8:47 pm
Even before it finally happened, you could tell there was some sort of madness in the air. Just as I was putting away the dishes after an, admittedly, lousy Christmas dinner, with not so much as a click, a scream, or an explosion, all the lights around me – the garlands on the lampposts, the fairy lights in the dormitory on the opposite side of the street, the streetlights that would only work correctly for maybe half the night at most – had gone dark. A chuckle rolled down the street, clearly unbothered and assuming some government holiday prank; a whoop and a holler followed it. Elsewhere, a murmur rolled down, a touch of concern thrown in with amusement. A couple of honks from cars down the street. Some incomprehensible radio chatter, probably from the military, down the street. As I took in the ambience, I looked up, almost instinctively, to the sky, wondering if, without the whiteout, I’d finally see the stars. But the only thing looking back was a dark cloud, unbroken and whole, creating an impression as if whoever shut the lights off in the city accidentally knocked over the switch for the sky, too. 

Then, like some sick punchline, the blasts began rolling through. At first, it was a mere echo, and something that could’ve just as well been a firework. Then down the street, off in the direction of the tube station; another, closer to me, where the Christmas market was bustling with life mere hours before; and finally, like some delayed gratification, one in the direction of our office. A car had immediately taken off from under my window, a siren cutting through the night like a knife; the unmistakable hum of drones followed it along. Screams finally broke through, as the initial shock had finally given way to terror.

The dark abyss above had finally enveloped the city whole. I decided at that point to step away from the window. It was time to deliver on my promise.

Using my phone as a flashlight, I touched my way around the apartment to make my way to the tiny space underneath my bed. From there, I took out the package, the blue wrapping paper having been severely dusted over, the yellow ribbon mostly intact. Underneath it, a fading paper tag with the address – the same one as it was all these years ago, just across the river from the Government Sector, which at that point seemed like the other end of the world from me. Blowing the dust away, I grabbed my courier bag from the wayside, placing the parcel inside as its sole occupant. I hesitated for a moment, not being used to my load being this light (without insomuch as even my S-Pad to guide me along), before banishing the thought out of my mind – the fear that came with it only made things more complicated. Yet I couldn’t deny its persistent, enveloping effect on my whole body (and perhaps, most unhelpfully, my legs, as I couldn’t quite bring myself to just get up and head for the door).

It was then, in the darkness of my small apartment, determined to face the night and whatever it had in store for me, that I turned around and decided to sit for a minute – if not to honour a superstitious custom, then at least to breathe a couple of deeper breaths for confidence. As I did, drowning out the shouts outside, I thought of my mum, how she’d sit me down before any long trip much in the same way, since I was five; how we had forgotten to do that on the trip when our whole family crossed the Xxxx, the first time I questioned why we needed to do something as silly as sitting down for an entire minute; how before leaving for the Capital, she sat me down for five whole minutes (perhaps to correct for the mishap earlier, perhaps more so for herself, to make sure she gathered enough strength to not break into tears); and how, as I’d leave, I’d feel her watchful eyes guiding me to the car, or the train, or just around the corner. I remember wishing she’d watch over me in that moment, as I left into the night, admitting that perhaps this whole time I was overly confident and could not do it alone. But alone I had to do it; there was little left to dwell upon beyond that.

In that moment, getting up to leave, I resolved that, should I see the night through, I’d call her. Better yet, I’d call her more often, period.

But that was for later, in the New Year, or at least tomorrow.

It didn’t quite register with me until I was outside, my sneakers already filling up with greying snow, just how quickly the idleness of the past month had eroded. Before I even got out the door, a heavily armoured military vehicle whizzed past me, floodlights illuminating the darkened street, the barrel of its massive gun atop, hungry for blood. As it brutishly made its way across the street, pushing aside the flaming wreckage of a car down the street, it turned in by one of the corners. To the left and the right down the street, flashes of fire gave light to the rising smoke, and I could see beyond the rooftops of the small residential buildings in front of me similar clouds of ash going up, getting caught in the whirlwind by helicopters and drones alike, as far as the eye could see. Being outside felt like stepping into a forest through which a million little fires were starting, mere minutes before it was to turn into a firestorm. The static feeling in the air did not dissipate; on the contrary, it grew tenser, larger, somehow more enveloping and suffocating, so much so that I wanted to tear my throat out. Then again, it could’ve been the smoke. 

To my surprise, there didn’t seem to be any soldiers on this part of my street, a fact that I quietly thanked God for (not that we’ve spoken often) under my breath. As if avoiding a perilous storm, I hugged the wall and crept down the street, hiding from someone or something (even as all the windows around me were shut and blacked out with curtains, most people clearly reasoning that it was better to simply not get involved). All the while, I began to think of what, if any, was my plan. I knew of the checkpoint not far from our office; I knew it would be staffed right now, and it was, more than likely, the only passage into the city that was accessible to me now. I could try the waterfront, but even on a sunny, warm day, it was ill-advised to swim in the Xxxxxx. I could try doubling-back through where Miranda lived – the pedestrian tunnel from Isle xx Xxxx to Xxxxxxxxx was surprisingly reliable – but I had no idea what the roads were like in that direction (bad, probably, seeing that not one but three major banks had their headquarters stationed near her and Brian’s apartment), and I’d rather not had to find out now. So, the office gate was the only way through.

As I jumped around the turned-over market stalls, trying my best not to fall and break my neck (what a stupid, stupid way to go that would be), I spotted the hospital on my left, where, earlier in the day, people were queuing up. The metal gates outside, alongside the motion-sensor doors leading into the hospital itself, were shut. However, a dim blue light still came from the inside, courtesy of, as I assumed, an emergency generator. In the streaks of light, I saw shadows dancing on the walls, an occasional figure in a white overcoat hurriedly passing from one side of the window to the other. At times, the lights in some rooms would go dark, only to return, flickering a few seconds later, as if trying to send a complicated Morse code message. Through it all, not a single sound, bar a piercing, primordial scream breaking through the walls from somewhere deep inside for just a second. On a night like this, I was thankful for not being clever or ambitious enough even to try to dream of med school.

I continued like this, looking around for signs of life and illuminating my path ahead every few minutes with my phone’s flashlight, until I spotted in a corner of my eye a brightly painted wall. Facing it, I realised I was by the grocery store –the exact spot where, earlier in the day, I saw plain-clothed police standing over a man with posters in his bag. The ground was snowed over again, not so much as the slightest trace of earlier violence in sight – except for the wall in question. Even in the dim lights of my flashlight, I could make out words, bright red and adorned with some chemical agent, as if burned into the bricks themselves, spelling out a simple message:

IF IT WERE HOPELESS, THEIR PROPAGANDA WOULD BE UNNECESSARY

There was no way of knowing who wrote it, or when; no way of telling what happened to its author, or if anyone had had the chance to see it before the lights went out. But it was there now, permanently and definitively – for me, if for no one else. I’d love to tell you how inspired I was to see it, or that it was that graffiti that moved me to write all of this, but I’m afraid neither of those would be quite true. Yet I would be remiss to say that it didn’t send a shiver down my neck and didn’t stick with me for the rest of that night. For better or for worse, at that moment, there was nothing else to do but to take note and keep moving.

After a short while, I could finally see the lights ahead: the checkpoint gate. As I assumed, a bomb went off right by it, so alongside the floodlights of the cars and red flares illuminating the makeshift wall, stretching far down in each direction (just how far was impossible to tell, as it seemingly merged with the houses on both ends of the street), the place – and most notably, the darkened spot on the beige checkpoint wall, with minor but notably damaged exterior – was being lit up by the burning wreckage. A massive crowd of onlookers had gathered right by it, with the military using their armoured cars as roadblocks; an added threat of an intimidating machine gun on top of each of them, able to rip you in half for a single wrong move, serving as the ultimate deterrent. A smell of iron and sulphur plagued the air, getting into your throat, onto your tongue, and somewhere in between your eyes.

Approaching the gate and unsure of my next move, I threw a glance at where our office was, seeing, for the first time, the neon lights above the entrance gave off not so much as a flicker. I thought of Miranda and our boss then, if they had gotten out of the way by then, if they were done with their meticulous clean-up of our archives, if they were okay; or if, going back on their promise, the two detectives from earlier had return before the night was up, warrant in hand, and if Miranda was now in a holding cell somewhere.

“Citizens of the Capital, disperse IMMEDIATELY! The situation is under control!” the bellow of the megaphone from near the gate had shaken me out of my thoughts, reminding me why I was here, “I repeat: disperse and return to your homes immediately; no civilians are allowed in or out of the Old City Limits.”

“What the hell is going on?!” someone shouted from the crowd, a swarm of encouraging murmurs picking it up, alongside mine.

“We’ve got no electricity!” another murmur, louder this time, getting picked up into a collective scream.

“Are we under attack?” someone else shouted, concerned. The crowd was starting to become unruly, as the myriads of questions seemed to go on without end.

“Citizens, I-” finally, after budging my way through, I was able to see the speaker: a masked man in grey camo coveralls, standing by the two cars at the front. I couldn’t quite tell his age, both because of how dark it was and his uniform, but his voice–his coarse, tired voice–gave an impression of somewhere in the ever-ambiguous forty-to-sixty range, easily. The words trembled as they came out of his throat, betraying the desperation that truly laid behind his attempts to regain control of the situation. His comrade, sitting atop the car, however, understood perfectly well what to do when words failed, as the cocking sound of the machine gun, followed swiftly by a single round being fired into the air, sent gasps across the crowd, concluding with silence. After ever so noticeably jumping up at the sound of the gun going off, the man turned around, nodding to his colleague behind the machine of death, and raised the megaphone again, “Citizens, the situation is under control. The engineering corps is working tirelessly to restore power as soon as possible. Until then, you must stay inside, as we investigate the situation. Go back to your families, and happy-”

A shot from one of the rooftops nearby ensured that the man would never be able to finish speaking. A barely noticeable cloud of pink mist, blending in with the cackling red flame of the flare, escaped from behind his head. His body, limp and unnatural, convulsed for a moment and fell to the ground.

Before the sentries atop the cars and on the wall could begin to fire, another shot–a ricochet–produced a scream from somewhere deeper inside the crowd. Panicked burst of bullets above us, sound alone heavy enough to break your head in pieces, split the street in half immediately after. In the deep red dark of flare lights and glares of hot barrels, a barely noticeable, hooded figure stalked behind the cars.

“The morning has arrived!” she screamed, throwing something cylindrical into the gate. It has taken the gunner atop the other car less than a second to turn his weapon around towards her, spewing another burst of death. It has taken her limp body, by then lying on a cold, dirty road, less than five seconds to ultimately have the last laugh, as a massive fireball formed around the gate, an agonising shockwave rupturing the air.

Falling over someone, I was disoriented by the sounds of screams, hurried footsteps, and gunfire; my attempts to hold on to someone – anyone – helped none, as I found myself on the concrete floor, fighting, with all my might, to not pass out, despite the kick to the head that followed immediately after my tumble. As the crowd cleared from around me – some making a run for it towards the gates, others hugging the walls – I saw a group of people, no more than ten or fifteen, emerge in the light of the wreckage from either side of the street, each holding a gun. They didn’t look like soldiers – on the contrary, only a few of them carried guns, without which I’d overlook them entirely in the street on any regular day: coats, parkas, woolly hats and beanies. The sole thing suggesting their allegiance was the armband: bright orange, with a black streak running down the middle, firmly below their right shoulder, betraying them as the Suns.

Unbothered by the chaos around them, they hurried towards the checkpoint, moving in unison, like a well-oiled machine, as if this was the day they had trained for their entire life. Sporadically, they’d shoot up at the wall, producing a rhythmic loop: a shot, then a yelp, steps; a shot, a yelp, then more steps on the desolate snow below. For a moment, one figure, slightly shorter than the rest, knelt by the body of the hooded figure, only to be picked up and hurriedly dragged away by one of their comrades. Soon, the entire group disappeared in the smoke, sole reminder of their presence being an occasional shout and another burst of bullets cutting through the night.

At that moment, I realised what my anonymous benefactor was trying to warn me about: the Suns were no longer hiding, and there could be no doubt that the blackout-the “darkness” of it all I was warned of–was the apex of their plan all along.

Catching my breath behind one of the cars, as I tried to ignore the dripping blood of the soldier, now lifelessly spread across the machine gun above me, I assessed my options. The ambush and subsequent sabotage of the gate certainly made the physical path easier; however, as the shooting intensified on the other end of the smokescreen, it was plainly apparent that it made the situation no less dangerous. In desperation, I glanced around, trying to understand where the few people still left on the street were heading, if not to find an alternative route, then at least to confirm for myself that this really was the only way. But as I looked behind me, I was greeted instead with a pair of white dots, rapidly accelerating towards the gate. I did not need to give my eyes time to adjust to know what it was, as the piercing screech of the engine revealed the truth to my ears considerably faster than it could to my eyes: the mechanical beast from before, one that I saw jump towards the train station on the intersection earlier, was back. As if to affirm my fears, its gun fired once into the smoke, a whistle splitting my brain open, an explosion just across the wall following like a gut punch. Stumbling over myself, I felt the adrenaline kick in. The beast of war was not slowing down; it was now or never.

