THIS IS A DRAFT, READ ABOUT PAGE BEFORE YOU READ IT.
LAST EDIT: 7 MAY 2025

Bloody dark.

I was lying on my stomach, yet I was possessed by a splitting headache, feeling like somewhere inside my skull was throbbing painfully.

It took me a great while to get used to the lack of light. I pushed myself up on my hands, eager to see where I —

BANG!

A rock with a slight sharp edge hit my head.

A moan was squeezed out from my throat, and I gasped like a leaky ballon as a pain shot through my head at that moment then a sudden dizziness swept over me. I dropped my head and clutched it reflexively, feeling like my skull smashed. The headache intensified, as if the spot was gradually swelling up as it throbbed and squeezing my brain and I felt my skull would crack at any time.

Something warm oozed under my fingers. It seems on my head there had been a wound before and now the rock had torn it open again.

Damn it…

I found my ankles were stuck among the rocks when trying to creep forward.

I buried my head between the rails, waiting for the pain and the dizziness to pass so that my mind might clear, or at least I wouldn’t be so insane.

I sank into thought, thinking about my current plight in spite of the headache.

No, no, it doesn’t matter now, forget it.

I strained to recall what had happened before I fainted, but except for the vague impression of that shadowy tunnel I remembered nothing.

Debris?

Debris.

Yeah, debris, but, what kind?

I don’t know.

Will there be someone to save me?

Well, even having a rescue team nearby will not help, okay?

Also, I don’t even have any idea about this ruin.

Have a shout? Maybe someone will hear you?

Never mind, save your strength first.

Oh, stop kidding, as if you’ve got enough to survive until somebody finds you.

As for the lack of strength, to be frank, I began to feel drowsy, since the headache was severe enough to create an illusion of sleepiness, as though only the slumber could relieve me from the misery.

I yawned, mouth wide open.

That wasn’t a good sign… My head had just been injured and I wasn’t even sure how serious it might be…

But…

I still fell into a nap finally, eyes flattening against my right arm, became semi-conscious once again and didn’t wake until a kind of light sounds — clamour of people, footsteps, and the scrape of gravel moves — reached my ears through the firm barrier of fragments of stones surrounding me.

I lifted my eyes slowly from my arms

Light, a ray of light, with a vibration of rubble slipping, shot through the dusty air ahead of me, so blinding.

Even though I knew I couldn’t move any, I stretched out my hand forward, hands spreading out, attempting to seize it.

‘Does that still hurt, dear?’

I was reclining against the light cyan fence, arms crossed, head hanging, staring at the ground and waiting for someone when I heard someone asked, in a low but soft voice.

Who am I waiting for?

I raised my eyes. A little girl with a red ponytail had just skipped by me, after her followed a man, lean and tall, face covered with thin, fluffy, brown moustache.

What drew me attention was the blood-and-mud-stained shirt he was wearing, especially the bloodstain blooming near his chest.

‘But you said it won’t hurt any longer, dad, didn’t you?’ She turned to that moustached man and said, walking on.

It was a bridge, a vast bridge floating in the air of an endless sewer, brightly lit, nearly ten floors high from its ceiling, blinding radiance pouring in from its two ends and blurred the faraway scenes, resembling those underground labyrinth where alligators were crawling. Behind the fence under my elbow, between the edge of the floating bridge and the wall several meters away was abyss. Sticking my head out, what could be seen was total void: dark and bottomless.

Apparently this girl and her father shared the same space with me: actually, thousands of people were just passing by me, walking from my right to my left, then gradually disappeared somewhere in the distance.

A dark streak of blood peeped through the short, wafting hair in front of her brow.

‘Oh, yes,’ the man raised his eyebrows, pressed his lips and managed to make a smile; the skin on his forehead creased slightly, ‘but dad just want to check again if his baby Lily is still suffering.’ The smile on his red face looked a bit reluctant for him at present.

He glanced at her daughter’s brow, then lowered his head, blinking and nodding his head thoughtfully.

‘Well, I’m fine,’ she didn’t notice her father’s expression, ‘then how about you, dad?’
‘Not bad.’ He answered briefly, a relieved smile floated onto his face.

‘That’s all right.’ Hearing that apparently gave the little girl a good relief. She turned back and they two kept walking forward.

