No. 6

CHAPTER 1 - That Which I Say I Saw

So this was No. 6.
This was Elyurias.
***

Gracious my lord,
I should report that which I say I saw,
But know not how to do it.
-Macbeth, Act V Scene V

***

They were falling. Falling, almost straight down.

It was faster than anything Shion had imagined. He knew it was impossible, but he heard the sound of the wind. It was the same wind from that stormy night.

It was September 7, 2013―Shion's twelfth birthday. The Holy City of No. 6 had been directly hit by a hurricane. The rain was pounding on the ground, and the wind was roaring. The trees in his yard careened wildly, and leafy branches broke off and whipped through the air. It was an extremely large and severe hurricane, a kind not seen in recent years, but he was sure that no one living in Chronos felt threatened or anxious. Shion and his mother, Karan, had been the same.

This was No. 6. A utopian city, the results of human wisdom and cutting-edge technology. And in that utopia, Chronos was in the highest ranks among the luxury residences, a town where only the chosen ones were allowed to live. Mere natural disasters could not disturb it.

Everyone had believed so without a doubt. They had been allowed to believe otherwise.

That stormy night, I opened my window.

Why? he sometimes thought. Why did I open that window? Was it because I was excited at nature's madness, and I was stimulated, or I was stirred by a violent impulse―was that it? I certainly did open the window, and I yelled. I screamed as if I were pouring out all of the ferocity inside me. If I didn't scream, I felt like I would shatter to bits. In my own way, I felt a fear that I would be entrapped and tamed into domesticity by No. 6.

A vague fear―maybe something that you wouldn't be acquainted with, Nezumi.

I felt like I was suffocating. I was scared. I wanted to scream.

That was why I opened the window―wasn't it?

No.

That's not it.

You called to me.

I heard that voice―your voice―calling me.

It ducked through the wind, tore through the rain, and came to me.

You called me, and I was called by you.

That's why I opened the window. I flung it open wide to the outdoors.

I extended my arms in search of you.

Would you laugh? Would that breathtaking smile cross your face as you sneer at me? Would you shake your head with exasperation in that graceful way of yours?

'Meaningless fancies. An intolerable mass of self-consciousness, like a half-baked artist's work'―would you spit those words at me? You probably would. Go on and laugh. You can dismiss them as my delusions; I don't care.

But it's the truth.

You called me, and I listened. I reached out, and you caught my arm. I opened the window so I could meet you.

That's our truth, Nezumi.

A noise was ringing in his ears. It wasn't the whirl of the wind. It was the sound of sliding through a plastic tube. But what if this tube was not a garbage chute, but a steep slope that led straight to Hell?