Without giving it another thought, I dragged my body up by the handle of the car’s door, mentally and physically propelling my body up and down the street. The beast fired again, this time with something smaller, as I felt a bullet hit the ground right near my foot. Another whizzed past my shoulder, grazing my bag. As I rushed through the smoke, it felt as if I was caught in a hailstorm, falling horizontally precisely in the same direction as the one I ran into. I did my best not to think about dying, or even the chance of it – none of it would be helpful at this very moment.

After what felt like an endless, blind tumble, I emerged on the other end of the smokescreen and the gate, stumbling into a crater and landing on something soft. I got up immediately, my brain refusing to acknowledge then and there that the something soft in question was mere moments before a person, but the sight before me forced my legs to pause, if only temporarily. The group I saw earlier, considerably thinner in numbers, had pushed up the street, taking cover behind a red bus; a different group, wearing similar armbands, was running towards them from aside, pushing through between some debris; one figure among them, burly and taller than everyone around them, ran with what I can only describe as an oversized slingshot on their shoulders, an apparatus they began setting up as soon as they ducked behind an abandoned armoured van; all around, civilians like myself ran aimlessly, trying to find some respite; bodies – few of them in military coveralls, but most in simple winter attire – littered the road; a fire raged inside the Liverpool Street Station, with rows of pigeons, typically an ever-present symbol of the Capital’s non-stop beating heart, flying out in droves into the cold darkness of the street above; at the other end of the street, towards the country’s central bank, another checkpoint stood, its walls higher, sturdier, much more menacing than the one behind me. Blinded by its lights, it took me a second to realise that the soldiers manning it fired indiscriminately directly towards me. 

“Fucking GET DOWN!” a loud screech pierced my ear, as a body as cold as the concrete beneath me pushed me down. Immediately afterwards, the metallic beast broke through the smokescreen, resuming its rampage by firing somewhere in the direction of the armed groups down the street. My saviour–or, at the very least, the person who pushed me a second ago, jumped to his feet, extracting something glittery from his backpack. The orange armband flashed momentarily in the light of the flame, matching a lock of hair hidden underneath his beanie, as he rushed the mechanical monstrosity to our side. His hands working like clockwork, he climbed the abomination, opening the hatch atop its turret, and throwing what I saw now to be a bottle filled with gasoline into it. A burst of fire went up, illuminating his freckled face and green eyes, if only for a second, before an altogether different cacophony of screams and pleading. A burning smell filled the air, the smell of bodies – people – burnt alive, as the man jumped down and, without catching his breath, dragged me to a metallic crate that stood behind the gate. It was only then that I had finally looked at his face properly, “Xxxxx, what the fuck are you doing here?!”

“Archie, what-” I panted back, looking him over. Gone were the cap with the company’s logo and the courier bag and the smugness; in their stead, a brown canvas backpack rested on his shoulders, covered with a black bomber jacket; his face was drained of emotions, paler than usual, but for the small spark stubbornly lingering in his eyes and soot and dirt that already began accumulating on his lightly freckled face, “What are YOU doing here? We thought you were-” an explosion rocked the street, the engine of the armoured car catching fire. I jumped, without even realising it, stumbling over my words. Archie, throwing a quick glance back at the vehicle, sighed before looking back at me.

“I’m fine, I- I needed time to prepare, so we all had to lay low,” there was a hint of regret in his voice, as if he knew that this – all of this – was, to say the least, messy, and that he should have let us know, or at least give a signal he was okay. He sighed, wiping his nose, “Look, I’m sorry I worried you. But as you can see,” he extended his arm out wide, a symphony of bullets going off in the distance, “It was for a good reason,” as he put his arm down, I noticed a bandage peeking between his sweater that was always a little too small for him and his glove.

“Are you hurt?” I nodded at his wrist. Dumbfounded, he patted himself before finally noticing what I was on about.

“Oh, that. No, that’s- that’s just another part of the prep – this was like step 3 of the plan, as none of… well, this, would be possible with our IDs still under our skin, so…” he swallowed, pushing the memory down, “It wasn’t pleasant. Don’t ask.”

Another explosion rocked the street – this time, considerably heavier – provoking sporadic shouting and another burst of gunfire.

“Listen, Xxx, it’s not safe. You should go back; this – tonight – no offence, I don’t think you’re quite built to stomach this.”

“I can’t,” I dismissed the irony of Archie, of all people, saying that, opting instead just to be blunt and to the point, “I have to get to Vauxhall.”

“V- Xxxxxxxx?! Are you bloody mad?!”

“I don’t have time to explain, Archie, I’m sorry. But I can’t go back; I must get to the other side. I won’t get in your way, I promise.”

“Get in my- Are you hearing yourself?! This isn’t our usual shift; the entire city will look like this in less than an hour! How the hell are you thinking of getting there?!”

“I don’t fucking know!” I snapped at him, breath shuddering, pushing him off me. Realising how loud I was, I cleared my throat, pushing out the smoke that began scratching me at the back, “I don’t know. But I have to get there,” Archie, ever the charmer, audibly groaned, putting both of his hands to his head as if fighting the life’s biggest migraine. For all I knew, at that moment, he was.

“Fine. Fuck you, Xxxxx, but fine, keep you fuck-ass secrets,” he looked around himself, grabbing a rifle from a dead soldier that laid to the side, “But you’re not going through the Old City. FiDi is full of military, from the Dome to Barbican and back in every direction, so we are hitting it hard to divert attention from the Government Sector,” with one free hand, he pulled out a yellowish, stained paper map of the Capital, something I haven’t seen in close to half a decade now since they stopped printing new ones. My eyes ran sporadically through it, from scribbles in the corner to the red circles and squares, and a massive X atop the Government Sector. Archie, meanwhile, had retrieved a small flashlight from his pocket, illuminating the rest of the faded paper, “You’ll have to go around, first to Old Street, north from here. Then make your way up Angel, over towards Camden. I don’t know what the situation is like there, but assuming our plan’s worked, you should be able to slip by. That should lead you to Xxxx’s Crossing and the railway station – it should be packed, people are waiting for the last train out tomorrow, you’ll blend in easily-”

“Are those still running?” I interrupted him.

“What?”

“After the firebombing? I thought you-”

“Oh, get off it, did you read that in fucking Postage? That was a different group, and they only bombed the exterior – the inside is fine, trains were still running earlier today. I tell you that on good authority,” he paused, as if anticipating a rebuttal, but I had nothing – I didn’t mean to fight that once, “Anyhows. Get to the station, then make your way down to the Temple riverbank through Bloomsbury and the University Hospital – there’s an underpass, close to Sommerset, that will take you over. Got it?”

“What about you?” I asked sheepishly, almost on instinct.

“I am not going with you. I have my orders,” he peeked from above the crate, observing the bloodbath up ahead, “But I am headed in the same direction. If, by some miracle, you don’t die,” I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not at that moment, “And you can make it there before midnight, I’ll meet you around Temple, just before you cross. Deal?” I paused, contemplating his plan, trying to work out in my mind the distance and the time it’d take me to get there. My first instinct, almost mockingly, was to check the train times, but of course, that’d be useless. My second instinct was to stare at the map, as if I were trying to burn through it, picturing the route as a line, an uroboros, an imperfect circle, and wondering if I had really lost my mind, after all. The whole time, my eyes were glued to the rifle in his other hand, contemplating if it was an extra measure of precaution, “Xxxxx, did you hear what I fucking said?”

“Yes!” I jumped audibly, “Yes, I did. Old Street, then up to Angel, then King’s Crossing, then the riverbank.”

“Good man,” he let himself smile – in a mocking, Archie-like smile, but a smile, nonetheless. Noticing my unbroken stare at the rifle in his hand, he chuckled softly, “Don’t worry, that’s not for you – but I will certainly need it,” putting the map away into his backpack, he breathed in, as both his hands clamped the rifle, as his mind and eyes drifted towards the firefight up ahead, his whole body tensing up, as if before a leap of faith. But just before he did, he broke his gaze, looking over at me, “May we both live to see the sunrise. I’ll see you there.”

“You too,” I threw back hesitantly, wondering for a moment if that answer now put me on the government’s terrorist list. That was a pointless inquiry, of course – I clearly had been on a similar list for a while now. Archie, to his end, without breaking a further sweat, leapt up, raised the rifle, and ran towards the next gate, his silhouette burning up around the edges in the flames coming from the station. As he raised the gun, I looked away, ducking down for one last catch of breath, eyeing up the opening to the right that would take me exactly where I needed to go.

There was no time left to spare. I leapt to my feet and ran, drowning out the shouts and the gunfire in the back like unwanted, unhelpful distractions that they were.

9:40 pm
By the time I got close enough to Old Street, it was no longer possible to dismiss the shouts and the screams and the gunfire as mere distractions. Wherever I turned my head, an echo would roll towards me, telling me everything I needed to know and yet nothing specific enough to realistically picture it throughout the city; so much so it would even drown out the hum of drones in the sky (of which I was certain there were so many by that point, I did not even want to try and verify anything myself). Occasionally, an explosion would rock the air – the closer it was, the more snow would fall off the buildings; miraculously, none were so close as to warrant a concern (or so I told myself, anyhow). Yet as I got closer to the familiar sight of Shoreditch, where I’d spent many a night out during my uni days, an eerie lack of… well, anything, had taken over. There were no screams, no gunfire, nothing – except for the sound of sirens, the one thing that grew louder the closer I got. I wondered what it meant – and especially, who won? – if somehow the EMTs, the firefighters, and, presumably, the police were in the area. I wondered if it would be better for me if one side were prevailing over the other. I quickly banished the selfish thought out of my mind, a little embarrassed with myself.

Getting closer, I saw haphazardly set up barricades along the road: dumpsters, abandoned cars, overturned post-boxes, behind which – perfectly leisurely – sat dark figures with bright orange armbands, guns in hand. It took me a moment to catch their eyes staring me down as I approached the street, yet none seemed threatening in a traditional sense of the word – none raised their weapons at me, no one even shouted; it seemed as if, even amidst the chaos of this night, and the apparent oddity that my presence on the street may have been, I remained perfectly unexceptional to them, a larger, grander goal poisoning their mind instead.

“Who’s that?” I finally overheard someone ask to my left.

“He look like a met to you? Who gives a shit.”

“What about agitators?”

“Andrew, fucking look around, there’s nothing left to agitate – just watch the bloody road.”

Not one to take my luck for granted, I moved past the barricades, trying not to attract any further attention.

As I approached the roundabout, a dramatic scene unravelled in the centre: a sturdy police SUV broke through the protected bio-hub, planting itself firmly in its walls. With red and blue lights pulsating, you could see the withering of the carefully constructed biome inside the bubble, as the cold air from the outside sucked the delicate biological balance right out – a sight I found both melodramatic and incredibly sad all at once. You could see scratches on the doors and a dark residue on the armour panel covering the front window, an aftermath of a makeshift Molotov cocktail doing its job exactly as intended. Yet while that was perfectly expected (indeed, it would’ve been strange not to see anything on the car), weirder still was the sight of a man, dressed in full police gear, standing by the car’s hood alongside a woman wearing a patchy beret, and a visibly tired firefighter, clutching his yellow helmet, intensely discussing something over a map lit by a gas lamp. It was strange to see a policeman conversing so casually with a rebel (a fireman, not as much – no one ever has a problem with firefighters, and they do tend to be on the right side of things in most scenarios) – for a moment, I even thought I was seeing things. Yet, that thought was quickly dissolved by the sight of another group of policemen, standing by one of the overpriced bars (of which, I assure you, there were many in the area), attentively explaining something related to a case of guns in front of them to a group of men with those same orange armbands, their reflective glares illuminating in the fire of a rusty barrel someone set on fire as a makeshift campfire. Beyond the roundabout, on the street led directly to Angel, a group of seemingly civilians with their faces covered – be it from the cold or the surveillance drones up above – were constructing even more barriers with the help of armed figures with orange armbands and the more firefighters, their yellow-and-green protective suits glistering in the lights of emergency flares and makeshift bonfires alike.

Even in times of chaos, Old Street continued to be a hub of activity in some of the more surprising ways imaginable.

“Oi,” a voice, with a thick northern accent, beckoned to me from behind, “You lost or something, lad?” As I turned around, I was greeted by a burly man in a checkered turban, wearing a tattered police uniform and a simple grey puffer that matched his beard. His bulletproof vest, a staple of police attire in these last few weeks, was scratched in multiple places, and the word “POLICE” on the front itself was now covered with bright orange tape.

“I’m not a cop,” I said on instinct, my eyes darting down to a dark outline of a riot shotgun he wore on a sling off his shoulder, “I’m just passing by,” the man chuckled, stiffly but earnestly.