Though I hadn’t got a kind of ability to look through anyone’s clothes but from those patches of blood I could still guess how it might look like under that shirt.

‘Will you always stay with me, dad?’ After a few seconds she slowed her steps, muttered to ask and turned her head back again, as if something had just struck her. ‘I’m not doubting you, dad. I’m just… a bit …well … a bit afraid.’

‘Certainly I will.’ The man smiled, then crouched down by her side and gently tucked her head into his arms. ‘Dad will always be with you, honey, from now on, and, for ever.’ He said in a soft but firm tone, stressed the last few words.

Her magenta eyes sparkled and scanned over his shoulder. ‘Then, where are we going?’

‘— ETERNITY.’

‘Eter-nity?’ She moved her stare back on her father’s face.

‘Yeah, eternity, where time and space lose all their meanings.’ He replied.

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing— I made it up.’ He smiled archly. ‘I don’t know, either, to be honest.’

‘Will we see mum there?’

‘Perhaps?’ He rose his eyebrows: he’d never came up with such an idea, though it sounded a little childish for him as an adult, but what his daughter fantasised wasn’t exactly what he truly wished? ‘It can’t be better to see her somewhere far away, just like you say?’

‘I hope so.’ She pursed her lips, hands gripping her skirt.

‘Then, let’s just keep going — you wanna ride on dad’s back, honey, if you do feel tired?’ The father suggested and turned back, ready for her daughter to climb on.

‘Great!’ The frustration on her face just now was entirely swept away. Like all the kids in the world, riding on dad’s shoulders was always something she would be excited with. She beamed, climbed onto her dad’s shoulders and shouted like a captain ready for sailing.

Her laughter suddenly reminded me of those days when I spent with my grandpa in the Camellian countryside when I was still a little boy with snot running out of my nose all the time—

‘Here we GO!!!!!’ Their fading laughter woke me from my recollection. I raised my head, staring at those figures merged into the blinding radiance far away along with the girl’s shouts of joy.

— ‘Greg!?’

A kind of astonished voice pulled my eyes to another direction, where the girl and her father came. Now there stood another girl, the same age as me, white dress with washy light purple patterns draping down and slowly waving along with her dark hair in a faint draught.

Her lilac gaze bore into me.

— ‘Iris!?’ I shouted with surprise.

Thank goodness you’re fine.

However, instead of the joy as mine, her eyes were filled with shock.

‘Hey, wait, wait!’

She dashed up to and seized me by my arm rudely like a crab then pulled me to a corner behind a huge column.

‘What are you doing here!?’

She demanded like a sister scolding her little brother, while I didn’t get it, stunned like a puppet for her furious reaction.

Below those cold lilac eyes her hands grabbing my wrists were trembling lightly.

‘Looking for you, of course.’ I shrugged, raising my eyebrows, ‘Man! You panicked me, what the hell you’re doing here? I’ve been searching for you for ages under the ruin after I woke!’ I glanced at the crowd, ‘And who are they? Where are we? Why do you have to be so frightened?’

‘That’s not your business, and you shouldn’t be here either.’ She interrupted.

‘Hey, why?’ Her words turned my head back, ‘That’s not your style, Iris. We’ve been living together for years and except for the loo there’s nowhere you can stay where I can’t.’

‘I’m not joking!’ She cut in and slapped my shoulder heavily.

‘Anyway I can’t leave you alone here.’ I took her hand and scanned around, trying to figure out from where we could slip out, ‘Your mum’s waiting; everybody is waiting for us! And now they must be worried sick! Also—‘ I felt my throat twitched, ‘I promised, to take your mother and you to leave Lumen.’

‘No, she doesn’t have to,’ Iris didn’t go with me, rooted and muttered, voice falling lukewarm unexpectedly, ‘mum doesn’t have to get worried any more.’

‘Wait…’ I froze, thousands of hunches flashed through my mind, ‘Wh…what do you mean?’

Once again I glanced at the streaming crowd, which I instinctively considered to be an answer to all my current confusion.

None of them were complete — physically. Everyone was wounded: kids covered in blood, soldiers with empty sleeves hanging, mothers with dents on their skulls, and some pale old people, whose veins didn’t seem to have blood flowing in them for a long time. Nobody looked alive, but they dramatically alive, as if puppets walked down the stages on their own. They talked, laughed, and some of the kids whose eyes were sticking out were chasing each other.

