I lurched forward. A child screamed. A small group of Residents dressed in their pristine, white garb surrounded me. For a moment, they stared. I knew they were in disbelief. Once someone had been sentenced to the Quad, they were never seen again. They were forgotten by the rest.
The door to the compartment clanged open. The guard was mere steps behind me. I bolted through the crowd and headed for a familiar place. A place where I’d always been welcomed with open arms before my sentence to the Quad.
Residents on all sides pressed themselves against the corridor walls to avoid contamination. My clothes were filthy. My nails ragged and dirty. Blood dribbled from the cuts in my knees.
Fear bloomed in the faces I passed.
I ran further. My legs stretched out, my heart pumped, clean air filled my lungs. I’d never felt so alive. Never felt so free. My feet were as light as comet dust. Everything cleared from my mind. The only thing I knew was the rhythm of my steps and the soaring of my soul.
K. J Gillenwater is a writer of paranormal and sci–fi for adults and YA audiences. To date, she has 3 published books: The Ninth Curse, The Little Black Box and Blood Moon.
This short story was a finalist in one of our contests here on the Science Fiction profile and you can find more of her work here.
Kuronoshio Malware
The clacking soles of patent leather shoes echoed down the cobbled lane. Grey stone shops and fliers for obscure bands passed by in a blur as he scrambled through the tangled nest of bicycles and made the turn to the final hill.
The pink haired girl hadn't lost a step. She was still right on his heels. For a moment, he was sure he'd lost her at the bakery. Now she was breathing down his neck, her sneakers eerily quiet as she pursued him. His chest tightened, ribs pulled tight as he gulped frozen air into burning lungs. The morning air was so cold the sweat gushing out of his temples turned to rime on his forehead. In the final seconds, his legs threatened to give out, but he wouldn't let them fail him. From here on, it was all about mental strength.
The crowd thickened in front of the station, a knotty mass of bodies that hooked his satchel and cut in front of him without warning, the mindless swarm oblivious to his urgency. Under the navy suit and the starched shirt, he felt a river of sweat build momentum as it ran down his spine. The joints of his knees stung from the shock of the concrete. He elbowed forward between two anoraks, glancing over his shoulder.
No sign of her.
One of the anoraks yelled angrily. Performing a half turn in the air, he shouted an apology, though he didn't stop, volplaning down a flight of stairs and through the ticket gates. Heaving for air, he glanced around him. He was safely on the platform. Still no sign of the girl. Not that it mattered anymore. The train would arrive in - he checked the display - six minutes. He could have easily walked the last street and still have squeezed through the door before the whistle shrilled.
From his bag, he took out a handkerchief and mopped the sweat from his forehead. In the warmth of the bodies pressed around him, he felt the slippery film of sweat between his body and his clothes. Audibly, his pulse pounded in his ears, the only other sound the tinny echo of some teenager's earphones. The world was tinged green by the adrenalin rushing to his brain, the colour casting a sickly pall over the passengers.
Still got it. James Richards smiled as he pulled out the Sudoku puzzle from his satchel.
Of course, the whole thing was ridiculous; stupid male pride. She had started running first. That was when he realised he must be late. The two of them caught the same train every morning, not that they'd ever spoken. There were a lot of girls in their twenties, all with the same plastic pass–cards around their necks or dangling from bags. He'd long ago theorized there must be a call–centre at the end of the road. As soon as she broke into a jog, he'd felt like he'd better run, too. He'd taken off at a sprint, passing her in the first fifty meters, only to realise the terrible problem he now faced. If he stopped, she'd think he was out of shape, that he'd been showing off when he overtook her. He'd started a weird competition. The further he ran, and the more persistently she kept pace behind him, the more certain he became she knew what he was thinking.
He let out a short chuckle at his own stupidity and the yawning chasm of awkwardness he was going to suffer every morning after this.
The train thundered in the distance, the screech of steel on steel echoing from the dark. He edged into position, weaving his way through the aroma of coffee and sweet pastries, years of practice telling him exactly where on the platform the doors of his preferred carriage would stop. Over the heads of the crowd he saw the pink hair and the black knitted cardigan. She'd made it. Well, good for her. For a moment, their gazes met. Her face lit up, smizing at him with impish eyes.
He turned away flustered. His wedding band seemed to grow heavy on his finger. He shook his head, but still couldn't resist looking back. That was when he witnessed it for the first time.
A middle–aged business woman in a smart gabardine coat and silk cravat was shuffling through the crowd, earphones in, her gaze locked on the screen of her smartphone. Her face was slack and expressionless as she walked towards the edge of the platform.
The rivets of the rails began to tremble. Tiny clouds of dust rose into the air. A scrap of newspaper was blown forward by the wind from the approaching train.
The girl with the pink hair noticed something. Her expression changed. She surged forward, elbowing people aside. Then she tried to snatch the mobile phone, but the woman wouldn't let her, screaming something incoherent as she elbowed the girl away.
«Hey!» His voice was surprisingly loud, but it paled against the clattering roar of the approaching train. They were too close to the edge. «Watch out!»
At the sound of his voice, the girl with the pink hair seemed to return to herself. Raising her hands she stepped back away from the woman.
Two lights blazed in the tunnel, turning the people on the platform into a wall of shadows. Without a trace of reaction the middle aged woman took two steps backwards and plunged over the edge of the platform. The fall happened in a dreadful instant, a shadow passing in front of the lights.
The train thundered into the space. James stood dumbstruck as he struggled to accept what he'd seen.
Instantly a semicircle formed around the scene of death.
«Oh my god.» A whisper.
«Quick, get help.»
«What the hell happened?»
«She just walked off.»
James scanned the crowd, finding the pink hair vanishing up the south stairwell. Still trying to soothe the shock, he wriggled through the crowd, a lone ant travelling against an oceanic tide of onlookers drawn to the spectacle of a private tragedy. His legs brought him to the foot of the now empty stairs. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he clamped his eyes shut. He felt wired and shaky.
Pink had gone.
He stopped and tried to think rationally. There was no use staying here. He couldn't do anything to help that woman. No one could. And there was no way there was going to be another train for at least a couple of hours. Catching a bus was the only option at this point. Routine normality reasserted itself. He didn't have to think about the route. His job often involved overtime on Sundays, when the trains didn't run until ten o'clock. Habit guided him to the bus stop on autopilot.
Pink wasn't the kind of girl who snatched mobile phones.
That woman had been dumb–walking. She'd been so involved in her smartphone she hadn't realised she was walking too close to the platform edge. It wouldn't be the first time someone had caused an accident because they were engrossed in Facebook or Tinder or whatever it was people looked at these days. Pink had been trying to save her. That was the only logical explanation for what he'd witnessed. She'd seen the danger the woman was in, and tried to help, but it had backfired and the woman had fallen off the edge in the struggle. It was an accident.