“Don’t worry mate, even if you were, we don’t shoot cops here,” he looked me up and down, as if trying to measure out what I was exactly, “As long as you are one of the good ones, that is.”

“Like I said, I’m- I’m just passing by,” the whole exchange was making me nervous, as I could sense his piercing gaze trying to laser right through, “What happened here?”

“What, that?” he nodded towards the roundabout with the stuck SUV, “Oh, nothing much. We’re the riot unit from our local precinct. That man over there – that’s our captain. We are helping keep the peace around here.”

“That’s… unexpected,” I didn’t realise I said that out loud, but the man, thankfully, seemed more amused than anything.

“What, you never saw cops evening the odds a little? I suppose we don’t have the best reputation lately, but come on, cops were working with protestors even before the Festival incident!” I thought back to the journalist, wondering if she had ever published that story or if there was simply something I didn’t know about. I thought there and then that she may very well have been somewhere in the city – if there ever was a night to do meaningful journalism on, today was it, and it was hard to imagine her not taking her chances, despite the danger, to be out on the frontlines of it all; and a part of me, despite how dangerous it was, hoped she was.

“There was a demonstration here?” I switched gears; there was no need to talk conspiracies.

“Mere hours earlier, if you can believe it,” indeed, once you looked closer, you could spot pretty easily the placards and banners scattered on the ground, a few ominously covered with drops of blood that simply appeared black in the red light of the flares. As the man said it, he simply stretched, almost bored, like this was a mere retelling of his grocery trip, “A last minute thing, from what I can tell, but nothing too drastic – just some people with placards and banners. But then the lights went out, and our commander – man, he lost his shit,” he spat forcefully, wiping his nose with a free hand, “That’s when our captain decided to… take charge, I suppose, and here we are now.”

“What about the military?”

“What about them?” he scoffed, as if this was a ridiculous question even to contemplate, “There’s barely a brigade in the entire Capital, without counting the guardsmen and the cops, some of whom are crossing the isle as we speak –they don’t have enough personnel to hold every district, only the Old City and Government Sector are a priority. Last I saw, they even pulled patrols out of poorer areas up North and East. So, as far as I’m concerned, this is now an autonomous zone. See,” a smile crept on his face as he faced the broken police vehicle, “It even has formal government backing!” he laughed, voice booming through the street, attracting a few glances from the barricades that were being set on the other end from us.

“Right,” I gulped, seeking a way out, “Listen, I gotta get to Xxxx’s Crossing – can I pass through?” even in that moment, I knew better than to say where I was heading – something in the air was off, and I could tell this man was not going to be as cooperative and helpful as Archie.

“Xxxx’s Crossing? Oh, nah, absolutely not. Reinforcements are coming from Angel, and I can tell you they won’t be as willing to switch sides as we were. It’s either all hands on deck with the barricades right now, or fucking off, but def no going beyond.”

“Listen, I can’t – I’m sorry, I’m not against you guys, but I have to go.”

“Hey now,” he suddenly gripped my hand, hurting my wrist in the process, “Whole city is a warzone, and you are just casually strolling around? Get fucking real,” his face shifted towards anger, “You should be lucky nobody shot you yet,” there was, if only for a moment, a desire – that intense, overwhelming urge – to run; to shake him off my hand, and let loose. Yet as my gaze travelled to the slung gun on his shoulder, I swallowed the thought alongside my fear. I may have been fast on occasion; I was not faster than a shotgun pellet.

“Okay then,” I sheepishly remarked, feeling him loosen the grip on my wrist, “I heard you. No passing through.”

“Good man,” he took a step back, easing ever so slightly, but not so much that he didn’t seem ready to raise his weapon at me as soon as I tried to make a dash for it, “Now go make yourself useful – there’s plenty to do,” I nodded, stepping away from the man, feeling his steely gaze on my back, all the way until I turned the corner, continuously fighting the urge to run.

Making my way past the confused faces of rebels and simple protesters alike (not that the distinction makes a difference to whoever is monitoring this), I tried to figure out a way out that didn’t involve pushing past the barricades – a fight that I knew for a fact I would lose instantly. I knew the area well enough to know I wasn’t going in the opposite direction, but not so well that I could navigate it in the almost perfect darkness of the street. The GPS, unhelpfully, was down, and I was afraid of another confrontation as at the roundabout. Occasionally, I’d hear a shout, but for the most part, it seemed like everyone had bigger things to worry about, be it cleaning their guns in preparation for the next police assault, or treating their wounded comrades, or assembling pipe bombs Jesus, fuck, that’s on the naughty list too? God damn, whatever, you get the point.

At some point, lost in thought, I passed by a familiar street: a converted pub on the corner, now being occupied by protestors and revolutionaries together, setting up equipment and serving as a makeshift supply station; an old market further down, standing quietly behind impenetrable fiberglass and metal gate; and an apartment building where, seemingly in another life, I stood one snowy night waiting to deliver a bottle of wine to a disgruntled, heartbroken writer. I couldn’t help but wonder if he had gotten out by that point. Despite parting on a deeply uncertain note, I wished he did – the way things were right now, I don’t know if he’d be inspired or would find this as the final reason to finally, truly, give in to despair. There would be no answer, of course – the windows of his flat were completely dark, without so much as a hint of light on the outside.

As my eyes travelled down, back to street level, I spotted another graffiti, inscribed just above the ground-level windows. Boasting a similar red paint – and an all-familiar smell to boot – this one was a little less relevant to the night in question, but carrying no less potent of a message all the while:

CLOSURE IS A SCAM

Taking my eyes off the paint and the thoughts it invoked, I tried to brush the memories aside, just as soon as a pair of rebels in rugged coats stepped out of the pub. Throwing a glance as they approached me, I quickly realised that I was the last thing on their mind, as the two carried a seemingly heavy crate filled with bottles between them. Hurriedly, I stepped aside, under the archway of the writer’s former residency, getting out of the way and out of sight.

“Why the fuck are we putting all our resources on the road?” the younger one, his fair hair blowing gently in the wind over a damp bandage over his forehead, beckoned, “Are we not worried they’d come elsewhere?”

“Alex, use your brain: there’s a ten-foot wall towards the East End,” the slightly older one with a scar over his cheek quipped back, “And the Cockney Volunteers are holding Islington. Where the fuck would they even come from?”

“Canals, innit?” the young one was relentless, “We’ve got, what, one person looking over them, so I figured-”

“I assure you, comrade, they will not be coming from the canals – they want a show of strength, nothing big enough would fit there,” the scarred man puffed as he pulled on the crate, “Now for the love of God, HEAVE, unless you want to explain where our supply of firebombs went!” with that, the two sped up their stride, passing me by none the wiser of the idea they have planted into my mind.

10:12 pm
I am not usually one to take second-hand advice from strangers on the street, but I had to admit: the canals were a wicked, one hell of an idea. Quickly stalking my way up the blocks where protestors and rebels congregated, I emerged from a dank alleyway, not too dissimilar to the one behind our office, to a small pier, lit up by a single electric lantern; I heard the sentry before I saw him: a scrawny, short figure, dressed like he was going for a hike, slightly oversized mountaineer trousers and a slick, but equally slightly too big, hunting jacket; a buzzcut adorning his head, making me wonder if he was cold in this weather; a bright orange patch on the sleeve of his arm, tightly gripping a revolver, resting on a wooden railing next to a walkie-talkie. He was bent over and shouting into the canal below.

“Which part of ‘no, you CAN’T go upstream’ did you not understand?!” his young voice, a hint of Southern posh accent traced throughout, echoed in the night, only response to it being stifled sounds of gunfire somewhere off in the distance, “Even if – EVEN IF – I could let you through, they’ll shoot you on sight!”

“Well, that’s none of your business now, aye?” a different voice beckoned somewhere below the pier, commanding and feminine, equally southern but less posh, “We want to get out, we ain’t bothering you lot, let us through!”

“I CAN’T- Lady, you are not listening to me!” he threw his arms in frustration, keeping the revolver firmly in his left, but finger off the trigger, “My only tasks are: ONE, to either scream if someone’s coming through the canal, or TWO, NOT LET ANYONE THROUGH!”

“You seem to be doing fine on the first one, so job well done! Now let us through!”

“Ma’am,” he began turning around, pointing with his hands towards where I was now standing, unsure of what to do, “There is- WHAT THE FUCK!” he jumped up, swiftly pointing his revolver at me. Now that I could see his face, seemingly still only seemingly preparing to grow the first bit of a moustache on it, I found it hard not to find the scene – bar the gun pointed at me – at least a little amusing, “Who the fuck are you?!”

“I’m, uh,” I almost said ‘Courier.’ God, fucking hell, “Nobody. I’m just trying to pass by.”

“Another one- you are HAVING A LAUGH!” the boy grabbed his head in frustration, letting out a groan, “Why, WHY can’t you all just either do as you’re asked to or simply stay in place tonight! Fuck!” with a wave around, he turned back to the pier, seemingly collecting his thoughts. At that moment, a figure in a green raincoat peeked from underneath the pier at me.

“Oi,” she clasped her hand in a semi-circle, shouting at me, “You also headed to the station for that last train out?”

“I am!” it was, technically, not entirely a lie, and it seemed just as well not to have to explain my utterly insane plan. The woman, satisfied with my answer, clapped her hands.

“See?! We aren’t the only ones trying to catch the last train out of the city!”

“You people would’ve been shot a hundred years ago…” the boy muttered under his breath, still not looking up.

“Well, good thing it’s not a hundred years ago, is it!” that lady was relentless, and I couldn’t help but respect her for it, “If you lived as long as I did, maybe you’d understand.”

“Hey, I may be young, but I’m a soldier of the Suns!” he jerked his head up, raising the gun at her again, “You do not talk to a soldier like that!”

“Alright, listen,” I finally raised my voice, alongside my arms, pre-emptively readying for the gun to be pointed at me this time, “Look at us. We aren’t cops, we aren’t soldiers like you. I’m not a fighter, nor is she. We are just two people. What can we possibly do?” I couldn’t tell if my words were having any effect on him. However, I was happy to take the fact that I still had my head not blown off as a sign that I am getting through at least somewhat, “Just let us pass. We can worry about what happens afterwards,” his mouth opened, as if he was ready to argue, a sight I was both guilty of myself and saw it one too many times. Suddenly, the radio behind him buzzed with static, coming alive. Hesitating for a moment, he reached for it with his free hand, raising it to his ear. I couldn’t tell what was being said on the other end, but I could guess, by the sour grimace that was emerging on the young boy’s face, that it was nothing good. Lowering the radio, he sighed, putting the gun into a holster that was on his belt, buried just under his jacket.

“It’s your lucky day,” he stepped to the corner of the pier where, in the shadow of the wall, his backpack laid this whole time, “There’s a whole brigade coming down the hill right now, so perhaps it would really be better if you just got the hell out of the way of people who give a shit.”

“Hey, man,” the lady spoke up again, “There’s no need to be so bitter about it, we’re just-”

“Oh, shove it – you got what you wanted, now get the fuck out of here!” there was a sense of desperation in his voice, as if this small gig of his – watching the canal – was the most important job he has done in his life, and it was now being torn away from him, for, seemingly, inevitable doom. Judging by how young he looked, maybe it was; but now came the real fight, and as his twitching brow betrayed, he was still gearing up for that, “Say hi to jackboots over at the Crossing, I hope they put you in first class,” extinguishing the lamp, he brushed past me, shoving me on the shoulder, and hurried off down the street, never to be seen again. I stood in darkness and silence for a moment, listening to the shouts and echoes of gunfire from somewhere far away, until a creaking step broke the silence.

“Well?” I turned over, my eyes having adjusted to the dark – the lady was peeking with her head in between the railing, “I don’t have all day, but you are welcome to hitch a ride with us.”

“Sure,” I responded without a second of contemplation – the faster I could get West, the better, “Thank you,” she nodded, going back down. But as I affixed my bag, about to follow her, my eyes travelled to the wall where the boy’s backpack stood mere seconds ago. Another graffiti revealed itself, this one was a little more abstract than the previous ones: a smudge on the bottom, with just enough details to understand that it was meant to represent a crowd of people, their hands reaching up to the sky, were in the direct line of a something that was clearly meant to represent a rocket, thrusting towards them. In the poignant message, a sentence:

AND YET THEY’LL TELL YOU THIS IS WHAT YOU VOTED FOR

In the distance, another explosion rocked the air, and a flash gleamed in the corner of my eyes. Looking up, I saw a fire beyond the horizon, beyond the trees of the park, on the other side of the canal, and far, far away, but still distinctly within the Capital.

“So much for the ‘reinvigorating the East’ – looks like even the Olympic Park isn’t going to be spared,” murmured the woman, who by now was at the helm of her narrowboat, which revealed itself as I finally saw below the railing, “Let’s get out of here,” she wouldn’t need to ask me twice.

