{SHORTLIST OpenNovellaContest 2021}
{ONC 2021 Round One Ambassador Picks}
Aithne Pan, a Chinese-Irish girl living in the futuristic city of Venice has to decide between what her heart tells her is correct, and what she has always been taught is righ...
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The paths that wind around the old stone buildings are narrow, the wood and metal scraps tied together with whatever material the people who built them could get their hands on.
I have a hunch that Lilac Royalty's headquarters - the place they meet up when they are tired of fighting crime - is somewhere down here, hidden from the cameras that cover the higher roads and streets. Down here the police hardly keep an eye on things, and although they claim it's because the level of crime is much higher moving up in the city, I know it's because the lack of paths, of walkways, doesn't please them, and using their Honts between these narrow passages isn't a very good idea, especially with all the pillars scattered across the old city, keeping the new one up and standing.
I wish I could have seen this city before vertical building started. I have seen photographs, have watched videos of people in the past coming to visit Venice for its unusual streets, the boats used instead of cars encouraging tourists to visit. And I understand why. During the time when we could travel all around the world without a care, when climate change didn't matter and the storms, tsunamis, earthquakes and droughts didn't affect our lives, everyone had so much more freedom. Now things are harder, and to leave a city like Venice you either have to be so desperate and poor that you are willing to put your life at stake, leaving with a boat and sailing beyond the protective barrier, or rich enough to have your own flying vehicle capable of withstanding the long distance there is between Venice and the next protected area.
Turning a corner, I step to the side as an old woman carrying a bag of cement moves past me, her eyes fixed on the floor as she hurries along.
People down here are always in a hurry, always have something that should have been done the day before, their to-do lists so long they would give me a headache just looking at them.
I was lucky. Because my father was a lawyer we managed to move into a small apartment up on the ninth level, the lowest of the rich. From my bedroom window I could see the busybodies underneath us, and when I looked up - if I ever did look up - I could see the world I wished I had, the lives I envied strolling across the bridges as if there had all the time in the world. I can only imagine what people from the lower levels think, looking up and seeing the vast space between their homes and the sky, the hundreds of metres that separate them from natural light.
Looking up now, I wonder what my life would have been like if only my mother had worked. She had powers, sure, but they were common, nothing special compared to what I have. She did make a name for herself though, turning expensive cars into the colour gold, changing the pigments of flowers into unnatural ones. She might not have had the best upbringing, but she was smart and knew how to make the most of any situation.
From down here, everything looks dark. The light that once struck all these buildings is nowhere to be seen, instead replaced by the white and purple orbs spread across the streets, some hanging from the buildings above. The pillars, all of about three metres in diameter, hold steady as the water splashes against them. They have been replaced over the decades, but they all remained in the same place - the crossroads between rivers.
