by V. Cobe
Etaú lowered his face but continued to stare at them with bright eyes, shadowed by his hood. His tone became more serious.
“And finally, niche Mysticismi. The niche of sorcerers, spiritualists, fortune tellers, mediums, all esoterics, call them what you will. Witchcraft didn’t die burned up there. They are a controversial niche. Firstly, because they have internal wars: while some mystici talk about herbal therapies, others speak of black magic. But that’s not the main reason for their dispute…. They stand, and have always stood, for something called the Great Superstition.”
Hazael was panting.
“A legend as old as thought itself. At least that’s what they say. No one knows where it comes from, no one even knows what it is, but it’s bad for Umbra. Unless a certain boy is found.”
Alem was sick but wanted to hear more.
“The Great Superstition was ridiculed for a long time, but a few years ago, there were interesting developments: they found this boy. They found him and held him, but then he ran away. That’s gotten everyone crazy down here. Mostly the mystici. Every day there are prophets shouting their visions to whoever will listen.”
Hazael and Alem exchanged startled looks under their hoods.
It’s a coincidence. He was shaking. Umbra arrested me because I saw them in the forest, that’s all. It has nothing to do with this.
But then there was that phrase he had heard while fleeing the dungeons, the boy is not ready yet, and that didn’t fit his theory. Ready for what?
On the screen, Umbra’s symbol reappeared.
“Who is this boy?” asked Alem.
“Oh, I don’t know, my dear boy. Not his face. But they are looking for him, don’t worry; Umbra will be fine.”
“Who? Who’s looking for him?” Alem was breathing with an increasing pace.
Etaú scanned his eyes.
“The Conclave has many umbriferos after him. And Defectio too.”
“Defectio?”
Etaú laughed.
“You’ve gotten very interested, for someone who wanted to leave.”
He raised both arms and joined his hands. The cube glass darkened. The psychedelic lights of the party buckled around them. On the screen, Umbra’s symbol on fire formed.
“About them no one forces me to speak. But you deserve it. They were expelled from Umbra on a day that became known as the day of the Last Collusion. But they’re still here, and some say they still maintain contact with some niches.”
“Why were they expelled?” asked Jaala.
“They did not obey what was decreed by the Conclave. They wanted to find this boy at all costs. They kidnap children and run tests on them that end up killing them. Or if they don’t kill them there, they kill them after. What were they supposed to do with the children? They can’t return them to their parents.”
The inside of the hub appeared to darken even more, even though the fire on the screen burned more intensely.
“They only care about finding the special boy.”
A cold shiver ran down Alem’s spine. There was something heavy in the air of that cube. Something dark and heavy.
The screen went back to showing the symbol of Umbra.
“Welcome,” said Etaú, smiling. “Now that you know all this, you have to sign up, or niche, as we like to say down here. I’ll take you to Festum’s headquarters, where you’ll stay until the Umbrification next week.”
“No, we can’t!” complained Lael.
“You’ll have to. Your lives changed from the moment you passed through that fountain and will not ever again be the same. You may associate yourselves with another niche, if you want, but I think Festum is the most appropriate, don’t you think? Follow me.”
He passed them in the darkness and led them out of the cube.
Outside, the infernal noise filled their ears again.
Lael began to cry. Hazael shook his hand but he himself could hardly stand.
“I don’t know if you noticed my name,” Etaú shouted over the noise. “I didn’t give you a biblical name.”
“I noticed,” said Jaala.
“Down here your name is a code. It isn’t difficult to decipher but misguides those who do not know it. And does not incriminate you. Take each consonant of your first name and replace it with the following consonant in the alphabet. Only the first name. We’ll get to the method for the last name.”
“Kaama,” said Jaala.
Alem was too preoccupied with finding a way to escape from there to think about that nonsense.
“I-I don’t want,” stammered Hazael.
“Your name, boy?” insisted Etaú.