As the boat travelled down the canal, I couldn’t believe the emptiness all around: ditched bikes and rowing boats littered the sides; the path, usually constantly occupied by bikers and joggers, stood empty still, wind rustling the garbage of all sorts; a sense of peace and serenity, had it not been for flashes and fires in the distance, was desperately fighting to take hold amongst closed down cafes and restaurants, apartment buildings and the like, with only occasional candle or flashlight seen behind the curtains. Had it been summer, this could’ve even been pleasant; as it stood now, though, all I felt was dread as we steadily navigated towards the Capital’s central railway station.

“So where are you really going?” I was broken out of my trance by the woman in the raincoat, firmly gripping the wheel of her boat behind me. In my concentration, I haven’t even realised how leisurely I had lounged myself on the deck, forgetting altogether about the captain of the ship I was on now.

“Pardon?”

“No trains are running out of the Capital tonight, it’s a stay in place order. There’s maybe a handful of people congregating there, cause it’s a Green Zone of sorts, but that’s only for those who are already in the area,” she smirked in the warm light of the lamp hanging near the wheel, “So, where are you really going?”

I contemplated lying to her for a second, but it seemed rude, given the kindness and assistance that she’d given me so far. Plus, it’s not as if I was getting off this boat anytime soon, so what was the bloody point?

“I am trying to get to Vauxhall, taking the long way around.”

“Vauxhall? As in, the Vauxhall, on the other side of the river? Ha!” she clapped her hand against her shoulder, “Kids these days, you’re crazy. You got a girl there or something?”

“Not exactly,” I rubbed my neck, the weight of the parcel in my bag making it feel like an entire mountain on my shoulders at that moment, “I just need to… I made a promise to someone I care about, and I gotta deliver on it tonight,” I nodded at my bag, with a company logo still on it, “Literally,” she seemed receptive to the pun, politely chuckling.

“You’re one of those midnight couriers, huh? Me and my husband, we actually made use of your services a couple of times while we were here – it’s amazing the sorts of things you guys can get, some things I haven’t had in decades!” now that she said it, I realised how difficult it was to pinpoint her age: she was older than me, that much was clear, but her voice sounded young, full of energy, and the silver hair could very well have been a dye. Naturally, I didn’t ask – one should never ask a woman her age, especially when she is driving a boat so expertly she gives off an impression of being able to easily throw you overboard with a single swift move of the wheel.

“Where is your husband, anyway?”

“Downstairs,” she waved behind herself, towards the door leading inside the ship, “He gets a little seasick, so I told him to take five and sleep it off, if possible, while I take the helm.”

“I’m sorry,” it seemed appropriate to apologise, despite seasickness not being that big a deal.

“Nah, don’t be it – the boat was his idea,” she shook her head gently, “He knew what he signed up for, even though I appreciate his thoughtfulness for the anniversary.”

“Are you not headed to the station, then?”

“Didn’t I just tell you, there are no trains running tonight?” there was a softness to her scolding, like a teacher handling a teenager with soft gloves after he would step out of line. And just like a scolded teenager, I felt embarrassed, but in this smooth, not-the-end-of-the-world way, “We’re gonna keep going upstream until we can’t anymore. God knows, what the situation is up East, especially since they imposed the internet blackout, but I’ll take our chances,” I don’t know why, but I didn’t believe her at first, so I pulled my phone out – as discreetly as possible – and tried opening the news frontpage. What do you know, it came back with an error message.

“You could check some SmokeSignal groups,” I tried to be useful, if not as a character trait, then at least to repay her somehow, “There are often-”

“Shh! Look!” she raised her hand in the direction of the bank behind me, so I turned around, shushed, my eyes widening in horror as I did.

I finally saw what the preparations were for: steadily from Angel, now parallel to the canal we were on, and down to Old Street, a police helicopter, alongside a swarm of drones, moved. If you listened closely, you could hear the boots and clubs, the guns and riot shields, moving right beneath it, in hundreds of pairs. A loudspeaker was bellowing orders to “lay down your arms and surrender immediately,” followed by, almost with no hesitation or delay, “whomps” of a launcher, unleashing a barrage of either tear gas or flashbangs (or so I wanted to believe). Screams erupted moments later, being heard all the way down at the canal. An array of gunfire followed, a few bullets ricocheting off the helicopter with sparks and flashes of fire, a false impression of victory in any capacity being just a lucky strike away. Then, immediately, a cacophony of drones, half of them descending sharply downwards like bombers going down for their targets, while the other half continued to float above, dispersing some sort of brown gas.

“Tear gas,” said the woman, whom I’ve completely forgotten about by that point, “I can’t believe it, they are actually dispersing concentrated tear gas with those things!”

Suddenly, with a sharper, whooshing sound, the swarm was split in two with traces of red, green, yellow, and blue, piercing the night, and heading straight for the helicopter: fireworks, now reassembling an artillery barrage instead, broke the dark sky, overwhelming the cockpit and the pilots inside, so much so that the helicopter had begun – very noticeably from even where we were – to lose its balance right there, up above the street, before one rocket, with a loud crash, broke the window completely. As it spun out of control, sparks flying in every direction, I saw someone fall out of it before the metallic body scraped a couple of drones with its tail and disappeared behind the buildings. 

Then, momentarily, an echo of an explosion. Cheers and screams, mixing in a maddening echo. More shots. Sounds of a brawl. Until, steadily, they disappeared, as the boat continued trudging along the canal. The drones continued to hover above for another few seconds before peeling off in a different direction, somewhere towards the Financial District. A relative silence regained itself, as both the captain and I could only look and try to make out some, any sounds.

“Did they win, you reckon?” I wasn’t sure which ‘they’ she meant, not that I’d have a clue.

“I guess it’ll be clear in the morning,” was as good of an answer as I could give her.

10:47 pm
Before you even got to Coal Yards, former stables sitting just above the railway station, you could smell the burnt grass and metal. By the time you got there, you would wish you could turn back around. On a regular day, this place would be filled with people of all ages, sitting on the green with pints of beer, picnic baskets, books, whatever else, enjoying the unlikely hub of nature in the middle of a sprawling megapolis. A floating library would provide free education; a travelling band would be playing in front of the gastropub; expensive restaurants and hidden gems would be scattered both north and south of you, with every direction offering an innocent, innocuous adventure; a romance; a taste of life and its finest offerings. Now, however, it was a wasteland: the greenery was covered in small little fires everywhere; the gastropubs had their windows smashed and tables overturned; the floating bookstore laid in the canal, halfway down, sunk; remains of rebels and soldiers and the police, dried up blood illuminated in the floodlights from one of the banks, laid scattered all around; burnt car carcasses littered the street, with only a drone, the outline of which was hard to gauge through the smoke, still patrolling the skies, its mission unchanged, its gaze – inescapable.

“What the fuck happened here…” the captain uttered as the boat closed in. She’s been quiet for the rest of our journey up, still processing the scenes near Old Street, with the newest scene in front of us coming off even more shocking, “It’s like a war was fought here.”

“These must be rebels from Islington,” was all I could think of; it made sense – the borough was bordering the station to the North, and by the sound of it, some of the fiercest clashes leading up to Christmas happened there, “They probably thought they could take the station, but…” suddenly, the boat trembled, bringing itself to a stop in a shadow, some distance off a bridge in front of us, “What’s happening?”

“The station,” the lady threw back at me, pulling up the hood of her raincoat, “You reminded me, just in time, too. You should get off here and make it on foot.”

“What about you?”

“We’re gonna pause,” something in her posture shifted, as if the wind was knocked out of her sails temporarily, “I don’t know how far we’d get if this is what the rest of the path looks like. I need to think.”

“You could come with me?” I threw out, desperately, as something underneath my stomach began to twitch, “You said so yourself, it’s a Green Zone, you can stay there for a bit,” she interrupted me, firmly shaking her head.

“My husband’s in no state to walk, but you can sneak in here, I’m sure. I appreciate the concern, though,” she smiled, seeing that I was not convinced by her words, “You’re a good kid, but I promise you, we’ll be alright. Worry about where you’re going – you don’t have an easy path ahead of you.”

I wanted to fight her on this, but there was a gleam in her eyes, a gleam I’ve only ever seen once before, in Sam’s; that gleam that, once you see it, you know there was no convincing them to change their mind; that gleam of destructive self-assurance of having made up on your mind on, if not the best option available, then at least one that you will not be moved on, for whichever reasons you want to believe in.

“Okay,” I sighed, steadying myself for balance to hop off the boat, “Thank you- Thank you so much, for your help.”

“Ah, don’t mention it – it’s Christmas, innit?” she parried lightly, notes of worry lingering in every vowel, “Good luck to you.”

“And you, too,” a parting phrase lingered in my throat somewhere, a sincere exclamation for both of us to see the sunrise, but it felt wrong to say out loud, like somehow I would jinx her and myself by proclaiming it, so I decided against, instead leaving her with a nod and the assurance, however self-justified, that she will really be okay.

Back on solid ground, I slipped into the alleyways, trying to listen as attentively as I could for patrols, but all I could hear were murmurs and shouts with an occasional sound of gunfire further away. The air felt hot and heavy, as is expected in the city overtaken by madness, but something was off about the air here. After some looking around, I realised what it was: the embers, falling from the sky, smelled like burnt paper. At that point, I didn’t yet know what was happening, but I followed them to lead me into the makeshift Green Zone in the centre of the Capital, making sure to avoid any direction where radio chatter could be heard.

If ‘safe’ were a subjective state of being, it would be the first thing you’d think about as you emerged to the Xxxx’s Crossing that night. The railway station, relatively undamaged (except for the exterior damage to the windows on the upper level, as noted by Archie), was cordoned off by police barricades. Soldiers in camo coveralls sat atop their vehicles, some bored, others tense. In the middle of the road, a green box-shaped tent was busy with commotion, as men in uniform came in and out of it, some carrying boxes, others barking orders – a command centre, I reasoned. A couple of soldiers hurried away from it, rifles dangling on their shoulders, attempting, in their fast-paced walk, to share a cigarette as they headed to the bridge to, presumably, switch with sentries I guessed were there but never saw. Policemen mingled with them, their opaque helmets making them seem more like robots operating on basic autopilot, trying to be useful. In total, I counted no more than fifty of them scattered all around, living in this uneasy peace. The sole sense of normalcy was supplied by the vendors, handing out free coffee and refreshments, to mere citizens and active personnel alike, who seemed to stumble around aimlessly, waiting – or looking – for something, just as I was at that very moment.

Out front by the station, just behind the barricades, sat civilians like me, slouching together by various sources of heat, at times just trying to stick together as closely as they could, sharing blankets and stories of what was happening. For a moment, I thought the station was providing a refuge for the unluckiest ones, caught in the crossfire: the homeless, the wounded, the likes. Yet, the suitcases and bags scattered all around betrayed that theory, as I realised what was happening instead: people were queuing up to catch that last train tomorrow. I could only speculate how packed it was inside, but that seemed like a fruitless exercise.

Much more compelling (and worrying) was the sight behind the station: seemingly mere blocks away, a fire, rising almost all the way to the sky for all I knew, was raging. It followed, from its sheer size and ferocity, to be some building; perhaps a part of the station? No, the people around were way too calm for it to have been it. An apartment building? Plausible, but that didn’t explain the overwhelming smell of burnt paper…

Then a scary thought occurred to me: the Library, one of the last few in the Capital, and the oldest archive of literature in the country. But who would do something like that? It made no sense; it advanced no goal; it was nothing more than brutish, reckless terror. I wanted to get a better look, find a way around the cordon, but I saw an entire blockade of fire trucks down the street, with firefighters tirelessly running to extinguish the flames, regardless of whether they succeeded or not.

At that moment, as I rounded the junction, I spotted another graffiti, hidden away from the main commotion in front of the station and the rising fire, tucked into an alley leading towards Bloomsbury (and, coincidentally, my memory of Mia, once I realised just how close I was to her hostel). In no uncertain terms, and without any willingness to compromise on its language – oh, the censors are gonna love this one! – it read, in by now familiar red paint, a solemn warning:

WHEN FASCISM COMES, IT WOULDN’T ANNOUNCE ITSELF, BUT THE (14) SIGNS WILL BE THERE

In that moment, my curiosity was getting the better of me to look up those 14 signs, even if I suspected some of them to be pretty common sense. But of course, the internet blackout was still in effect, and the irony of it all was not lost on me.

“Xxxxx?” I heard someone call my name, jumping up ever so slightly from surprise. Turning around, I saw an unexpected – but welcoming – friendly sight: Said, wrapped in a heavy winter scarf, had their hand reached out to me, which in itself was covered in a blue latex glove.

“Oh, fuck, I’m sorry,” I gasped for air, chuckling softly, “You spooked me.”

“Didn’t mean to, sorry, I just thought that may have been you,” they pulled their scarf down a bit, revealing their mouth fully, locked in an unreadable grin that could’ve just as well spell out either muted relief or concern, “It’s good to see you, present situation notwithstanding.”

