Foolish Fire

How did I end up here?

Violent wind tangles Enzo’s already tousled hair turning it into a dark mesh of wayward strands. He blinks and tries to make sense of a foreign weight on his face. Has he been to a masquerade? No, it’s too heavy to be a carnival one. A gas mask. Why is he wearing a gas mask? The fog on the goggles clears a bit, and Enzo finally looks around.

The sky is ablaze with the rich crimson of dawn. The rays make the towering clouds flare up like nuclear fallout. Enzo is standing on a hill overlooking a city. The skyscrapers seem to spread up to the horizon, like Fingers of God reaching out to embrace the firmament. Never in the seventeen years of his life has he seen such a colossal creation. His town would surely look minuscule next to this giant of a city.

Enzo strains his eyes to make out some early risers, but the goggles make his vision murky. His hands come up to his face. Fingers tracing the smoothness of respirator cartridges, Enzo wonders again why he is wearing the gas mask. There must be some serious reason. Maybe some power plant had an industrial accident, and everyone around here was evacuated? And where is here? Enzo turns to look around, but whenever his eyes go, they always land on the ocean of a city below. The hill seems to be a remote island, cut off from the mainland by miles and miles of concrete sea.

He considers taking the uncomfortable mask off, yet some quiet, sensible-sounding voice whispers to him, “Keep it on.” Enzo brings the hands down and stares at the black cargo pants and combat boots. They are not his. Enzo tries to run his mind to the memory of before, before the sprawling city around him, before the silicone of the mask stifling each breath. Nothing. It’s like his mind was wiped clean, not a speck of the past left behind. Sure, he remembers the always worried faces of his parents and the pure white of his bedroom. But he can’t remember climbing this hill or putting the bloody mask on. Enzo tugs at his hair, willing his straying thoughts and flashing memories to align. What is going on? 

The same quiet voice coming from somewhere between his ribs commands him to stop wallowing in self-pity and investigate the city. Enzo straightens up from where he crouched on the wet with dew ground and looks down the city once again. The sun’s ruby rose from the skyline and bathed the vastness of the asphalt jungle in daylight. As Enzo gazes at the towering skyscrapers and smaller buildings snuggled up next to them, he feels some sort of a call from the midst of them. Like a soundless scream urging him to go to the very heart of this still whirlwind of metal and stone. Enzo takes the deepest breath the mask allows him and begins descending the barren hill.

—

The streets are empty when he walks into the city. The sun is high enough for it to be mid-morning, yet no passerby hurries to the office or trudges to the closest cafe. The thought of food makes the gnawing sensation in his stomach more obvious.  Enzo walks into some store to find something to eat, if not someone to explain the bizarre absence of people. The stalls are stocked with fresh tomatoes and oranges, and the sweetness of warm blueberry muffins permeates the air. Yet the room is bare in the ways that matter: no cashier behind the counter, no customers examining the goods. It’s all abandoned. Enzo moves closer to the enticing aroma of muffins. He brings his hand to take one from the basket. Just before his fingers touch the sugary pastry, his whole arm seems to freeze up. Enzo yanks it down, or away, or anywhere, but the hand doesn’t budge. The voice between ribs murmurs, “Someone is holding it.” Where did that come from? A sudden foul stench brings his attention to the muffins before him. The dessert is crawling with maggots. Their white little bodies wriggle in the dough. Enzo rushes out of the store.

He hurries down the quiet street, looking into every window and alley. The city is a toy box with all the tiny soldiers and ladies tossed away in a trash can. What if the whole Earth is abandoned? Is he all alone? 

His legs give out without warning, and Enzo kneels in front of a large glass case, struggling for breath. The magenta of the gas mask is abrupt against the black and gray surrounding him. Each gas mask has a special color code. He tries to remember what this one means, but his mind is still frustratingly blank. Enzo feels sweat slowly dripping down his forehead, sticking his eyes like glue. He doesn’t push the mask off.

The huffs of his breath fill the silence. It is menacing, in a quiet, subtle way. Without the screeching of tires, the buzzing of the human hive, the city feels like a tomb. A giant tomb just for him alone.