‘Iris?’ I called her cautiously. Now my hunches upon Ms Luminescence had been switched to her daughter, and I was feared, feared that those illogical thoughts would be true.

‘Yes?’ I glimpsed those lilac eyes flicked to this direction, but she didn’t turn her head. Like me, she was just staring at the crowd streaming by. Her voice trembled more heavily than before.

‘Tell me this is a dream, would you?’ I turned to her, whom I could only see the side of her face now, await for her reply.

‘I…I don’t know… Greg.’ A teardrop slid along her cheek, outlined a shining curve on the edge of her face. ‘Mum’s… dead.’

I was suddenly aware that I’d never seen her cry before, never indeed. She used to be the kind of girl who wouldn’t stop her fists before she’d seen blood streaming out from the noses of those bullies on her own, to make their blood her tears.

But he started the fight, mum… Okay… Fine… Maybe I shall hit him more lightly next time? …

‘Then, Iris,’ I asked, tried to focus on the reality rather than those haunting memories, ‘Who are you waiting for… For Ms Luminescence?’

‘Obviously.’

‘May I—‘

‘No.’ She interrupted me. She truly understood me.

‘Why—‘

‘I’ve told you shouldn’t be here.’ She emphasised again, in a cold and flat voice, ‘They need you, don’t they? Your parents, or someone who may met you in the future, you clearly know what you mean to others as an individual.’

Hi, Greg! You come for Iris? Sure, she is in her room.

I’m serious, Iris! Justice is always right but violence for justice doesn’t always work. And Greg needs to be independent.

I know what you mean, but I do not hope to get such a call with something like ‘your daughter wounded my son’ any more. Also, your help might make Greg embarrassed, he’s a boy anyway.

Memories flooded. Maybe Iris was talking about something heavy but I failed to follow her pace apparently.

Your mother isn’t home this afternoon, isn’t it? Kathy and I have got a thing, so I’m not home, either. No, Iris you cannot come, that’s women’s business… You haven’t been a woman yet. Be a good girl and stay with Greg, okay? … Just feel at home, Greg. Come on, no need to be so careful, Iris won’t bite! Bye, kids!

I finally confirmed her resistance to my stay.

‘It looks we bound to be separated… Since that, which way should I take?’ I sighed, as heavily as I could deliberately to show my protest and disappointment without words.

‘Simply towards where they are coming from.’ Her voice still sounded grave. She never changed; therefore I wouldn’t make any other useless attempts to persuade her.

‘I supposed you to know nothing, but you didn’t. Since you know the way out why you have to stay?’ ahead of her, facing the light, I tilted my head and looked back before I took a first step, asked.

‘You know the reason, Greg. You always know, everything, but you always choose to be dull.’ She ended her talk, with a conclusion which seemed also to be a reply to my question, ‘I hope you know that, Greg, I don’t mean to drive you away’.

She might be right.

My foot touched the ground. She understood me well, too well to make me easy sometimes, at present for instance.

‘Farewell.’/‘Fare-well.’

Her voice sounded grim, without emotion still, but the unsteady, feigning peaceful tones could not be so easily hidden, though it was she hardened her heart to drove me back.

Nevertheless, it came to me that this might be our last met after a short walk, as I became aware of that the distance between us now had been able to dissolve us in the haze and the light.

I couldn’t help but turned my head back. Her figure had already become hazy.

But on the indistinct face of that image something was shimmering, slowly moving downwards. ‘I shall be waiting for you, Greg.’ I heard her voice, unbelievably clear, of which the warmth of her returned.

Raindrops fell upon the eaves and dripped down along its edges steadily like strands of broken necklaces, ringing like wind chimes in the wandering breeze when they touched the surface of the puddles below and making wavelets spread out large.

I dragged my stiff left leg and moved outside from my sickbed sluggishly.

The side of my left knee had been hit before and the muscle at the back would hurt sharply like a jolt through my leg as the knee was bent.

I leant against the wall, and my backside sliding slowly down until it touched the stair. I sat down.

It was drizzling. Dark clouds rolled like tides overhead. My breath hung and lifted in the moist air.