“You too,” I smiled back, banking on their earnestness, “Though, a bit of a surprise?” the moment the words escaped my mouth, Said raised their hand, shushing me, before waving to follow them. Behind, I spotted a smaller white tent with a red cross atop of it, as things began falling into place, “Right, sorry,” I hurried behind them to the tent, as we departed from the junction, just as a small patrol glanced at us en route to the burning library.

Inside the tent, there was no shortage of activity. On two rows of beds, people of all kinds were lying, some bandaged, others groaning in pain from something much less visible. Doctors (or volunteers, nurses, whatever) hurriedly stepped from one patient to the next, each carrying a bag or a box full of medical supplies, attempting, as hastily as they could, to administer help. On the other end, just before the entrance/exit, a different group of people were busy rummaging through a crate of supplies, packing them in gym bags, backpacks, and totes – nothing that could hold space was spared.

“I could say the same thing about you,” Said finally continued once we were under the blue lights of the tent, with the generator humming and puffing away outside, “Why are you here? I thought you’d stick it out East for tonight.”

“I can’t explain,” I shook my head, not willing to get into an argument, “But I’m meeting Archie near Temple underpass just before midnight, if I can get there on time, to cross to the other side.”

“Smart,” Said nodded, “I mean, it’s a little close to the Old City, but bridges are closed down, so this is probably your best bet,” I was a little taken aback by their tone – there seemed no hidden desire, no surprise, in hearing about my stupid, nonsensical plan.

“You’re not gonna ask me why?”

“You said you can’t explain; what’s the point?” they shrugged, bigger things, as always, on their mind. It was sound logic, and I couldn’t possibly look the gifted horse in the mouth on that, “Is Archie alright?”

“Last I saw him, they breached the Liverpool Street checkpoint, and he was headed deeper, towards Bank,” I tried to hide the unease in my voice, and Said’s face did not betray a shred of emotion, but on a gut level, I sensed that my words were affecting them, “I’m sure he’s okay, though.”

“It was his idea to send you up through here, wasn’t it? Fucking Archie…” Said shook their head, extracting a cigarette pack – still Fortunes – from their breast pocket. Taking a cigarette with their mouth, they extended the hand holding the pack to me, which I politely declined – I knew the effect nicotine would have on me a little too well, and there was no time to relax just yet. Without hesitation, Said put the pack back, and produced a lighter, “When you do see him, tell him I said he’s a dumb asshole.”

“Why aren’t you there, by the way?” I finally decided to reel the conversation back to my initial inquiry. Said shuddered for a moment, as if I had asked something particularly embarrassing, giving me a loaded glare, before visibly readjusting themselves.

“I’m not a fighter, Xxxxx, never was. This,” they waved their free arm around the makeshift ward, “Is what I do,” they took a drag, not caring for the doctors rushing past us, but mindful of the patients, blowing smoke in the opposite direction, “When the plan came to be, I fully intended to be in the field with others. But then the army cordoned off the entire area, from here down to Covent Garden, and asked for volunteers,” another drag, another pause. Then, “So I’m stuck here, doing what I can. At least for now,” they glanced suggestively at the people outside, packing the supplies, “Things have finally quietened down, so I and a few others from my unit will be making a dash towards Old City, to support our guys.”

“That’s a hell of a plan.”

“You are not one to speak,” they cheekily remarked back – it was a point well-taken, “But, listen, with the way things are unfolding, you should have a pretty easy, straight shot down to the riverbank, I reckon. Just, you know, try to stray away from gunfire and explosions.”

“Noted,” I nodded appreciatively, before remembering something else, “Hey, I’m not crazy in thinking that it’s the British Library on fire over there, right?” Said bowed their head lightly.

“Unfortunately.”

“What happened?”

“Why’d you ask me like I’m responsible?” their grimace turned sour – that definitely did not come out the way I was intending it to, “If you’re implying we did it, then no, not at all,” another drag, longer, angrier this time, “I don’t know, we’re still figuring it out, but word down the grapevine is that some rich kids from Xxxxxx’s did it.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I mean, that entire park is on lockdown with some PMC guarding it and Knightsbridge – well, let’s be honest, no revolution would ever start at Knightsbridge. In fact,” they raised their hand theatrically, as if delivering a fiery testimony to a crowd, “There’s a ‘end of the world’ party happening there right now – can you fucking believe that?” I could, unfortunately – I’ve met the types, and they really would not give any less of a shit what the state of the world is: party, cars, expensive champagne, that came first – be it in the hearts and minds, or on the social media feed, “Anyway, apparently, a few of them got so hammered they drove up here, in a car ‘too expensive’ to have been carrying any of us, and set the Library aflame. The army, and the pigs, they realised too late that the sprinkler system was not gonna kick in – budget cuts and all – so for the last hour or so, they were busy putting it out,” they leaned forward, looking past me, where the flames could be seen from, “What a senseless fucking waste.”

Their words were scolding, but it was hard to deny the truth of the matter: libraries just weren’t profitable, and their gradual phasing out over the decades past should’ve been the writing on the wall for any concerned advocate, teacher, or parent. That night, though, that was just the culmination of years-long buildup: evidently, in one of the many austerity bills, someone put a little clause cutting the budget of even the most important, most historically valuable collection of books in the nation, all to, probably, give another 10% off to the billionaires who remained the primary drivers of the economy (or so the powers that be insisted, day in and day out, for some thirty years now). And here it was, the reaping to the sowing, up in flames – literally and metaphorically – just down the street, on perhaps the most important night of my relatively short life yet.

While I was looking out, I hadn’t noticed how someone else had approached Said, whispering something in their ear. Whatever they said was hard to tell, but the way Said’s face shifted, it couldn’t mean anything good.

“We’re heading out now,” they finally turned to me, just as the figure disappeared back outside, “Apparently, the military is gonna be moving reinforcements up to FiDi momentarily, this is as good of a que for us to leave as any,” they paused, as if contemplating something. Then, “You should come with us, just to be safe.”

“Thanks, but I’ll take my chances,” it’d be wrong of me to say that I haven’t at least considered the offer – there was strength in numbers, promise of making it there a-okay. But there was also fear and shame: as I looked at Said’s unmoved, stoic face, a face that had sustained so much pain and terror already, a face I saw so recently begging to do ‘anything but this,’ now resting with assurance that all that they have done to prevent it was for not, accepting the worst case scenario and their part of it, I could tell – with surprising lucidity even by my standards – that I would only slow them down, or prevent them from helping the way they aspired to, or get them killed – none, understandably, being desirable outcomes, “I can avoid the patrols easier that way, and I’ll avoid being unhelpful to you,” Said chuckled, retrieving a coat.

“Xxxxx, you may be a lot of things, beyond the few things that I know about you, but I can guarantee you ‘unhelpful’ would not be one of them,” a sombre grin covered their face, like one you’d see on a tired, endeared older sibling, as you’d say some nonsense that would simply not be true about yourself – just as Margaret would look at me oh so many times, “But I shan’t argue. If you leave now and head towards the University Hospital, you should be able to slip by without an issue,” suddenly, their face shifted, all emotions once again disappearing from it, “If  you get hurt, please, for the love of all that is good, double back to the Hospital – we have people there, just say I sent you; they’ll know what to do,” they stepped up to me, patting me on the shoulder with their gentle hands, the warmth of which could be felt even through the gloves, my jacket, and even my numb skin, “May we both live to see the sunrise, and Merry Christmas.”

“You too,” was once again all I could muster back. Without hesitation, Said pulled away, grabbing their bag from the floor and slipping past a few doctors that were too busy with patients to notice anyone moving in or out, or it simply didn’t matter anymore – on that night, they were all on the same team, come what may. As they disappeared behind the drapes outside, I took that as my cue to go, too, slipping into the hot December night outside.

11:19 pm
Slipping through Bloomsbury, I felt like a ghost at a feast: amongst worried police officers, clutching their radios and hiding in their cars, ordinary people like me flooded the streets, a mix of curiosity and concern filling their faces. A blend of flares and floodlights illuminated the procession, the red and white mixing with the green and gold of garlands and decorations, giving it all a feverish quality. Passing by Mia’s hostel, I saw a choir, standing on a small pedestal in that same garden we walked by on our night walk, singing a hymn that almost drowned out a drone above them; further down in Bloomsbury, while passing by a small church that didn’t seem to quite fit amongst the tall buildings, I saw a couple, waddling together calmly with their suitcase in the opposite direction from mine, girl’s hands firmly entrenched around her significant other’s torso, shielding her from the cold; near Russel Square, a man was having a heart attack, onlookers unhelpfully crowded around him as paramedics tried to push others away, just as, on a lamppost directly next to them, a small makeshift memorial for a car crash victim assembled a bundle of flowers and candles, gently flickering in the wind; in the park near one of the old courts, a lonely man sat with two transparent bucket and a whiteboard, taking bets on whether or not the country will collapse by sunrise (the “ayes” were, at least when I passed by, winning by a substantial lead).

All around me, life continued – messy, unpredictably, strangely, unremarkably and impressively all at once. And yet I seemed invisible; I walked through it all like a passive observer of collective madness taking hold, with others trying to make sense of it in their own, strange ways, and above all else, not panic; it was, in many ways, a night like any other, even if nothing was to be the same by the morning light.

And in a stranger yet way, it brought me weird peace, even as I turned away from police cordons, even as I twitched at the sound of an explosion or a burst of gunfire, even as I feared for my life. Life went on, despite the irreparable damage that would be revealed in the morning.

Life went on, horrific as the consequences of an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force would be.

Life went on, and it was a sight that almost made the uneasy journey that I chose to make on this nonsensical, painfully commercialised, lonely holiday a little more bearable.

11:39 pm
Just after half past, after almost running into an altogether different police checkpoint an earshot away from the University Hospital, I finally made it to Temple. As I gazed at the river, the bridge bursting with activity from the army and the police alike, the seemingly peaceful Southern bank, I stayed in the shadows of the old art centre, its beautiful Georgian walls providing me with a perfect cover, trying not to attract unnecessary attention. Completely disregarding Said’s advice, I now found myself closer than ever to the sounds of gunfire, still raging on inside the depths of the Old City, and seemingly growing closer with each passing minute. Scrambled and afraid, I searched for the underpass from my cover, afraid to move a muscle. For a moment, I even began wondering if Archie was wrong – I certainly never heard of any underpass near Temple. Sure, there was the tube, but the entrance to it was shut with a metal grate, and I really, really did not want to go down to the river, as the second I’d make one move towards the steps leading down, I’d be caught, or gunned down, or a whole myriad of awful other things would happen to me.

Then, finally, I saw it: an opening, on the opposite end of the street from the entrance to the underground, just big enough for a couple of vehicles to squeeze through, with a distinct van sign and an “OFFICIAL CARS ONLY – NOT A COMMERCIAL UNDERPASS” warning immediately below. That had to be it, there simply could be no other doubt about it – but where was Archie? Where was anyone from the Suns?

I cursed myself for picking this side of the road; yes, this end was safer from the shadows of the art centre, but now a chasm of an empty road, with a very angry, on edge cordon observing my every move, laid bare between me and my destination (I figured, in retrospect, that a bus parked not far from that opening would’ve provided the perfect cover I sought in the shadows anyway, which only added a bitter insult to an already nauseatingly stupid injury). I wondered if it would’ve be easier just to double back at this point; if this expedition of mine was doomed form the beginning; if my legs would give in as I would start to run; if I got hit by a stray bullet, how long would it take for me to bleed out.

But none of them mattered, as I made the mad dash across the street.

“HALT!” someone screamed at me, as I felt the searchlight hit my face, “STOP IMMEDIATELY OR YOU WILL BE SHO-” but the end of the sentence never arrived, as a different bullet than the one intended for me, whizzed in the air and interrupted the speaker.

“IN THE WATER, BOATS!” a different voice bellowed, as a cacophony of gunfire resumed. I did my best to drown out the sound with my steps, feeling them fall harder, more clumsily, on the frozen-over road. Stumbling over myself, I pushed beyond what I thought my limits were, right into the opening, falling and grazing my knee – but alive, relieved, and, at least for the moment, safe.

But of course, that’d be too easy. Nothing is ever that easy, not on a fucking night like this. All I could do was let out a long, frustrated groan from the gutters of my soul: an impenetrable metallic sheet of a barrier blocked the only way in, with only an opening for the door – and, with no electricity, my only way in, locked tightly (trust me, I pushed and pulled as hard as I could – it simply would not go in either direction). Succumbing to panic, I felt my heart race, cursing Archie for sending me here, cursing myself for being stupid enough to believe this would work, cursing Sam for-

At once, I was overwhelmed by a loud bang, as my ears rang and my vision went blurry. I ducked instinctively, trying to hide from a gunshot that had already occurred, looking around in confusion and disbelief, with only a muffled voice behind me saying things I couldn’t recognise.

“Hands up,” a cold, calculated, yet familiar voice commanded me, just as the ringing began to subside. Instinctively, I obeyed, “Ah, good, so you can hear me,” I was frozen in fear, hearing the footsteps draw closer, a hand draped in a heavy glove patting me and my bag down, feeling the gun pressed against my spine, “Alright, turn around,” I didn’t want to; in fact, I’d rather do anything but turn around. But if I were to die that night, I’d prefer to know which of the many stupid things that could have killed me twice over did me in, and so I summoned every ounce of strength left in my body to face the music.

