The Search for Terror (ONC 2021)

Chapter 5

      The cities were nothing like the outskirts of the country, quiet and near-empty. Noises burst through windows, clattered down roads, poured from fountains. Everywhere, there was colour. A brightness and variety no one could replicate in paint. 

      People wore shoes of varying heights, backs straight as though to slump would be to get knocked down—which it might be, considering the large number of bodies pushing past one another. 

      Smells of all sorts wafted gently from open doors, shops bigger than houses selling everything she could think of. The floors, polished and as white as possible, reflected the light in blinding streaks, like shooting stars soaring too close overhead. 

      It was all so overwhelming. 

      The noises were deafening, similar to how she imagined the clamour of war. 

      The colours were intimidating, distracting from the real people underneath.  

      The shoes were threatening, like the people were fighting for power, fighting to keep others lower where they could see them. 

      The smells were disconcerting, pastries mixing with solvents mixing with nothing else, despite the great number of things she could see. 

      The shooting stars were paralysing, pretending to offer hope when there were too many to make a wish, disappearing and being replaced with a single step in any direction.

      Amaia turned her back to the supermarket, looking down at the clack of her shoes. A strange place indeed, so guarded. Surely, there must be something bad hidden behind all those layers. She looked again at the people, this time focussing on the faces. To both her horror and excitement, very few of them were smiling. A place without trust, a people without smiles? Haglaiya was no home to Amaia and nor would it ever be. 

      "Excuse me, Sir?" Amaia asked, tapping a passing person on the shoulder. They looked at her for no more than a second before turning back to their pathing across the road. 

      "Ma'am?" She tried again, this time standing in front of a woman, tilting her head up to catch her eyes. The woman simply walked around her, glancing only briefly at the orphan girl with tousled hair and a bag that likely no one in Haglaiya would touch. 

      Yes, that had to be it. But what did those people have in common? Who had caused this misery?

      "Excuse me?" Amaia wouldn't give up now. She'd spotted a young man, somewhere round her own age if she had to guess, and walked over to him before he had chance to stand up and walk off. She gazed down at his hands, watching as his fingers lazily through the pieces of cord together into little bows on his shoes. 

      The man in the cloak had offered to tie hers for her, but she'd refused, believing the bows to be patronising—based on her gender and assumed age. The large knots atop her feet, which she could feel through the material of the shoe, suddenly felt rather stupid. 

      Looking up at her, the young man raised an eyebrow, "Hello?" 

      A thousand questions sprang to mind: Why was everyone so rude? Why didn't anyone stop to talk to her? Why was everyone so miserable here? Where was the source of this terror? Who could she bring down to stop it? "How do you tie shoes?"

      Her voice shocked even her, soft and inquisitive. Not at all the hard, determined questions she'd intended. 

      At her question, he gazed down at her own shoes, and she nearly hid them from view out of embarrassment before deciding that was a stupid thought. It didn't matter what these people thought. 

      "Here," he said, gesturing for her to sit against the wall where he'd been crouched moments earlier. He sank to his knees, suddenly not so caring about his pressed trousers. He struggled to undo her careless knots, fingers scratching away at the fibres and pulling the thin rope back through its own loops. He left the last one, and Amaia reached forward to undo it for him. His hand stopped her, "You keep that one. Here, let me undo the other one first." 

      Where had this softness come from? He'd been all angles and tight-lipped just minutes ago. Subconsciously, her hands moved to pull her dress lower around her legs. His mouth cocked to the side in a sort of awkward, knowing grin. 

      At last, the penultimate knot came undone, and she could switch her focus to the shoes. "After the first knot, what you want to do is make a loop like this," he explained, showing her on one shoe and nodding for her to do the same on the other. "Then wrap the other around it," he spoke slowly, patient, "And let it catch on your index finger, this one." Of course she knew which finger her index was, what did he take her for? 

      Probably someone who'd never tied shoes before. 

      "Use your middle finger to push it between the loop and itself while your index and thumb move to hold the first loop. Here, try keeping hold of the rest of it with your ring and little fingers. Keeps the lace tight and easier to work with." She repeated the action with the new instruction and, true to his word, it was a little easier. 

      "Right," he nodded, "Now move your... left thumb and index finger over to hold the new loop that your right middle finger just pushed through. There you go, now just pull the loops in opposite directions until it goes tight." 

      Following his steps, and copying his example, Amaia completed her bow and looked up from it, feeling a tension in her forehead and realising she'd furrowed her brows. And he'd noticed too, by the look he was giving her. "And that's it?" She asked, needing to say something.

      A smile cracked out across his face and he looked all the better for it. "Nearly. To stop it coming undone as you walk, just tie the two loops together now." 

      They both did as he said, pausing then at the bottom of the brick wall. "Thank you," Amaia smiled, grasping at her composure as though it were a branch reaching from the cliffside she was falling down. 

      Standing, he reached a hand down to help her. The queen in her was already lifting her hand in expectance of the gesture, but the strong-minded child in her changed its direction halfway, pressing it against the wall so she could push herself up. "Do you have a name, tier of shoes?" Amaia asked, mocking her own country's old titles for their people. 

      "Rahim," he said, "And you are?" 

      'Kingdom above,' she thought, cursing her own want for a name. He'd recognise her immediately. Giving a fake name was an option, but lying never quite sat right, and she couldn't do what she needed if she was unsettled by guilt. "Amaia," she said, hoping the first name alone was popular enough to avoid suspicion. 

      "Amaia," he echoed, sounding out her name. "It was nice to meet you."

      "Wait, Rahim," she said quickly, catching his arm, "Why is everyone so miserable around here?" 

      She hadn't expected him to laugh at the question, but she supposed it was better than walking off. "Most of these people have office jobs or family members that annoy them. It's nothing serious, they're just bored or frustrated. They'll likely be just fine on Friday, you'll see." 

      "So, there's no one person causing it, but the whole system?" Amaia asked.

      He confirmed what she'd thought, "Yeah, I guess it is. Nothing to be done about it, though. They signed themselves up for it and they'll leave when they can."

      When they can. "They can't now?"

      Shaking his head, he explained, "They have contracts to stick to. They'll need the money, too." Her expression must have given her away, because he added, "They might not like their jobs, but they'll find they like unemployment a lot less. Trust me, they're okay."

      She nodded, and he gave her a last smile before continuing on his way. 

      Trust me, they're okay. 

      They didn't look okay.