There were no guards on one side of the floor, perhaps because they had come to escort them. Maybe they could run over there. The dancing crowd could delay the clumsy brute.
“J-j-abaem,” said Hazael.
Lael shook his head.
“What is yours?” Etaú asked him.
“I don’t know. I can’t.” His eyes filled with tears.
“Maem,” replied Hazael. “His name is Maem.”
“And you?” Etaú looked at Alem.
He expected the others to be aware, to react fast. He looked at Hazael, Jaala and Lael as if transmitting them something telepathically and said, “My name is Amen.”
He threw Jaala’s flashlight at the man’s face and shouted for the others to run to the exit without guards.
Hazael took Lael’s arm and pulled him through the delirious crowd.
“Jaala, come on!” said Alem.
But Jaala didn’t move.
Alem grabbed his wrist and pulled him in time to avoid the hand of one of the guards with a drawn face. They crept through the umbriferos that were writhing one another, sweaty and noisy, behind Hazael and Lael, and ran unimpeded through the tunnel.
“We shouldn’t run away!” said Jaala. “They’ll catch us, and it’ll be worse!”
“Are you insane?” shouted Hazael. “You wanted to stay there?”
They cut to the left, to a tunnel where the light was practically non-existent.
Alem turned on the flashlight without stopping. The colors were varying shades of gray and brown, and there was nothing there. The music faded gradually.
After a few meters, they found two girls leaning against a dark corner, embraced, kissing with lust. One of them loosened an acute echoing laughter. When they saw them approaching, they stopped the obscenity and looked at them askance, without releasing each other.
Alem didn’t want to stop running but he was getting tired. And maybe he could ask the girls how to leave that place. He laid his gaze on them, and the thinner one addressed him in a deeper voice than that of any man, “Do you want something?”
He shook his head and continued to run, looking at the end of the tunnel, way ahead, where it ceased to be light, and where Hazael, Lael and Jaala had stopped.
When he arrived, the flashlight lit a lot of junk on the wall opposite, but now the brown and gray were stained by a light and worn blue, though it had probably been very bright once. A cockroach ran from one side to the other when Alem pointed the flashlight to the concave ceiling.
“You have to keep up with us. We need that light!” said Hazael. He was bent over himself, with his hands resting on his knees.
“This is crazy,” said Jaala. “We won’t be able to get out of here. We better get back and talk—”
“What’s gotten into you?” exclaimed Alem. “Did you hear what I heard? This is hell!”
He began to walk, taking with him the only light. The tunnel veered left.
The others ran to catch him, their feet scuffed the worn blue of the ground.
“Is it really Hell?” asked Jaala. “Didn’t you see the happiness in those people?”
“They kidnapped me!” Alem couldn’t believe what Jaala was saying. “They kill children, and if I hadn’t run away, I’d be dead too!”
In a crossroads of black and silent tunnels they found an arrow in a very poor con
dition indicating Help Hole to the left.
“It’s a way out for sure.” Hazael became encouraged. “We are under Help Square.”
The blue tunnel made a ninety-degree turn, and as they turned into the tunnel, the flashlight lit, a hundred yards ahead, a child in a blue mantle, hood on, facing them and not moving. Her skin was pale as a sheet, and her dark blue eyes shined like lakes in the moonlight.
Alem stopped and moved the flashlight sideways, looking for company, but the child was alone in the tunnel and remained standing in the middle of it.
“Let’s go through another tunnel,” asked Lael.
“And do you know any other way out?” asked Hazael.
Alem stepped forward. Maybe if they stayed close to one of the walls of the tunnel, the child wouldn’t bother them nor be bothered by them.
Over the sound of the drops that fell, she whispered something. Words they didn’t recognize. A strong wind began to blow behind her from the other end of the tunnel until it became so strong that it nearly ripped off their cloaks. The child turned silent and raised her arms. She was a blonde girl.
They all felt they had to leave. They turned back, ready to run, but when they did, they became paralyzed again.