Dressed in dark, but otherwise plain clothes, with a noticeable outline of a ballistic vest and an orange armband sticking out of his pocket, a man with blonde hair stood behind me. He was covered in blood, from his boots to his hands, wrapped in similar protective gloves, and his face was covered by a respirator and a pair of goggles that seemed a little too military grade to be seen on any of the Suns that I’ve encountered so far. But as soon as he began removing it, everything finally clicked, and I cursed myself twice over.

“Mr. Kornilov,” the blonde detective, the same god damn man who hounded me this entire month, stood right in front of me, not big on pleasantries anymore, “I am not surprised, but this is disappointing.”

“It’s not what it looks like,” I groaned, realisation of just how fucked I was only starting to set in, “I promise.”

“No, that’s quite alright, I think this is exactly what it looks like; coupled with your other escapades, this- well, that’s just the natural endpoint of it all, isn’t it?”

“Endpoint of what?!”

“Abating and assisting a terrorist organisation, naturally.”

“Terrorist organisation- No, you got it all wrong, I’m not!” my fight or flight was kicking in, as my survival instinct was begging me to just find a way out, by any means necessary, especially as my knee was starting to hurt more and more from the tumble I took.

“I wish I could agree, but that just doesn’t track with what we have on you. Keep those hands where I can see them,” without lowering his gun, he produced a notepad from his back pocket, cleared his throat, and started to read a long list of my supposed crimes: accomplice liability to the participants of 01/12 attacks; accomplice to murder; accomplice to attempted terrorism; accomplice to publishing offensive or slanderous information about the nation; conspiracy to obstruct justice; conspiracy to treason; and so on. Alongside the charges, he similarly read out a list of locations where I was spotted carrying them out: our office, a hotel in the Southern district, quiet suburbs in the East, the Barbican building, the alleyways near Trafalgar Square, the Old City, and many, many others. Like a movie reel, flashes of memories came through, making me for a moment wonder if he was right, but leaving more questions than answers, as it seemed improbable – no, impossible – that, in all my running around the city with a bag on my shoulder, I’d accomplish so much terror.

“This can’t be,” was all I could muster to say back.

“And yet it is,” the detective shook his head, “We’ve been on you, collecting evidence, for over a year now. I made sure to personally know every step you took, especially over the last month. Pardon my French, but whatever you say in court, you’re fucked,” at that moment, I felt anger swell inside of me, as I saw him grin – that proud, satisfied grin of a true sadist, as he watched his victim struggle and squirm from pain.

“How did you even find me?” a question as reasonable as any at that point, but the reality was that I fought, with every fibre of my being, the refusal to believe how utterly ridiculous this situation – in the city of millions, gone awry and mad – I was face to face with this man again.

“Isn’t it obvious,” he picked up the armband from his pocket, “I followed you, as I did for the last few weeks. It’s a miracle, how easy it is to blend in when you got one of these things on,” he chuckled to himself, “Who knows, with our success tonight, maybe the government will just allow us to hide our badges all the time.”

“Don’t you have anything better to do tonight, of all nights?!” I cried out in desperation, but the detective seemed completely unmoved.

“I’m merely doing my job, Mr. Kornilov; on a night like this, it’s more important than ever to protect our borders,” an explosion rocked the street outside, reminding me of the battle going on outside. He twitched, briefly, looking behind him for only a split second, “People like you, why, you are the most dangerous sort; you have nothing to lose; you have no allegiance to us; and you cannot be left to just be, can you?”

“Seems it’s your own compatriots leading the charge this time around,” I tried to be snarky.

“No matter; as far as I’m concerned, they’ve revoked their citizenship the moment they threw the first rock,” he pushed me to the ground, pistol still squarely aimed at my chest, “Tomorrow, once the new dawn arrives, none of this would’ve mattered; a senseless, reckless tragedy, is all this would be, and all of you will be none the wiser, behind bars, or dead,” he made sure to emphasise ‘dead,’ a glint of danger lurking in his eyes.

“If you’re gonna kill me, just do it already,” I resigned, all the while, intensely, shaking with fear. I did not want to die, and I was banking that I wouldn’t, somehow.

“Believe me, I could. No one will care about an illegal who’s overstaying – and falsifying – his work visa being found dead in some alleyway on a night like this,” he stepped back slightly, as if considering the option, “But you don’t deserve to go out so easily. No, you are going to face the law, and be sent behind the Wall, back to whatever shithole corner of your hometown you came crawling from,” he glanced behind him one more time, “You better pray that, whatever chaos is happening outside, it takes a while to die down, because as soon as the guns are silent, you are coming with me,” he sniffed, wiping his sweaty face, “And then, tomorrow, as you rot in your cell, I am burning your entire company to the ground, just as I promised.”

I didn’t respond, as the images came flooding in: the police vans outside, sirens going all around in a place that seemed to have successfully fought back only a night before; Miranda, handcuffed behind her back, being let outside; a group of armoured men, kicking the boss’s door down; Archie, likely dead by now, not having to witness any of it. I thought of my parents, what they would say when they find out their son is being deported, what they’d think of all the years, the sacrifices, the money pumped into him being for naught; of Margaret, who would likely not hear for some time because of the firewalls where she lived now, and the shock on her face when she comes by my apartment again and finds it empty; of Lena, who will never get the gift promised to her; of Sam, whom I’d failed so immeasurably and extensively. At that moment, I didn’t feel shame for any of the sham charges the detective read out to me; much greater and real was the shame I felt before all these people who cared about me, who wanted to see me do better, and how I would never be able to deliver on any of it.

For that, perhaps, I deserved to be deported.

“Do you want to know,” he suddenly spoke up, leaning against the wall, “Why I’m here alone?” I shook my head; I really didn’t give a shit where his bald sidekick went, “Because my partner’s volunteered to be with the army tonight. Last I checked, he was in the Old City, fighting the likes of you,” a sense of pride in his voice, a smugness in his face, “Because unlike all of you, he cares for this country. He recognises, same as any other reasonable person, that this – all of this,” he waved his hands around, as if there was some grand display in front of us this entire time, “Wasn’t built in a day. No, this – this is what it will always be. Things are the way they are not because of the whims of the dissatisfied; they are the way they are because people – billions upon billions of people – made them this way. How arrogant you must be, to think that you can undo it all with your vulgar, brutish violence!”

“I didn’t ask,” my body surrendered by then, but my mind just wanted to rest.

“And I didn’t care for you to,” his face didn’t move, but I could tell, even in the dark all around us, how his brow ever so slightly twitched, “Because this – and trust me, this is me being kind – this is the only way you’ll ever learn. They won’t tell you this in the courtrooms, on the border, or in their speeches, no; but the truth of the matter will always be the same: people don’t change. People want their worlds to be small, their routines figured out, and their comforts provided. If that’s accounted for, who cares if the gloves come off every so often to keep us safe?”

“You’re a fucking maniac,” I threw at him, as angry as my body allowed me to.

“And so are you, Simon – that’s what you like your friends to call you, isn’t it? Because your real name, the name your parents thought you’d wear proudly, nobody ever gets it quite right over here, isn’t that so?” he shook his head, greasy and bloodied hair falling over his face, “You must know, somewhere deep inside, on a fundamental level, that you don’t belong; even with your name, you have to pretend, to ‘Westernise’ it to fit in,” he looked at me with his cold eyes, a hint of earnestness lingering in them, “It’s nothing personal, I assure you; all of us are cogs in the same machine, you just happen to be a cog that doesn’t belong, a cog that makes the entire thing stall. Now, I can tolerate stalling, but I can’t tolerate it trying to shut the whole thing down,” he perked his ears abruptly, leaning closer to the exit, and I too realised that, outside, it became eerily quiet. Without wasting another second, he got up, dusting himself off, “Sounds like you guys lost, just as I expected,” with his free hand, he produced a pair of handcuffs from behind his back, “Let’s wrap up this charade. In a year, you might even thank me,” as he took a step towards me, I felt my body tense, pushing itself, without any input from me, against the barrier behind. More so than any other time, I truly and genuinely thought that this was the end.

 Suddenly, a shot rang out, blinding me for a moment. At once, the officer of the law, without insomuch as a scream, turned around and fired back. Shaking off the sensation, I felt my primordial brain kick in, realising what had to be done. Pushing myself up, I lunged at the detective, wrestling him to the ground. His pistol and the handcuffs fell to the floor with a metallic clinking, just as I heard, through the ringing, my own scream. There was nothing on my mind at that point except for the grinning face of the detective, even as I felt a blow land in my abdomen, the air escaping my lungs, as I rolled over. I tried not to let go, going for the neck, but I couldn’t tell if I was succeeding. All I felt was the weight of the blonde detective on top of me, pain echoing through my body as he struck me, again and again, and my vision going dark. Until, just as I was about to pass out, another silhouette appeared in the corner of my eye, rifle raised, and another shot rang through. I felt blood spray on my face, my clothes, my hands, and suddenly, the man whose every move I watched for the last few minutes, the man who was to be my doom, tumbled onto me, still warm, still refusing to believe what has occurred, his body completely lifeless and limp.

The sound from the shot continued to ring, like an echo, through my brain once I regained my composure. As I wiped the sweat (blood?) from my eyes, I saw, clearer than ever, a figure in a dark jacket, standing above me, rifle clenched in his hands, red hair scattered. His face, covered in soot and dirt and things I didn’t want to think about, remained defiant, if not exhausted. His green eyes were dimmed, but life refused to leave them, no matter the cost.

“Archie!” was all I could mutter as he began limping towards me. I didn’t notice it at first – how could I? – but his leg was bandaged, haphazardly, with duct tape and cloth. Putting the rifle back on his shoulder, he winced, using his other, free hand, to hold his abdomen – abdomen from which blood continued to pour, “Oh, fuck, Archie, you are bleeding!”

“That’s from earlier,” he replied dryly, grabbing the policeman’s body and rolling it off me, “I caught a stray as I split up with my group out in FiDi,” as he helped me up, he panted, catching his breath, “Looks like I got here just in time, huh?”

“We need to get you to a doctor!” my mind raced; I wanted, desperately, to do something, anything, but I couldn’t figure out what, “You-you’re wounded, a-a-and you might have another injury from-”

“Don’t worry about me, he’s a lousy shot,” he shuffled to the metal barrier, without insomuch as looking at me or the detective on the ground, “This… This will close up on its own, I guarantee you,” feeling around his jacket, he produced a small key, its paint still undamaged, “I wasn’t entirely… honest with you. I had to be here anyway, to open this passage for others, from the other bank. I hope you’re not mad at me,” I wanted to speak up, to say something, anything, that I was not even one bit mad at him, but he raised his hand, turning the handle open. His breathing was laboured, and I could tell that every word was a great pain to him, “They’ll be here soon, but you should be okay to pass through – trust me, they can tell,” he said, smiling, only a trace of smugness still remaining on his pale lips.

“Thank you,” was all I could muster, feeling my knees growing weaker, “Archie, truly, I- but what about you?”

“Me?” he chuckled, leaning by the wall near the newly opened entrance to the other side of the city, “Oh, I’ll uh, I’ll just rest here awhile. Don’t worry about it, don’t worry…” his moves were starting to become more fluid, less coordinated, as he slid down to the floor, “I still… I gotta keep going, if we are to push to the Government Sector tonight. So, I’ll rest; I’ll rest, and… And go again, in a second, in a minute,” the fire started to fade in his eyes. I was beginning to worry that, soon enough, he too would start to fade just as fast. Then, jerking his head up, as if it took him all his strength to do that, he smiled at me, “Whatever your crazy plan is, I hope it’ll be worth it. Don’t ever say I never do anything for you,” he was barely able to finish before breaking into a coughing fit, after which the silence regained itself once more between us, oppressive and static, full of uncertainty and the usual December gloom.

“I can’t… I can’t just leave you here,” I said, almost to myself

To my worry, Archie xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

[REMOVED]

 THIS SECTION HAS BEEN MARKED AND INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK BY THE ORDER OF RCC AND THE NATIONAL SECURITY COMMITTEE

Christmas. After midnight.

[REMOVED]

 THIS SECTION HAS BEEN MARKED AND INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK BY THE ORDER OF RCC AND THE NATIONAL SECURITY COMMITTEE

It was sometime later that I finally emerged, exhausted, at the other end of the service tunnel. I left my bloodied jacket with Archie, sticking to my old woven sweater instead, just so I could, if necessary, blend in easier (I preferred not to think of dried-up blood on my face and hands; it only made things more complicated). There was little to say about the groups of rebels, their orange armbands flashing in the emergency lights, guns drawn, faces determined not to be deterred or defeated this night, that I passed by, as I once again became a ghost – not at a banquet, but at the end of the world itself. I scarcely had to remind myself why I set out on this journey at all, and every step felt like a push towards an abyss of my own making, growing closer, more omnipresent, with each second.

