caught the first orange hues of the sunset and scattered around like powdered gold.
In the hollow between the dunes, a pool of water shimmered. It looked too blue, too perfect to be real.
All around it, the wild green seemed to fight for the pool's attention. Soaring palm trees swayed lazily, seeming to look at their reflection in the water. Tall grass bent under the heat, colorful flowering shrubs bursting in between.
The air was warm against my skin, dry and musky. I felt the grit of sand brush against my feet, sifting through my shoes.
Tears prickled in my eyes.
It was my first time seeing wild nature.
True, vivid, alive nature. Not the barren soil I had seen all my life at the clinic. Not the perfectly cut green grass of the City.
Wild, intimidating, ravishing Nature.
And it made my chest ache in a way I had no name for.
"Welcome to the oasis, Sade," V spoke behind me, his hand slipping in mine, and I wished he would never let go of it ever again.
🗓️ Next chapters: this Monday, September 8th 🗓️
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