The Blue Hour

Chapter 1: Hamid

Clenching his teeth in agony, Hamid continued crawling. His hands and knees were scorched, and too often the sharp edges of the conduits' walls scraped his hips. The tight space pressed against him as if the tunnels were narrowing as they went; he ceded to an urge to stretch his body, bumped his head and winced. Push on.

With each breath, he inhaled dampness and the grim tang of death. Panic stirred in his gut. To contain it, he pressed his lips tightly together, tasting earth and sweat. He wondered how long they had been underground, but pushed the thought away. To steel himself, he fixed his gaze in front of him, on the steady rise and fall of Jurad's body, dimly illuminated by the light from the oil lamp in his hand. In the flickering light, the corroded cast iron of the water conduit glowed orange around them.

Over time, layers of dark, grimy dirt had accumulated in the conduit, which had been built but never used, making it a perfect home for rodents and spiders. The sharp claws of the rodents scratched as they scurried out of sight. An earthy smell came from rotting leaves and puddles of stagnant water which leaked or seeped from the surrounding soil. It stank. A humid, sticky, nauseating smell.

A sharp jolt made him freeze. His nails clawed the iron.

Another tremble like a convulsion – a rattling, metallic noise, and the sound of glass breaking; the light was snuffed out. Was the earth trying to spew them out? Or had the outside world crumbled on top of them? All was still – all except his thumping heart.

"Jurad?"

Out of the darkness, Jurad's deep voice emerged: "I'm right here. The lamp broke."

"What was that?"

"The earth trembled. There could be more coming." Jurad added something in his native tongue, a curse. He spoke Turkish, French and Greek, but found it more satisfying to curse in the language of his childhood.

Onwards they crawled. It was hard to breathe. His mouth had gone dry, and he shook; an attack of panic, he knew the signs. Count, he told himself: one, two, three, four. He always counted everything, to keep his mind off things he would rather not think of, or because there was usually nothing better to do. Sixty-three steps took him across the salon to his brother's apartment, six-hundred-twenty-seven steps from one garden wall to the other. The feathers on the wing of a falcon (countless, though he kept trying), the number of fresh dates served with his morning meal (always five – a coincidence, or a kindred soul in the kitchen counted the dates he put on the plate. It felt like a secret bond between them, making Hamid feel less alone), the number of days since his mother had died (eight-thousand five-hundred and ninety-one days).

Ahead of him, he heard Jurad shuffle forward. Or was Jurad behind him? He couldn't tell anymore. In the total darkness, he had lost all sense of direction and time. He stopped and turned his head upward. The ground seemed to open beneath him and he had the sensation of falling, as if down a deep well, but only bumped against the conduit wall, gasping.

"Your Highness, you alright?"

"Call me Hamid, I told you." Jurad was not to blame. In all the years they had known each other, since they were boys, he'd never called him anything but Your Highness or My Lord, and could not imagine calling him anything else. "It's nothing," Hamid added in a more gentle tone. "Let's continue."

Whatever argument he might have evoked for embarking on this madness, he had now forgotten it. This wasn't rational, there was no good reason to justify the risk they were taking, even if it was only for one night. He clenched his teeth.

"Look, there's light! We've arrived!"

He lifted his gaze. In the soft glow, he could again make out the contours of Jurad's body. He crawled on, faster, towards what appeared to him to be a new life.