But on I marched, half-delirious, not so much confident as more so uncaring, of my survival. It was as if my legs ran on autopilot, accumulated and refined after countless sleepless nights on the job, the sole function of which was to walk these familiar streets, until either I fell to the ground, lifeless, or the night itself ceased to be.

After a while of walking that way, forgetting even about the biting cold, I emerged at a park, where everything seemed peaceful enough, coming to the top of a hill I didn’t remember being on this side of the river. A small bench overlooking the lights of the city on fire stood before me, invitingly beckoning me to take five or sleep forever. Either of those options seemed just as well, as the pain from my legs had finally kicked in, a sobering reminder that I was still alive, even if I was not fully aware of it.

Lowering myself with a groan, a stabbing pain in my scraped knee finally reminding me of itself, I took in the city. I could see the riverbank, where tiny flashes appeared and disappeared every so often, and green tracers occasionally broke the air like fireworks. I saw the great fire at the Library, raging on only a little less intensely than it did when I first departed the Crossing. To the West, I saw the Government Sector, with the undamaged clock tower standing on the water, behind the massive ferry wheel, surrounded by impenetrable high walls, and helicopters flying in and out like a hive. Elsewhere, towards a massive skyscraper standing on my side of the river, a baby cried, and a siren – police, EMT, firefighters, did not matter – went off into the darkness, as all of us, civilians and rebels, police and soldiers, politicians and doctors, bystanders and nobodies to one another, braced and wondered, what will come at first light. 

Looking away from it all, I glanced at my bag, which was miraculously holding on despite its worn-out strap. Below, on the ground, despite the snowy coverings around me, I could easily spot decaying corpses of cigarette butts. On a typical day, this would be a good indicator, morally and practically speaking, that I could partake in littering myself without any guilt. Then, however, that was merely a sign of it being as good a time as any to finally enjoy a cigarette.

I rummaged through the contents of my bag, producing an empty pack from the inner compartment, with only one last cigarette inside. Senate, untouched and undisturbed, having lain dormant since that night with my… Oh, fuck them, you know who I’m talking about.

Taking it out, I searched for a lighter, but then the realisation hit me – it was still in my jacket. Cursing myself twice over, I was ready to cry – from despair, frustration, or a simple final kick in the ribs of not even getting to smoke – before I was interrupted by a cough behind me.

“Need a light?” I turned around, unsure of what to expect – for all I knew, it could’ve been Sam himself, suddenly deciding to reappear to take the package off my hands. Instead, however, I was greeted by a young woman, draped in old, worn-out grey coveralls, a helmet on her head matching the colour, with only a single pearl earring sticking out in her ear, betraying the overall composition. Her hands resting on a hunting rifle, she held between her bandaged fingers a wind-proof lighter, making her seem even more like a time traveller who had just arrived from the past century to answer the call to the fight. So overwhelming was the sight, I didn’t even notice the orange armband on her arm at first, just below her bandaged over shoulder, and her comrades, similarly dressed in what I assumed to be military surplus, congregating behind us, throwing an occasional glance towards me. I couldn’t tell how long they’ve been there, observing me, but deep inside, I was thankful – there was nothing I wanted more in that moment than a cigarette, come what may.

“Yes, please,” I beckoned, as she smiled politely and extended it to me.

“Very well, but as payment, you’re keeping me company on my break,” she approached the bench and sat next to me, almost immediately producing a pack of her own (Glams, if you must know – perhaps the best skinny cigarettes on the block, and expensive ones to boot), “Well, go on then, be a gentleman!” I obliged, lighting her cigarette first, as she took her helmet off to reveal a clasp of dark hair, cut in a perfect length to bring out her sharp cheekbones and slender nose, “God, men, always needing to be told what to do.”

“Sorry,” I answered earnestly, “I’m just a little out of it,” fiddling with a lighter a little longer than I’d like to admit in trying to light my own cigarette, I finally got it to work, welcoming the smoke like it was the first breath taken after a lengthy coma. After years of searching for it, Senate tasted sweeter than any wine or any other incredible sensation in the world; the fact that I wasn’t surrounded by people I was repulsed by was merely a bonus to it all.

“You don’t seem like one of ours. What are you doing here?” she asked me a familiar question, one that, it seemed, I couldn’t escape that night.

“I’m not sure,” I answered, looking off to the distance, “I was walking over, trying to make good on a promise, but sitting here and dying seems just as well by now.”

“That’d be kind of embarrassing,” she laughed, “I mean, if I am to die, I’d rather do that fighting, not frozen over on some bench behind the frontline.”

“Is that what you guys are, fighters?”

“Indeed,” she nodded proudly, taking another drag, “Elephant Brigade, at your service – or, well, a squad within the brigade.”

“Why is it called that?”

“Seemed just as well, after our neighbourhood. We just dropped the ‘Castle’ – a little monarchist, detracting from the message of it all,” she shrugged, “You got a problem with that?”

“No,” I confessed – I really didn’t, as ‘Elephant Brigade’ by itself sounded just as menacing, and I certainly was no monarchist, “Where are you guys headed?”

“Right there,” she extended her arm, two fingers squarely pointing at the Government Sector’s tall walls, “Final push, and all that. We caught wind of some soldiers defecting, so our brigade is linking up with them on this end of the bridge before mounting a full-on assault. God willing, it will all be over in a couple of hours, tops,” she began taking a drag, either with satisfaction or desperation to mask her worries, before her eyes widened wildly, “Oh, shit,” she raised her hand again, pointing towards the city, “You’re seeing this?” and indeed, just above the skyscrapers of the Old City, a drone (by itself, not a particularly unusual occurrence) sped towards something, before a small, cylindrical rocket, launched itself downwards from it, just as the winged beast disappeared in the smoke, “Seems they’ve finally authorised precision bombing. If it’s not a sign they’re losing, then I don’t know what is!” there was a strange mix of disdain and pride in her voice, like getting bombed rather than shot at was a peculiar badge of honour to be carried around. The logic was somewhat lost on me, but I was in no mood to argue.

“Can I ask you something?” but an altogether different curiosity, one that I suppressed this whole time with both Archie and Said, could not restrain itself, “W… Why are you doing this?”

“How do you mean?” she looked at me, for the first time since I lit her cigarette, its flame dancing in her black eyes. 

“Well, all this,” I waved my hand at her outfit, stopping, in particular, the rifle on the sling, “Why ‘pick up a rifle?’”

“Because there’s nothing else,” her posture shifted, tensing up, “What else is there to do but pick up a rifle?”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I took a step back, realising how my words may have come off, “I guess I… I want to understand, how does one get to that point.”

“Do you not feel that way?”

“It’s complicated,” I said, and her eyes gleamed brighter for a moment, as if, in my accent, she had heard an answer, however logical or illogical it may have been. I felt my face redden, shame pumping blood to the surface, my cowardice on full display, as I thought of Archie and Said and Sam and the young man by the pier, who may have been dead by now.

“You seem like an educated guy, so let me ask you this: what did you do in uni?”

“Economics.”

“Economics, wonderful, so you’ll know what I’m getting at,” she took another, longer drag, throwing the butt to the ground, “I did law. And granted, I entered it with certain political perspectives, especially on how climate policy was shaping up. But being frank, I can’t see how anyone who enters that degree – with how demanding it is, how much knowledge one has to process as an intentional part of the process, the way it makes you look at the world – would exit on the other end not appalled by the sheer unfairness of it all,” she took her pack out again, producing – with unparalleled sleight of hand – another Glam. My Senate was only about halfway through, “But I felt crazy during my studies; in real time, the government dismantled the Constitution, cracked down on our rights, rebuked the very essence of pretence that comes with being a ‘liberal democracy.’ How could I – how could anyone –sit there and pretend like that’s perfectly normal?”

“What about those that end up working for the other side?” I followed up, thinking of some of my own colleagues back in the university.

“Complacency. There’s no such thing as a blind lawyer; the difference is merely between those who know it’s all wrong and choose to ignore it, and those who choose to do something about it instead,” she took a couple of drags, as if catching her breath, “I understand that everyone’s gotta eat. But the number of people who give up even pro bono work the moment they see a paycheck big enough, or get that kick out of power for the first time… I don’t know. I just don’t think any of this can be at expense of your moral character, at expense of giving a shit about the rest of us,” I pondered, there and then, the detective’s final words to me; that, by the morning light, none of this will be anything but a senseless tragedy, and the unforgiving retribution that will almost certainly follow that tragedy.

“What if it’s all for nought?” I couldn’t help but ask, my voice breaking ever so slightly at the end of the sentence. She did not immediately answer, choosing instead to close her eyes, as if preparing, mentally and physically, to say the right words – to me as much as to herself.

“Remember the court ruling from five years ago, about access to… certain medical procedures? That children’s author-turned-bigot was at the forefront of it, speaking – and writing – about it nonstop.”

“I remember reading about it,” I didn’t follow the law so closely that I could recite cases, but I certainly could speak to the subject of the news. She turned to face me, looking a little more serious than before.

“I was one of the lucky ones, one who was sustained and supported by a community that cared for me. But that ruling – well, that didn’t spare me either,” she sat up fully, following it up with another long drag, lightly fiddling with her earring, “I won’t bore you with details – believe me, there’s too many to recount, and I doubt I have the time. But, as far as I’m aware, they,” she pointed at the Government Sector again, its lights almost blinding in the darkness around us, “Were waging a war on me since before I was born. They did it directly, indirectly; aggressively, passive-aggressively; and they will continue doing it, unless something changes.”

“I’m sorry,” I said as I realised the gravity – indeed, the personal weight – of the entire conversation, feeling even more ashamed than before. She nodded appreciatively before I could continue speaking, before looking at the cigarette in her bandaged hands, touching the helmet sitting to her side, and contemplating the bloodied hole in her shoulder.

“I guess,” she continued, “To answer your question, I prefer not to dwell on it; tonight, well, all that’s left is just ‘do.’ If this is the way it has to be,” she glanced at her rifle again, “Then so be it, for this is bigger than just me, bigger than just my struggle in it all. You must feel it too, don’t you?”

“In what way?” I wondered. She paused, as if she didn’t know where to take the conversation beyond that point, as if she didn’t need to explain it (which, I’m sure, was disappointing from my end).

“Consider this,” she resumed after a silence, “We don’t own anything: property is unreachable; the arts degrees, ones that used to teach us how the world works and why it is the way it is, are stifled and rapidly disappearing; the libraries have been gradually phased out in favour of e-books, on platforms that some corporation controls; same with every movie, album, tv series you watch – it’s all on a leased basis from someone else, and that someone will not hesitate for a second to remove anything that is no longer profitable for them; even the environment – we don’t get to enjoy that, because it’s either unliveable or it’s repurposed for the newest conglomerate; the maxim ‘you will own nothing and you will be happier for it,’ parroted by every mainstream economist of the last forty years, has disproven itself twice over, but they are in too deep to back out, and we were never given a meaningful voice. Whatever the world may look like tomorrow, it can’t possibly be worse than this. And no matter my past aspirations, no matter the alternatives that seemed obvious only yesterday, I’ll play the hand dealt to me, even if this,” she patted her rifle, “Is all it ends up to be.”

“What if you are wrong?” I couldn’t quite catch the question that lingered in my throat before it escaped; even in death, the detective seemed to get the last laugh.

“Then history will judge me. It’s enough for me to know that they,” she motioned to the other bank, the walls of the Government District rising above the street, “Are not right. We are past debates about ‘praxis,’ or shit like ‘problematic readings;’ we are here now, and if we don’t win, they will kill us. That’s all that matters now.”

Just as she said this, something else lit up in the dark sky. Like a shooting star, far away in space, a bright fire awoke, close enough to the surface that you can see it falling, down and away, through the dark skies.

“No way,” she mumbled to herself, an earnest grin revealing itself, “No fucking way, they actually did it!”

“What is that?” I asked, puzzled and bewildered.

“That, my friend, if I am correct, is the satellite that the government uses for all of its security purposes, from general surveillance to precise tracking,” she seemed like she could almost jump from joy, “Oh, fucking hell YES! It’s amazing what the right software and some brains can accomplish with enough coordination. Seb!” she turned around to her colleagues behind us, all staring up into the sky, “That’s gotta be the signal, right?” the oldest one of them, grey hairs and wrinkled eyes and all, nodded, “Perfect,” she quickly got up, throwing away the remains of her cigarette, grabbing her helmet and steadying her rifle, before throwing a glance at me, “Listen, you’re an odd fella, but I’m happy to assume you are not malicious. So I’ll leave you with this,” she squatted down, just as I heard the shuffles of her squad move past us, “It’s alright to be scared. It’s alright to be so petrified that you cannot move. It’s even alright to look out for yourself to an extent. God knows, I’ve done all those things. But try to remember this: whether you yourself fight or not, history will happen to all of us. So, while you’re able, do whatever good you can; otherwise, it might be too late,” she smiled earnestly, patting me on the shoulder, before leaving with an expected, but somewhat welcoming, “May we both live to see the sunrise.”