Alem almost bumped into another child. A twin of the girl was there now on that side. She stopped a few inches from him, dimly lit by the flashlight. Her cloak was the same as her sister’s, blue, and waved back, except for the hood that was tightly secured to her head. Her eyes were completely blue, with no iris, and no pupil.
When Alem turned to look back, he noticed the first twin standing beside him as well and holding his arm, sticking unlikely claws in his skin.
Her mouth opened and out came a sweet and cheerful voice, as if she was asking him to play.
“You showed up!” Nervous and acute laughter sounded in duplicate. The twins spoke in unison.
“They all want to get you!”
Alem tried to break free from their hands, which were now clinging even tighter. While he was shaking them off, their laughter lost its joy, and their voices became thicker, as if turning into screams of pain and agony.
“You cannot let them, none of them!”
They pulled Alem’s arms down, forcing him to lower to their height, and put their faces near his, screaming again. They were the embodiment of terror, frightened and in pain, with distorted and guttural voices that couldn’t possibly belong to them.
“Oh no, it’s the Third Rebellion!”
Alem no longer saw the tunnel where he was. He saw a picture of Carmel burning under a black, gray and red sky. He saw huge white wings flying over the fire. He saw a boy crying, bent on the middle of the gold sidewalk of a destroyed street. He saw a tall blonde woman sitting on a stone throne on a balcony in Carmel. Her hair was so long it reached the floor and was topped by a crown of fire. He saw indecipherable shadows gliding through the burned and deserted streets of the city and two of those shadows surrounding a wounded man on the ground and eating his life, sucking his color.
He shook to break free, and the twins shook with him, never ceasing their agonizing screams of pain. The wind was still blowing and humming, coming from all sides, launching an authentic storm of air.
“No, no, no!” they shouted with effort, as if they were required to do so, as if their voices had their own will. “The Third Rebellion is coming! It’s coming!” they whispered anxiously into Alem’s ear, as if telling him a terrible secret. “But this time… THERE WILL BE NO VICTOOOOOOOOOOORRRRS!”
Alem tore from the clutches of the horrible children. Behind him came the two men with the orange cloaks and drawn faces.
“Run!” he shouted to the others.
They accelerated forward without stopping in the direction that they had intended to go from the start.
“Disappear! Hide yourself!” the twins screamed in unison.
The wind made it difficult to escape, but still they left the tunnel and reached Help Hole. Another rusty sign indicated Exit.
They jumped over bumps on the ground and crawled under bridges until they opened Umbraland’s door. Alem got out, then Hazael, and then Lael, soon followed by Jaala.
They could hear the screams of the men who were chasing after them.
They rounded a corner of the sewer tunnel, and Hazael almost fell into the river of excrement.
Alem found an iron ladder that rose a few feet vertically to a manhole cover and stopped.
“Go up!” he shouted to Hazael.
Hazael climbed up. Before he reached the top, Lael was already a few feet off the ground behind him.
Below, Alem was invaded by the moonlight that entered through the hole like a spotlight when Hazael opened the lid to the street.
“What are you waiting for, go up!” Jaala told him.
Alem climbed the ladder, and when he reached the top, he realized that Jaala was still standing down there.
“What are you doing? Come up!”
“I need to see this….”
“Jaala! You’re out of your mind!”
“This isn’t all bad… I know what I’m doing.”
“Don’t be crazy! After everything we’ve seen there? Think about it later, just come up!”
Alem went out to the street and peered into the hole. He stretched out his hand to Jaala, as if he could touch him.
“Don’t be stupid! I don’t believe this. You can’t stay there, that place is demonic! God is not down there.”
“Nor is God up there. Not to me.”
The brutes surrounded Jaala and looked up.
“Jaala, don’t be silly! Don’t do this, please!”
“You don’t understand….”
Before Alem closed the lid, he managed to see Etaú get to Jaala and smile at him as one of the men with drawings on his face climbed up the stairs.