Part II
The elevator shrieked as it descended toward District 18.
Oxidized panels in the shaft let out jets of steam through impossible crevices, saturating the air with a metallic stench that clung to the tongue.
The mask automatically adjusted the filter.
Toxic particle level: 27%. Consumption stabilized.
It was a stark reminder of where I was entering.
The Middle Rings still tried to simulate order, with propaganda and false promises.
District 18, however, had abandoned all pretense.
There were no savings ads or smiles on giant screens here.
Only silence, dampness, and that constant shadow of the Shells, growing closer.
When the doors opened, the hallway looked like an open wound in the arc-city's metal.
Broken pipes hung from the ceiling, dripping dirty water that mixed with rust. The lighting panels barely flickered, leaving entire stretches plunged into a viscous darkness.
A naked child darted past me, his body covered in scars, a cheap mask held on with string. He didn't even look at me.
Here, Respirators were specters.
People avoided eye contact with us, as if doing so might invite death prematurely.
My mask silently registered data.
District 18: Delinquency Index 71%. XR-Guardian Patrols: 0.
In other words, I was alone.
The assigned module was #9012.
The route led me through a corridor where dozens of families slept out in the open, on mats stained with soot. The air was so thick that even my filters struggled to process it. I could feel the density of every inhalation, as if I were breathing mud instead of oxygen.
Eyes followed me.
Dull stares, some charged with hatred, others with fear, most of them empty.
They knew who I was.
They knew what I had come to do.
There were no insults or pleas this time.
In this district, they had already learned that wasting air on words was a luxury they couldn't afford.
The panel of Module #9012 was nearly destroyed. The numbers flickered halfway, but enough to confirm it: –0.15 Vita-Credit. Critical Delinquency.
More than allowed.
An air debt impossible to pay off.
I activated my mask's scanner.
"Kaelen-7. Order confirmation: Immediate disconnection."
The system beeped weakly. Not even the software was immune to decay down here.
But the order was registered.
The door opened with a screech that echoed like a lament.
Inside, there was no family waiting for me.
Only a solitary man, sitting on the floor, with an unlit cigarette dangling from his dry lips.
He looked at me with glassy eyes and smiled, as if he already knew what was coming.
"So, it's time, eh?" His voice sounded rough, like crumpled paper.
He didn't plead.
He didn't cry.
He just exhaled slowly, as if trying to savor the very last molecule of air before it was taken away.
I remained silent.
Protocol didn't require a response.
Protocol required compliance.
I pressed the command.
Air cutoff initiated.
The hiss filled the module.
That unmistakable sound.
That hollow echo that traveled along every metal wall like a whisper of death.
The man let out a dry chuckle when he heard it.
"The coffin is closing now, isn't it?" he said, never taking his eyes off me.
"That hiss… I always hated it." His voice broke for the first time. "It's the sound of everything we never had."
The hiss intensified.
The meter descended in red.
The cigarette fell from his mouth.
And I, as always, watched.
Only watched.
Every time I heard it, that hiss tore away a part of me that still tried to feign humanity.
I called it the sound of an empty coffin because that's what it was.
There were no funerals, no official tears, no dignified burials.
Only sealed modules, turned into boxes of silence.
The entire arc-city was a floating cemetery, but no one admitted it.
The man fell to his side, his lips blue, his eyes still open.
The panel confirmed:
Eviction completed.
My mask requested the signature.
Act of Silence registered.
The figure on my personal counter went up: +0.02 Vita-Credit.
Another couple of inhalations bought with a life.
I stood still longer than necessary.
It wasn't typical.
But the man's words resonated with an uncomfortable force.
"The coffin is closing now, isn't it?"
Yes.
But not just for him.
For all of us.
The hiss lingered in my ears even after it ceased.
No matter how many modules I sealed, I never stopped hearing it.
It was like a perpetual echo that traveled with me everywhere, embedded in my memories, my bones, my own mechanical breathing.
I left the module and returned to the hallway.
The air in District 18 was even worse than inside the freshly sealed room.
Huddled people, starved bodies that looked more like shadows than people.
They watched me from the gloom, their eyes glowing like extinguished embers.
No one said anything to me.
No one dared.
But I could feel it: the silent hatred, the contained resentment, the visceral fear.
I was their executioner.
But I was also their reflection.
A human reduced to an oxygen counter.
My mask system vibrated.
A new notification.
Order received. District 19, border with the Shells.
My heart—that remaining human piece of me—skipped a beat.
District 19 was worse.
Closer to the border.
Closer to the abyss that separated the living from the exiled.
The memory of the little girl returned, like a blade twisting in my mind.
"You don't breathe like us!"
Maybe she was right.
Perhaps that was the difference that had allowed me to survive until now.
I headed toward the elevator that went even further down.
The Shells weren't far.
Every step was a descent not only physical, but also into my memory, into that wound that never closed.
The hiss of the freshly sealed module still vibrated in my inner ear.
And as the elevator doors closed, I was certain I would continue to hear it even in the most absolute silence.
The sound of an empty coffin.
The sound of my own past.
And now, the next order was leading me right to the edge of that past.
To the District where echoes turned into screams.