Early

I had always lived under the city. I crawled through pipes and crossed metal walkways as I made my way in this underground world. I fished in the rushing drains with the rats, catching half filled boxes with my nets, and I worked to clear blockages in the tunnels to keep the city above flowing smoothly.

I once saw the sun whilst I lived down there when the leader of the sewer’s union left to present a list of demands to the managers above. They had stood so proud on the top rung of the rusting ladder, just below the exit grate, and, smiling, slipped on their blackout goggles. We all cheered when they raised the grate, and we were all blinded when the light poured down on us. I did not see the sun again for many years and I never saw the union president again.

My parents were the rats of the north end tunnels. They kept me safe, crawling all over me, keeping me warm, protecting me from the rising water. My family were the workers of the west tunnels, they lived their whole lives down here with me, cleaning tunnels and feeding me the scraps they found along the way.

One day I found the remains of a skull blocking an outflow pipe, its horns stopping the water. I found the way back to the work camp, skull in hand, and handed it over to the officials at the camp gate. They look at it, mouths open, before turning to look straight into my eyes. I flinched back, my blood squeezing out from between my teeth after I had involuntarily bitten into my cheek.

They came at me with knives that shone, and I RAN. The world spun around me, blood loss from the bite making me dizzy and afraid. The skull hit me directly on the spine, opening a gash there, I kept on running.

Rats leapt out from outflow pipes, bursting the yellowed eyes of workers like they were bags of rotting rubbish. I dodged from pipe to pipe, through the maze of my home, but, as the rats died, I heard people all around me, closing in, thumping, hammering on the walls with pipes of their own.

I almost ran into a ladder before I grabbed hold of it in my left hand, steadying myself. A box at the base held a pair of blackout goggles and I took them with my free hand.  I looked up, insides burning, burning with the thought of leaving the clammy comfort of my mildew walls and the constantly dripping skies.

A pipe hit my leg.

I squealed.

I felt the cold rungs under my toes.

I felt the goggles drop to the floor.

I threw back the drain cover.

 I screamed.