Golden Shadows

It smelled of sewage and gasoline as Darwin slowly awoke from her sleep, only to face a window in which no light ever came through. Darwin yawned. She could never understand why she woke up every morning hoping for things to change, she knew it was about time to get up, but oddly enough her usually quite discomfiting and creaky bed seemed to have changed its tune that day, and the broken wood at the bottom seemed to have shifted and moved to an area where it cradled her comfortably.

Darwin had to turn down the offer though, she had a busy day ahead of her with no room for rest.

Just as she was about to get up she felt a cold sensation land on the bridge of her nose, Plip!, There it went again, Darwin gaped at the leaky pipe above her. It was one of her daily chores as it always loosened, no matter how hard she tightened it.

Darwin gave the pipe a dirty look. It only dripped on her again in response. She winced and sat up, to look around the room, slightly in anticipation for something, anything to be different from the day before. She knew nothing could have, especially after four years of living in the same dump.

Darwin lugged herself out of bed and onto the rickety splinter-infested floor. She was always scared of the floor. She remembered when she first moved in with her best friend Mathew that she accidentally slid across the floor and a big chunk of wood had cut her foot open as precise and cleanly as a surgeon. The flash-back made her cringe but soon was overwhelmed with sadness thinking about Mathew. She decided to put on her sneakers that lay right next to her bed, as usual and made her way to her closet, which had carpet and left out any fear of splinters. She took off her sneakers. Darwin shook off the thought of Mathew and started thinking about what to wear for the day. She grabbed a white T-shirt that had a picture of an old movie character from the 21st century. She was living in the year 3014. She never knew what the show was called or what the character’s names were, but she liked the way they looked. She lumped in some shorts and overalls and was ready for the day.

Darwin had tightened the pipe and had done other various chores in her 1 leveled house. Chores like sanding out her floors, taking out the trash from the last night, shooing away the bird’s nest in her chimney, unclogging her drains, and scavenging for food in her fridge.

It had been a very busy day, which was pretty normal for her. It was about time to go on her daily walks, whenever she wasn’t too tired. Darwin lived in a place called the “Under Lands”. it was a very polluted place where there was very little light and everybody there was pretty rough. The“Under Lands” was an abandoned sewer system, where the walls had been mined out to make room for houses. It was right under the “Higher Heavens”. That’s what the place above was called. It was a beautiful city of lights where the rich live.

Everyone says that if you can make it there then you made it in life itself. At night, you could see the glimpses of flashing lights through cracks in the ground, one crack happened to be right above Darwin’s house.

Darwin went on her walk. The path in front of her house was far from straight and clean. It was crooked and filled with all kinds of trash, from paper wrappings, to whatever the heck that was rolled up on the edge of the path. Darwin would often think about how Matthew enjoyed walks like these and talked about how much better walking in the Higher Heavens would be. Matthew always talked about going up there one day and how we can’t stay here forever. Darwin would always look at Matthew in awe every time he talked about it.

The day had shifted and it was around noon. Darwin could tell because people started going inside and the lights from the cracks above had an orange color to them. Darwin headed home. She was going to look for something to eat when she got home, she thought. As soon as she rounded her corner the ground started to shake and chunks of the ceiling started to rain down.

“What the-” she didn’t have time to react. Darwin fell on the floor from surprise. she scrambled to her feet and shakily ran under the thick pipe that ran into one of the walls. Darwin heard screams and the grinding of stone against stone. Darwin decided to stay under the pipe until things cooled down. She covered her head and closed her eyes until the shaking started to slowly go out.

Darwin creeped out from under the pipe and did a full-on sprint to her house. What she saw had her stop in her tracks. The small crack that used to be in the rebar above her house had opened up wide and debris had fallen through and landed on her house making a big hole in her roof. She opened her house door and slowly crept in. The place seemed like a tornado swept through. Which was funny seeing as to how they never got tornadoes in the “Under Lands”

Darwin inched her way through her house. She felt a sense of sadness flow through her. This place that she called a “dump” was her home.

She made her way to Matthew’s room. The room was left untouched. Ever since Matthew was gone Darwin couldn’t bring herself to go in for the past 2 years, but she had to make sure everything in there was ok. She needed to assess the damage. She slowly opened the door as something fell over in the hall down from her around the corner.

