And now, Giovanni… look.
Below him – six, seven meters away – the first layer of convicts tangled restlessly, a unstable mass of suffering bodies, a cauldron of pain, a maze of broken, bound, displaced limbs, among which stunned, beastly faces bloomed like rotten fungi. From above, a tired light dripped on that small hell with deceiving, pale scratches, an undeniably fascinating continuous metamorphosis. It was useless to try and recognize somebody. Even those who had been unloaded that same day were already lost, absorbed, swallowed by that absurd, primordial human ooze.
Inside Giovanni’s mind, dismayed by the vision, terror and fantasy flooded his brain. There was grandeur in what he was contemplating. He felt pervaded by a feeling he had never experienced before, but still he recognized it. It was as old as mankind itself. A feeling of unavoidability filling his brain, his blood, his nervous system. There was life, there, under his feet. The meaning of existence itself magnificently revealing to him, and he couldn’t do anything but stare at it, let that state of inhuman grace expand, delate in his soul. And hadn’t he resisted, his body – unable to contain it – would have exploded. Tears filled his eyes, unstoppable, unmotivated, and he felt dizzy trying to counter them.
He had to force himself to avert his gaze from that impossible, malignant universe, and closing his eyes he wondered what he would do if the Suffering was to suddenly open. How many – just how many? – had stood where he was and couldn’t come back? But once there, the time for choosing was over. There, on the Shutter’s moving platform, all the possible ways out were closed, except one.
Leaning on his arms, Giovanni distanced himself from the door, moving backwards with difficulty, knowing he had to immediately escape from that absurd emotional flood. He swore under his breath, feeling betrayed by his own feelings. Focused as he was on the need to tear away those thoughts hanging from his brain like cobwebs (what would you do before an open Suffering?), only at the last moment did he hear the noise behind his back.
He turned around, shocked by fear, and his legs gave away. He fell backwards, in the Shutter, lying on the platform. His right arm went numb from hitting the floor with his elbow, while the back of his head hit the surface of the Suffering. His heart screamed, but from his mouth only a muffled sound came out, almost a wail.
It wasn’t an illusion this time. he wasn’t imagining it. There was someone out there, in the Ring.
Standing against the feeble light of the emergency lamps, half hidden beyond the doorstep, was a shadowy silhouette, a fragment of darkness in human form. It was standing still, the contours drawn by the weak luminescence behind its back, and it looked like he was watching the Keeper lying in the Shutter, waiting to take a decision.
“Who…” Giovanni had to get more air in his lungs to make himself audible. “Who are you?”
He didn’t really expect the shadow to answer him, so he wasn’t surprised by it remaining silence.
“What…?” His tongue deserted him, reluctant to obeying his brain. A mental ravine filled his head with a chaos of frantic thoughts.
What do I have to do?
A sudden movement from the shadow caused him to feel pins and needles on the back of his head, already in pain for the blow. Did he raise an arms, the right one, partially hidden from his view? He had brought it to…
Terror blocked his throat. He didn’t just brought it to the input push-button panel, did he?
A light shone in a recess of Giovanni’s mind. He had to. Yes, he absolutely had to…
He started searching with the still numb fingers of his right hand. He felt pain, but he couldn’t give up: it was his only hope.
It was then that the black shape spoke. It did so with a clearly altered voice, a coarse whisper like a rusty needle. Maybe he had an handkerchief on his mouth. “I need but press a button.”
Giovanni’s fingers found what they were looking for, while torpor slowing them down started turning to fire. His blood was scalding and flowed at an extreme speed.
The metal safety. He needed to switch it off.
“Just one button…” the shadow went on.
But that distressing whisper was interrupted when Giovanni, lying inside the Shutter, extended an arm. In his hand, the gun he had thought about bringing with him at the last minute reflected the trembling emergency light. He was shaking, that much was obvious. But he couldn’t miss at that distance.
“You are dead.”
He didn’t waste any more time, nor breath.
The intruder predicted, probably from the tone with which Giovanni had spoken, he would really pull the trigger. He jumped backwards, out of the firing line, but wasn’t quick enough, and to the detonation a muffled whimpering followed. The shot, amplified by the Shutter’s walls, was like a bomb. Giovanni tried to frantically stand up as fast as he could. Clenching his teeth, his head a cauldron of pulsating pain, he briefly thought about the senseless human amoeba; it had surely heard everything too, and the Keeper imagined the multitude of eyes staring upwards.
He quickly rolled out of the Shutter with such force he almost crashed on the opposite wall of the Ring. He heard steps running beyond the turn. Did he get him? It looked like it. From how he had jumped back, before disappearing, he probably hit him in his left shoulder.
Keeping the Beretta aimed forward, ready to shoot again, he cautiously started following him. Fear had been suffocated by adrenalin, replaced by a frenzy he had never felt before (nemomeimpunelacessit). His survival instinct was inciting him, shouting to be on guard, but not let his prey get away. Ahead he went, walking along the wall at a fast pace, from one area of darkness to the next. Sweat irritated his eyes; he wiped them away with an angry gesture of the arm. Where did that bastard think he was going? Did he really believe he could reach the elevator and escape before being caught? Well, good luck then! He could also stop and wait for him, crouching in the shadows, ready to attack him. But Giovanni was ready, too. He would shoot the first thing he saw moving and all his senses were more alert than ever before.
Traces could be seen on the linoleum floor. Water stains. Wet prints.
Another thunder. It was strangely loud, considering the storm should be farther away now. Then a cold current came, a sudden and refreshing wind. Giovanni stopped, trying to understand the nature of that unexpected fall in temperature. The sweat on his forehead froze in an instant.
He needed but take one more step to understand everything.
The Escape was open. From the black, shining rectangle of night inside the green metal frame a cold current slapped him inside the copious rain.
“Damn him…”
He ran to the doorstep, not caring about the water biting him with myriads of icy teeth. With a hand on the small railing he looked down. A set of rungs went down towards the base of the Tank, disappearing after just a few meters in the dark and howling throat of the night.
“Coward!” He screamed towards the black void in which the ladder plummeted. “You’re nothing but a coward!”
He felt the impulse to shoot again. He aimed his Beretta towards the bottom of the ladder, in a vertical line, and imagined the bullet hitting whoever was descending in the center of his head. But then? In what mess would he get himself? He knew he had to justify each bullet. Until then it was self-defense and he knew nobody could blame him; but now, had he shot a man on the run, whoever he was, he would be less defendable. Not worth it.
He relaxed his arm, listening to the thunders rumbling and slowly drifting southwards.