Take Back The City - Part One of the 'Life in London Town' series

20 - A Day Out in Streatham

“I must say,” began Victor, “you seem to be handling the situation incredibly well, given the circumstances.”

   He could only see the outside. A raging inferno was storming through my body, cooking the already uncomfortably warm air inside my lungs and melting whatever was left of my heart. Demons had gained form in flames, feeding off of every fractured memory I had left. Quite soon I would resemble little more than an ash-heap on the hard concrete floor of the Holborn sleeping quarters, consumed by an all-engulfing fire started by the tiny sparks floating in the sky over Piccadilly Circus that once composed Eros. I was a casualty of my own attachments.

    I hadn’t said a word. I hadn’t wept a tear. I was motionless in every sense; every muscle, even those in my face, was still as if set in stone. I had promised myself not to fall prey to my own emotions, and so I wouldn’t.

    “Anyone would be devastated by what you’ve seen today, Nox,” continued Victor, his face looking more concerned than ever. “Death and destruction hurt even the hardiest of people.”

    I said nothing. Winds rushed through the long, white corridor outside the quarters. Both Victor and Oscar, who had both joined me in sitting around the same table I had found Victor planning ‘Operation Acre’ a few nights ago, were beginning an almost ritualistic routine of glancing back and forth at each other and at me, always awkwardly out of synchronicity. It took a little while for either of them to speak, by which time the roaring orange flames had already encapsulated my chest. Their words were becoming more and more ineffective by the minute; all Oscar, the one whom spoke, said once he opened his mouth was that he was going to check on Patrick’s son next door.

   He left slowly and cautiously, closing the door with a feeble tug so as not to slam it shut and wake the whole station. As soon as he left, Victor piped up again; “Is there really nothing I can say to help you, Nox?”

   “I-I...”

   “Go on. It’ll make you feel miles better.”

   “I-I can’t...”

   “You’ve done unbelievably well to control yourself today,” Victor said, in the style of the wise old sorcerer from many a fantasy tale. “I’ve known you for two years, and for most of those two years I’ve witness you descend into a pit of tears over the tiniest of matters.”

   “Death isn’t a ‘tiny matter,’ Victor,” I interjected.

   “That’s very true, Nox, but in the case of most people – around the world, I mean, not just here – death only matters if the deceased has a strong personal connection to them. You would fall foul of your own emotions if you saw the corpse of one of the Faceless lying on the street.” He paused, just to take a few drawn out sighs of breaths. “Nox,” he continued, with a tone of pride in his voice which bordered upon the romantic, “you always were a brilliant fighter. Now, though, I can be sure that you are, above all else, the strongest person I know.”

    I was left speechless once more, this time not by the torturous nature of the all-encompassing flames scorching my insides but by the lapping waves that Victor’s words had brought with them upon their quiet and humble entrance. My cheeks flushed with the kind of light red that used to appear over the Houses of Parliament on a clear night at sunset, prompting a few quick flicks of my hands about my face to cool me off. Words were beginning to un-jumble themselves in my mouth but before I could speak, Oscar burst back into the room.

   “Nox,” he began, gesturing at the sterile white corridor outside. “You might want to take a look at this.”

   Oscar had, by his side, Patrick’s son. He was still bleeding from the gigantic gash from which I had ripped the mysterious ICL circuit board from, but now only at a rate of a few meagre drops a minute; a scar had slowly but surely formed. He had a toothy grin stamped into the middle of his face, visible behind the drape of jet-black hair that had formed down his right-hand side, and was tugging at Oscar’s arm in order to free himself; after a while, Oscar loosened his grip and let him bound his way towards me, yelling ‘Noxie’ repeatedly as he went.