Black Eyes

Chapter 7

Nakir had been walking for around twenty minutes before finding himself at a dead end. A homeless man was sleeping in a dirty blanket and to his left was a staircase leading up to the third floor of the building. Nakir thought it would have been better to walk on the rooftops, where the Zarka lurked mostly at night. The sharp corners of the sloping roofs would have served as a shield against the soldiers. Approaching the stairs stealthily so as not to wake the man he had to plug his nostrils to bear the stench. When he got close enough to look at the man's face he realised he wasn't sleeping. He was dead. Probably recently because only now the flies started to land around the closed eyes. Nakir turned away so as not to vomit and hurriedly climbed the rusty iron ladder hoping it would hold his weight.

Once he reached the top he crouched down on the flat roof. The almost midday sun even behind the blanket of clouds made his hair shine a flaming red. He literally felt a sign on his head that said "I'm here" so he put his hair up in a messy bun and hid it under the hood of Demetra's hoodie. It still smelled like her laboratory: white musk and disinfectant. Nakir stopped for a moment, hidden between the sloping roofs of the building next to the one he was on to smoke a cigarette. Maybe it wasn't the wisest choice, but he had nothing else to lose. If they had caught him, there would have been no way for him to escape. He might as well bet a cigarette on his life.

As the smoke puffed from his lips he realised how many people had come and gone from his life in just over two days. He had lived in solitude for years and now it seemed that people and even androids were entering his life as if he had opened a door that had been locked for so many years. It was him who had allowed it, after the hunter's attack. He wasn't used to socialising and like a fool he let Eva convince him that she was on the good side... that she would help him.

Those who had actually helped him had lost their lives. Nakir felt guilty, wrong in a world he had only survived in and which was now turning against him. True, he had never left the East of Zraegan, but he couldn't imagine that the North and the West were so obsessed with him. As he put out the cigarette butt with his boot, only one though came to his mind.

What the hell have you done, mom.

He put the lighter back in his jeans pocket and began to climb the roofs of the city as best as he could, marching towards the South, the only area that perhaps could give him some protection. The clouds were filled with rain that still hadn't fallen on Nakir's head, but were staring at him menacingly, completely covering the sky, although daylight still managed to shine through and provide a good view of the surroundings, both for him and for the Zarka guards.

The Southern area was that of the large ports. Cargo ships containing any type of goods travelling throughout Zraegan passed through the ports and were inspected by the Zarka. The people who lived there were poor and sold fish or vegetables in the port markets. Then there was the last journey and finally the great, enormous factories where at seven in the morning the workers poured in like a tide, working for ten hours in exchange for a salary that allowed them a house with two rooms at most. There were no palaces or large buildings there. Only small houses, some a bit dilapidated, all in shades of grey due to the smoke from the enormous chimneys and almost all with small vegetables garden, as the fresh vegetables that arrived from the port were grown in Lymeen, the coastal area east of Faerhom and transported through first class ships, were destined for the North and West part of Zraegan.

In the Southern area people mostly ate fish soup, fish scraps from the stalls and some seasonal vegetables picked from the garden. Everyone knew that those vegetables weren't healthy; the air was constantly filled with smoke from the factories that stretched all the way to the Eastern area, but they didn't care too much about it and repeated themselves that one had to die on something in that unjust world.