It should’ve been fairly relaxed to stay at home in such a rainy day, to help mum cook, to listen to the radios, or simply lied on my bed and stared blankly at the ceiling. If she was free, we might go and find somewhere outside to spend a whole afternoon, maybe a bookshop or a tuneshop, to get some books or put some music onto our sonets.

My father didn’t appear on my way out, neither outside the shelter. I expected to meet him here. A medic had just told me that it was my father and his mates that rescued me from the debris.

On an empty plot a few steps away from me, medics in dark blue were carrying stretchers out of a van that had just pulled up.

Here it is the plaza in front of the Lumen Railway Station.

Theoretically, the ownership of any railway stations belonged to the United Railway rather than Lumen, so here we were safe for now.

The city had emptied, so had the station. The branches in the plaza swayed in the gust and the rain as usual.

The soldiers found an empty shop and turned it into this small field hospital where injured civilians could stay until their condition stabilised.

The soldiers were just talking when walked by me.

‘Is he the final one?’

‘Not yet, there are still ten more.’

‘But we’re running out of space!’

‘Then tell Eric—I’m not in charge!’

Their voice faded away as they walked to the van for another stretcher. Then there came a smell of cigarettes from the van.

‘Why are you still here?’

Someone sat down next to me. It was a man in dark blue with shaved beard around his face and short, pale blonde hair, not high but strong.

‘Dad?’

A puff of smoke lifted.

‘How you feel now?’ He put off his gloves and stroked my injured shoulder. ‘Nobody told you to take a train to leave here?’

His tone was flat, as if his son had just come back from a small trip.

‘My left leg still hurts when I bent my knee.’ I coughed and said, ‘No one told me about that…dad you promised to give up smoking…and where’s Iris?’

Something in his eyes flickered.

‘Still…not found yet.’

My heart sank. I felt the beats in my chest became slow but heavy.

‘But we were buried together!’

‘It wasn’t just you two who were buried there.’ He took another drag, smoke curling into the air. ‘And listen, rescuing civilians is just one part of our primary job; on the front line we are still trying to hold them back so the rest can get out!’

‘…’

The last ember in my heart died out. Helplessness, disillusionment and the rage towards myself, and my father, took over me. My head hung, my teeth gritted, and my fist clenched. I even felt like yanking him up by his collar and barking at him why they were not able to save even a girl.
You know what we mean to each other, don’t you!?

You know what she means to her single mother, don’t you!?

And you know she is the only daughter of your wife’s best friend, don’t you!?

But I throat only twitched and swallowed all of the words back. The raising tides fell.

It was me who suggested taking a shortcut, which crossed the combat zone.

‘I will let you know once we found her.’ He paused for a few seconds, said, ‘We’re still trying our best—Have you seen Carolina?’

‘Well…No.’ I almost forgot her.

Mum’s dead. I heard a voice in my head.

Her mum’s dead.

‘What did Iris say about her?’

‘Nothing at all. She was in a great hurry then and grabbed my hand once she saw me and gave no time to explain anything.’

‘…’

Now it was my father who fell silent.

‘What’s wrong?’ I brushed the bandage in front of my eyes aside, asked, hoping things could go against my memory.

‘You saw her?’
‘To some extent…Yes…’

He closed his eyes, burying his crumpled face in his hands.

‘If you didn’t see her, then that must be her.’

‘That…‘ I checked again and prayed that there should be something wrong with my ears. ‘Who is that?’ I asked.

‘My mates saw a body after a fight, and they asked me to check it out.’

He put his hands down and looked up, as if someone was looking at him overhead, fingers crossed under his jaw.

‘You know I didn’t come back home for months since the crisis, and I couldn’t even remember your face or Katharine’s in the Territorial Defence if there weren’t your photos. So I dared not to say if she was just Carolina.’

‘Have you got a photo?’

‘I’m just planning to send it to Camellia to ask about Katharine.’

‘May I have a­—‘

‘—Never.’ He refused coldly.

‘Why? Is it bloody for your baby son?’ I turned to him and snapped, ‘I think I have the right to check it out too.’

‘I will post the photo to Camellia after it’s been processed.’

‘Then how will you explain her death to mum, if that is Mrs Luminescence?’

‘I…I don’t know.’

‘But she must know that.’

‘I need some time…to think about that…’