“May we both live to see the sunrise,” I finally answered, meekly but honestly, as her face lit up ever so slightly.

“The correct response is ‘And may its warmth touch us all,’ but you’ve got the spirit,” and with that, she sprung up, giving one last look, before disappearing downhill, to where her comrades were, to head into the uncertainty; one that, I’m sure, this girl with no name, who had faced so much horror and so much pain already, was going to face with nothing but a righteous, zealous anger and determination.

The Senate had burned out in my hand a while ago, which did not prevent me from stealing one last drag, as I collected myself before my own final push for the night. But just as I secured my bag, I saw, with only a corner of my eye at first, one final message from the anonymous artist and their red paint, scribbled out where the girl had sat just, and what had prevented me from seeing it earlier. Reading it just before I got up, I allowed myself to smile at the thought, reminding myself of everything that’s come before and thinking of all that would come after, but feeling, strangely, a little more content than usual at the sight, pretending, just for the moment, that maybe it was intended for me after all:

I’m not sure where I’m going, but I’m glad I stopped here.

Probably around one in the morning.
Eventually, I finally ended up in front of Lena’s building. Its beautiful, white marble walls and blue glass made it highly distinct and very telling of the expensive taste one had to possess to enjoy its residency, which Lena, a software engineer with wealthy parents in another, if not present, life, was more than capable of affording. I couldn’t remember if I had ever come by to visit her here or at her old place, back when she and Sam first started dating and rented a little place out East, by the Olympic Park that was now in flames. Probably not; Lena was hardly an independent member of our friend group, only ever showing up when Sam did. Which isn’t to say I had anything against her – quite the opposite: she was a delight, always insisted on picking up the tab, a good listener, and a fashion icon in her own sense. And although my perception of her was reliant on whatever Sam told me (mind you, it was not always positive), I only remembered her in that warm light. I wondered, though, if on that night, that would be the visage before me, too, or if, ultimately, the reality – and all the time between us – would finally take hold in an altogether different shape.

As soon as I made my way into the building, unobstructed by the mechanical, unpowered doors and undisturbed by a guard who had gone home for the holiday (or perhaps for ‘the government is being stormed’ reasons), the lights came back on. It seemed that, whatever the situation inside the city, someone was taking stock to get at least the auxiliary power back online. Which was just as well – as much as I squirmed at the blinding light of the hallway, I appreciated the fact that I did not need to take the stairs up to the tenth floor at that point.

In the hallway, still enamoured with muted white marble and concrete, I slowly made my way to her door, inscribed on the receipt of the parcel – 1016. With each step, I could hear my heart race a little faster, as the realisation, the inability to escape the fact that it had really been a long time since we’d seen each other, and that this whole setup was beyond weird, was harder to ignore. Indeed, if Sam couldn’t do it himself, what good was there to send me?

But, in the end, a promise was a promise; and, at that point, I couldn’t not deliver on it.

Finally, I reached her door – a dark, metallic rectangle, the numbers ‘1016’ at the top in gold. The doorman to the side lay dormant, and I contemplated for a moment to use it, but it seemed more straightforward – and, once you account for the fact that I completely forgot about the lights being on again, perfectly logical – to simply knock. I thought only after I had done it that perhaps she was asleep; most people would have been sleeping by now, accepting whatever came tomorrow, not with excitement or dread, but with a simple surrender to the new status quo. I could’ve been one of those people right now; in any other year, I likely would have been one of them. But this was not any other year, and there was no escape from what I had to face.

For a moment, though, I began hoping she was asleep. To my grave disappointment and my racing heart, about to burst, I heard steps behind the door. She didn’t bother to ask, before opening the door, who was it – Lena tended to do that, not out of carelessness, but, as I’d like to think, her lack of fear of what may be (though, living in a building with 24-hour security certainly helped, too).

Her hair had changed since the last time I saw her. Gone was the dyed walnut brown, replaced instead by her natural yet slightly bleached blonde. It wasn’t long anymore either, swapped out instead for a cut just below her chin. Her yellow-ish, hazel eyes, usually beaming with subtle yet vigorous life, seemed tired and muted. Her broad shoulders, covered with a light blue sweater that was a size too big for her, still boasted straps of an elegant, black dress that peeked ever so slightly from underneath the sweater, running down to her knees, with a pair of black slippers matching it perfectly. There was a sense of alcohol to her – champagne, to be precise – alongside a familiar scent of perfume, one that I realised I hadn’t smelled in ages.

“Simon? What- What are you doing here?” her eyes widened, as if she saw a ghost.

“Hello, Lena,” I panted, exhausted, “Nice to see you, too.”

“Right, sorry,” she cleared her throat, readjusting herself, rubbing her tired eyes – perhaps she really was asleep, “Um, this is just… Unexpected. What’s with the?…” I presumed she meant the blood, still on my hands and face.

“Don’t worry about it. I know, it’s… Been a while.”

“You can say that,” I could tell she was sobering up in real time, and I wasn’t sure if it made things more or less awkward, “I didn’t expect to see you, with… well, everything, outside,” she nodded behind her shoulders, towards, what I presume, was one of her windows, as if giving me a context clue of sorts. It was unnecessary, of course, not just because I knew exactly what she meant, but also I suspected – indeed, knew – she did not expect to see me, period.

“I wasn’t sure if I’d make it, to be frank,” I decided not to mince words, even if I wasn’t going to give her a rundown of what it had taken to get here, “But, I have something for you.”

“For me? Why?” she shook her head, “Sema, I don’t mean to sound rude, but you are being really weird.”

“I know, I know we haven’t- I just- Look,” this was harder than I expected it to be, “It’s something from Sam, okay? It’s from him, and he asked me to get it to you, and I promised I would, and it’s been-” I couldn’t choke on the finish line, but God, fuck, it was difficult. I started rummaging through my bag, desperately trying to grab the neatly wrapped parcel, even as it slipped out of my hands, “Here.”

Lena hesitated, her face full of uncertainty and locked in a look of subdued anger at first. Despite this, she took the parcel out of my shaking hands. Looking up at me, unsure if she was supposed to open it right there and then, she nevertheless pulled the packaging apart, producing another, smaller box – no bigger than a couple of matchboxes stacked atop one another – and a folder letter, one that she immediately began to read. At the sight of both, I felt my heart tug on itself, my face swell, and knees hurt under their own weight. It became even worse once, still locking eyes with the letter, a first tear ran down her cheek, followed by yet another, immediately upon reaching the end. Folding it back together, she contemplated opening the box, but before she could do anything, she broke down into a sob, followed by a loud, uncontrollable cry, one that brought her down to the ground, as she desperately tried to cover her face. At some point in between, I felt a tear roll down my cheek, too, one that I quickly extinguished to at least maintain the appearance of holding it together.

“Did he say anything?” she finally asked after what felt like an eternity, “When he’s given you this, did he say anything at all?”

“Only that- Only that he was sorry he couldn’t give it to you personally,” I tried to lie; the weight of the situation becoming graver with each minute that passed by.

“You’re a terrible liar,” she looked up at me, still crying, but a hint of a sombre smile just around the corner of her mouth, “He’d never say that, not like that,” and she was right; it seemed I forgot who I was dealing with here.

“He only said that it was important that I’d get it to you on the evening of the 24^th, and that, if he could, he’d love to do it himself,” I sniffled, collecting my words, “But that, if he couldn’t, he counted on me to do it.”

“Figures,” she wiped her tears, readjusting herself on the floor, “He’d do that, wouldn’t he – entrust you, of all people, with… this,” she looked at the paper and the box, sitting neatly next to one another on the floor now, “God, if only he just- Fucking Sam,” I wasn’t sure what to do, but it felt wrong just to stand there, towering over her, so I brought myself to the same level, on the opposite end of the hallway, not daring to even try and touch her. Lena hated being pitied, hated being taken care of, and I knew better, even from our brief interactions, not to try anything along those lines, then of all times. The biggest comfort I could give her was just to be there, and play it out on her terms, “Why’d you wait until now?” she finally asked.

“He asked me to,” I threw back, feigning ignorance.

“You know that’s not what I mean,” she answered, somewhat angrily, “Why would you wait until now, and not- Fuck, Simon, why after all this time? Everyone was moving on – Miranda, Archie, you! I – for fuck’s sake, I moved on, my partner’s sleeping in the bedroom this very moment! Why do this now?” I knew, of course, precisely what she meant. I knew that her question wasn’t only logical, it was the only thing that made sense in this entire, nonsensical story of mine. Why reopen the wound? Why do it now? At what point does it become so late for us that there is no longer a point in trying?

“Because I couldn’t do it earlier,” I confessed to her, watching my tone, trying to keep it as non-argumentative as possible, “I made him a promise, and I should have just talked to you at the- Look, I know I should’ve done it earlier, and I am sorry. But I couldn’t live with it still sitting in my room, collecting dust, reminding me of it.”

“So you decided to put it on me?” she parried, with no pretence of politeness masking her genuine anger, “To, what, not feel as bad about yourself?”

“So that we all can have closure!” I threw back in desperation, locking eyes with Lena, who was clearly heating up at that point.

“I had my closure when I wrote him that letter,” she sternly threw her finger up, “I grieved – for him, for us, for everything – alone, without making it your problem, so don’t you fucking dare lecture me about closure!” I held my gaze with her as long as I could, before she lowered her head back down, another tear escaping her eye – one that she, swiftly, wiped away, “You’re a selfish asshole, Sema. At least admit to that much,” her words hung in the air; I remember thinking that they should’ve hurt more than the way they did then – perhaps the truth wasn’t as hard to hear as I thought it may have been.

“I am,” I accepted the accusation, both because I was too tired to fight and because it was the truth, “I am a selfish asshole, Lena, and I am sorry for it,” I felt another tear coming up, but one that I violently suppressed, as hard as I could, back behind my eye, “But you’ve meant a lot- You’ve meant so much to him. And I… I failed him. I owed it to him to make good on getting this letter to you, to make sure you saw it, to-” I tried looking for another word, but it was just not there. A part of me hoped it would come, like in a movie or a book, possessing me to just let it out in a way that made it make sense. But it didn’t; and eventually, I gave up on trying to find it, “I’m sorry, Lena. I just am.”

“I know,” she finally looked back up at me, “I know you are, Sema, I’m sorry, too, this- this is just too much, don’t mind me,” she looked up, wiping her face, in a way not too dissimilar to Miranda whenever she was recollecting herself, before finally looking back at me, “You’re a good friend. I’m sure Sam would’ve appreciated it,” she picked up the box and the letter, getting back up. I wasn’t quite ready to go yet, so I stayed on the floor, which has proven a good thing, as she looked back at me, seeking to add a closer, “But we can’t keep living in this. We’ve all made our choices, some for the better, others, not so much. Eventually, though, we can only accept them. But we can’t do this back and forth, these little run-ins, not like this, not with- this,” she waved around, pointing directly at me, clearly thinking of the right thing to say.

Until, with a sigh, finally, it has come to her, cruel as it may have been.

“It’s been a year, Sema. He… We must let him go.”

I looked up at her, processing what I’d just heard, my brain still in disbelief of the thing that, of course, I was painfully aware of this entire time.

“Maybe in another year, or two, it’ll get easier, and we’ll pick up where we left off,” she continued, “Maybe it’ll even be good for us, and we’ll both see spring rather than mere winter. But now, we- It’s too fresh. I can’t do that. And I’m sorry for that,” she began slipping back into the darkness of her apartment, about to close the door, before turning back around, “Do you want to take the couch, wait the terror outside out?”

“No,” I answered, perhaps too fast. I just wanted to leave, “I know a way back, don’t fret.”

“Okay,” Lena knew well enough that butting heads with me was a pointless exercise, especially that night, so she didn’t bother to try, “In that case, Merry Christmas. Take care of yourself. I’ll see you when I see you,” was all she said, before closing the door shut.

Silence had reclaimed the hallway, leaving me alone with my thoughts, fears, and memories of what once was a wonderful, if imperfect, friendship, wondering if, at the end of it all, he would truly appreciate what I had done tonight.

As I made my way downstairs, I couldn’t help but wonder if that night would be the last time I saw Lena. Over the years, having said my share of goodbyes, I often couldn’t quite tell, if the conversation in question would be a “farewell” rather than a mere “goodbye.” With time, and wisdom, I’ve gotten better at it, which made parting ways so much more manageable. But stepping out of the elevator, I found myself puzzled all the same just as the last time me and Sam said our goodbyes. Perhaps it was wishful thinking; perhaps I was simply lying to myself; perhaps, it would’ve been better if we truly never spoke again.

Outside, the wind was blowing, a harbinger of the snow that was yet to fall within that year. Yet as I walked out of her building, still ruminating on our conversation, the thing that I finally knew and comprehended clearly, perhaps clearer than I ever did this whole year, was what had to be done come first light.