Chapter 3. The Lower City

She stopped at the edge of the observation deck where the Middle City ended. Below, through the tangle of bridges and aqueducts, the outlines of the Lower City emerged—a place where sunlight was a rare guest. An enormous chasm yawned before her, plunging hundreds of meters into the earth. Lights flickered everywhere—bioluminescent glow, the only cheap and accessible light for those who lived at the bottom.

The old funicular creaked and groaned like a dying animal. Its cabin, once painted a cheerful yellow, had peeled down to bare metal, covered in rust and the cobwebs of time.

The operator—an old, gaunt man—sat in the corner of the cabin, swaying with the movement. His skin had an unhealthy yellowish tint. His eyes, deeply sunken, watered from the constant humidity. His fingers gripping the control lever trembled—whether from age, illness, or whatever he used to numb himself. Sores visible on his neck, which he tried to hide with a dirty scarf.

"Going back home, eh?" the operator said, noticing her gaze. His voice sounded hoarse, like rusted hinges. "To the world of eternal twilight?"

She didn't answer, just looked away, pulling her hood lower.

"Everyone comes back," he muttered to himself. "Like moths to a rotten flame. The Upper world spits them out, the Lower one swallows them."

With each second of descent, the air grew thicker, more saturated with smells—rust, algae, and something elusively chemical, like ozone after a storm. But this wasn't pure ozone—it carried notes of rot, decay, disease.

"The ocean bed," she thought, feeling the air pressure change, making her ears pop.

Through the cabin's grimy windows, she could watch the world transform. Where the sun never touches stone directly, where the sky is just a narrow strip of light high overhead, the Lower City sprawled. It clung to the walls of the bottomless chasm like a colony of mushrooms sprouting through a layer cake.

Each level was its own world, simultaneously plunging deeper and hanging over the abyss in terraces. The upper levels still remembered glimmers of daylight, but the deeper you went, the thicker the twilight became, broken only by the warm glow of lanterns and flickering signs. But most of the light came from bioluminescent algae that covered surfaces in uneven patches, creating a ghostly radiance. In this light, rust looked like blood, and shadows like living creatures.

Houses clung to each other without any system, connected by a chaotic network of walkways, rope bridges, and chains.

The architecture here was a patchwork quilt of styles and eras, sewn together with the rough stitches of necessity. Next to ghetto-style shacks rose a structure of glass and steel—remnants of some long-abandoned project. Wooden hovels clung to concrete blocks, metal containers had been converted into living modules. There was no unified color palette—rusty metal neighbored peeling green paint, gray concrete sat beside bright graffiti covering any available surface.

Narrow alleys wound between buildings, sometimes diving into tunnels, sometimes emerging onto dizzying platforms suspended over the chasm. There were also arteries filled with water—not the clean canals of the Middle City, but murky streams carrying waste and sewage. In places, remnants of former ambitious construction were visible—massive concrete formwork and unfinished supports for future canals that were supposed to bring a fragment of order and cleanliness here.

"The project of the century," she remembered the locals' sarcastic comments. A decade of broken promises about canal construction hung over the Lower City like the stench from its waters. It was constantly postponed—sometimes due to lack of funding, sometimes "technical difficulties" were discovered, sometimes more priority projects were found above. The unfinished structures rusted and crumbled, becoming part of the Lower City's chaotic landscape, a reminder of unfulfilled promises.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Where does such a difference between us come from?" she thought, projecting the city she lived in onto her inner world.

The inhabitants of this place looked pale, almost translucent. Their skin had a waxy tint. Eyes accustomed to the darkness, even the dim bioluminescent light made some squint. Clothing was practical and varied—from waterproof cloaks of oiled fabric to bright, multicolored bodysuits that hugged the entire body. Some wore respirators or masks.

Ahead, a man walked with unnaturally jerky movements. His head turned sharply left then right, as if tracking invisible flies. Strange sounds burst from his mouth—not words, but a cacophony of clicks and whistles. His eyes were dilated to the limit, pupils taking up almost the entire iris.

"Blind Light," she recognized the symptoms. A synthetic drug of the Lower City that had recently become popular. It gave temporary oblivion or enlightenment, depending on who took it. But the price was high, consequences unpredictable—destruction of the nervous system, possibly madness, or maybe all at once. She only knew that the drug worked differently on everyone, never with a favorable outcome.

Street life churned around him—dozens of figures moving in different directions, but each maintaining an invisible distance from others. They all moved along their trajectories, as if repelled from each other by an invisible magnetic field of distrust. No one made eye contact, no one touched each other, even accidentally. If paths crossed, both made an exaggerated detour, passing each other at arm's length.

But they didn't fear the madman. On the contrary—a strange zone of calm formed around him.

"The only one they don't expect treachery from," the girl thought bitterly. "Too broken to pose a threat, at least for now. In his madness they see absolute safety—he's already on the other side."

She circled the man in a wide arc, trying not to draw attention.

A bit further, leaning against a wall, sat a woman of the Tenebre race. Her pointed ears were mutilated—someone had cut off the tips, leaving crude scars. The fins—translucent with a bluish tint, dotted with thin capillaries between the membranes near her ears—the main sensory organ and symbol of beauty—were maimed. She mumbled something to herself, rocking back and forth. Her once snow-white hair was dirty, and her pearlescent blue skin was beginning to yellow, such an unnatural color for this race.

"I think I know her," she cast a quick glance then immediately looked away. "What a pity."

The walls around were covered with graffiti and posters. Images—clenched fists, broken chains, burning palaces—covered any available surface. But the most horrifying sight was the dolls—crudely made effigies in police uniforms, hanging from ropes attached to beams and bridges. They swayed in the air currents, creating the illusion of hanged guardians of order.

She stopped, examining one such doll. The uniform was real—apparently taken from a killed or stripped policeman. But it was stuffed with straw and rags, and instead of a face—a crudely drawn caricature.

"Symbols," she thought bitterly. "That's their entire revolution. And mages... they don't even mention mages. Because they know—one wave of a mage's hand is worth hundreds of their lives."

The doll swayed, and for a moment it seemed to her that this wasn't a symbol of the protesters' strength, but their self-portrait—the same spineless, straw-stuffed puppets, jerking on invisible strings.

"Victims playing executioners," she concluded, turning away.

She walked on, plunging ever deeper into the labyrinth of the Lower City, to where even bioluminescence became dim, where the air was so familiar and repulsive at the same time.

Home.

Lost in thought, pondering something, usually observant, she didn't notice how the shadows from the bioluminescence near her flickered, moving for an instant, then returning back, as if in a psychedelic cycle.