Enzo closes his eyes and opens them to twilight, enveloping him in a loose hug. The sun must be low on the horizon, only faint garnet on the dark blue of the sky. His body feels weak and stiff like someone turned it into stone. Knees creaking as he stands up, Enzo feels a foreign presence in his right hand. He is still unsettled from what happened in the store, but when he looks down, he is greeted with a sign of a distinctly familiar device. Something with radiation… A Geiger counter! Where did it come from?

Enzo can’t bring himself to recall how to use it, but the jarring crackling of the machine is hard to misinterpret. The radiation levels must be going off the charts here. The rib cage voice mumbles, “Counts your death..” Enzo feels his whole body tremble with a silent scream of horror. The dread fills every cell, every muscle, forcing Enzo to frantically twist around and look up. 

The concrete forest glimmers with thousands of artificial lights. On a normal day, crowds of people would pour out on the streets, bugs flying to the promising heat of gleams. The flashes seem like giant eyes, following Enzo’s every move. What if all the people just sit there behind all the glow? Do they laugh at his unwilling dance? Enzo feels his face transform into a seething mask hidden behind the magenta one. They must have put him in this godforsaken maze, to watch him fly around like some lame sparrow. The dance is over. His death counter firm in hand, Enzo strides further in the city.

The lights around him seem to grow brighter with his every step. The oil of the sky drips on the streets in small shadows of alleys, but the roads are bathed in the unnatural blue. Enzo feels his legs move on their own accord, leading him away from the High Street and into some narrow walkway. They feel alien like someone pulls on the invisible strings attached to his body. First the store, now this.. The anger bubbles under the surface, fueled by confusion and lingering pain. Even the emotions feel forged, inserted into his bone marrow and between his gyri. I just want out. 

His thoughts come to a sudden stop as he himself stops in front of a giant warehouse. The steely panels gleam with all the flashes cascading on the walls. The royal blue blinds Enzo for a moment. Shielding his eyes, he hears a grunt from between the ribs, “The hue of your grave.” The blood thumps in his ears, a heavy bassline of a speed metal band inside his cranium. His breath catches, and Enzo notices something warm dripping from his mouth and into the gas mask. A metallic taste to match the ringing in his head. He hacks slightly and staggers in through the wide-open door.

— 

The room is some monster’s hollow stomach, and Enzo feels like he is slowly dissolving in the complete darkness, another chunk of flesh drifting in the black sea of viscous juice. He is dizzy as he stumbles around in the murk without any sense of direction. The door has long since closed behind him. Milliseconds fuse in small infinities. The throbbing over his body deepens and turns into a pulsating hymn to pain. The liquid metal solidifies through his veins only to be sharply ripped out. The darkness around him seems to grow and grow until he can’t remember the flush of the sun. Am I blind? Enzo moves to rub his eyes, only for his hand to run into the flatness of the goggles. Why am I wearing the mask? Has he asked the question before? Enzo can’t remember. He pulls at the elastic straps, and the mask falls on the floor.

The blinding white light fills the warehouse, and his hands fly to cover his eyes. Obsidian turned into alabaster in a flash. The bassline pounds impossibly faster, threatening to break free from the shackles of his eardrums. The voice between his bones demands, “Open your eyes!” Enzo relaxes his fingers and…

In the center of the warehouse stands a bed. White on white on black. The raven of the hair is a blemish on the snow of the sheets. Limbs are frozen in a motionless dance. Eyes stare at nothing. The scream lodges somewhere between his lungs and lips, and as it died, Enzo chokes on its corpse. The sight of his own still body is scorched in his retina as he loses consciousness.

The ward startles every newcomer with its chalky walls, ceiling, beds. They were no different on that first day. Over the years, they have attuned to its colorless viscera. The doctors come in with charts in their hands and sympathetic frowns on their faces. Nothing new. They come closer to the bed. Enzo lies there, his arms and legs set awkwardly, sky eyes seeking something in the distance. He looks peaceful, tranquil. They know better now. 

His eyes clear from the habitual fog, flutter closed, and then reopen, cast at them. They do not dare to breathe as they watch their son open his mouth. Something. Anything. Just not that, not again. And yet…

“How did I end up here?”