As she opened the door, she saw a huge stack of items thrown all over the place and a big hole in the ceiling with a bright light coming through. She had never seen so much light. It hurt her eyes. She shrank at the sudden exposure to the light. She moved closer into the room and found a small but thick black book. From what she could tell the black book had fallen from the sky due to how banged up it was and how it looked like something from a futuristic sci-fi comic.

She picked up the book and looked at it further. It had words on the cover; “Vocal”. well she didn't quite know what it meant by that, so she flipped through a few pages and then dismissed it and lay it aside.

She further explored the room and found lots of other things such as fancy pens, a Bobblehead with a holographic sign that said “welcome, come back soon”, a ball with blue streaks over it, and a silver and gold coin the size of her hand.

She immediately gave the coin a dirty look knowing full well what it was for, it was money. approximately 20,134.05 dollars. It said so on the coin’s screen on the edge. Then she remembered all too well the day she needed money the most it never came. That was the day she lost Matthew.

It was all too fuzzy. Darwin remembered being outside the house sitting under a makeshift fan that worked by a pulley. It was tiring work and Matthew kept closing his eyes. Darwin had to keep herself from going out in the heat as well. The forced air that usually moved through the sewer system had stopped for some reason. They ran out of clean water in the house and couldn’t use what they found in there because they didn't have the stomach to drink sewage.

Darwin had an idea to run down to the rickety old store a few blocks down to get a few bottles of water since she knew there had to be some from this week’s shipment from the “Higher Heavens. She promised to be back in a bit. Matthew weakly waved her off with his eyes still closed.

Darwin ran down to the store and sure enough just as she guessed there was water there, but everyone in town must have had the same idea because they were almost wiped out. Only 6 bottles left. She looked in her pockets and had enough money for 3 bottles, but the shopkeeper wasn’t trying to go out of stock so easily. He charged her an extra 12 dollars for the three, and she could tell what he was trying to pull. She tried negotiating with him but he wouldn’t budge. She had been in the store for over 15 minutes. She was getting desperate. She ended up snagging two of the bottles and ran out of the store with an angry shopkeeper on her heels. He didn’t chase her for long though. She was more nimble and younger than he was.

Darwin rounded her house corner and ran up to Matthew who was still in the same spot she had left him. “Matthew!”, she said tiredly and excitedly, “I got us water! Want some?” no answer, she tossed the bottle into his lap and he slouched over with no response or movement. “Matthew?”.

She touched him. His skin was moist and cool. She suddenly felt the fear flood back into her much like it did when running from the shopkeeper except it was 20 times more powerful. She leaned over grasping Matthews’s hand and started to cry uncontrollably. Not that she had much to cry anyway when she didn’t hardly have any water in her. It hurt her head, but she didn't care, she was too sad to care.

Darwin hated the memory she buried deep within. If only she had enough money she thought.

Darwin sat in Matthew’s room with the silver and gold coin still in hand. She swore that she wouldn’t let anything like that happen again. She looked up at her surroundings. With tears streaming down her face, she noticed that the room was filled with pretty colors and posters of huge buildings, pretty buildings that had handwritten words on them, most likely from Matthew. They spelled out “Dream bieg,and do your bast”.Darwin laughed. Matthew never knew how to spell very well, and she knew he probably fried his brain out trying to write it. She could see the continuous erase marks and scratches.

Darwin spent the rest of the day in Matthew’s room looking at anything that she found interesting. She looked at the silver and gold coin and decided that she would use the coin to boost herself out of the Under Lands.

She felt tired after everything that happened today. She walked herself over to her room, made it to the foot of her bed, took off her sneakers, and plopped down. The shifting of the wood planks under her bed had changed, most likely from the earthquake from earlier. It was uncomfortable, but she didn't care. She felt the sleep eating away at her. She gave in, facing her window and closed her eyes.

...

….

…..

Darwin awoke… to a window, with...light? An automatic voice echoed out of nowhere, “Good morning master.”

Darwin sat up.

“Good morning Valery.” Darwin looked out the window, she could see the sun, the clouds, and she could see above the city. She was in the Higher Heavens.

Darwin had used the money she got from the coin to start her business to help the equality of people of the Under Lands.

It had been 12 years since she started.

Darwin sighed and looked at the poster Matthew had written on.

“Thanks, Matthew... for believing in me.”

Fin