Underneath The Hidden Stars

Chapter XX

"Yup, it is indeed me." Prescott smiled as he placed the coffee and croissants on the small table in front of Mira. "So, what brings you here?"

"What brings me here? I could ask you the same thing! For me, it's just that I got an internship here, so I'll spend a little more time here, on Level 9."

"Oh, that's amazing! I did notice that you have some brains in that head of yours." he said and lightly hit Mira on the head. "I'm here because I work here. In this little cafe. Not much, but hey, it pays well, and I get to walk around the almighty concrete jungles." he giggled.

Mira took a sip of her coffee and bit on the croissant. She glanced at Prescott, who looked around, and after noticing there were no new customers, sat down next to her.

"So... what exactly do you work as? The proverbial cat's out of the bag for me, so mind saying what yours is?"

Mira glared at him suspiciously for a few moments and took another sip.

"Hmm, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say..." Prescott looked at her with puppy dog eyes and Mira gave in. "Okay, okay. But don't tell anyone! I'm only telling you because, you know..." she got flustered and her face got flushed in red. "I work as a detective in the safety office. Both the lead officer in my floor and in this one decided that interning here would provide me some good experience for the future."

"Oh, I see. That's pretty cool! Law enforcement... but, I can't help but notice, we don't really have that many laws now, do we? I mean, you can't murder, steal, and that's basically it-"

"You also can't cross floors without a pass, can't tell others of your profession if you're a cop, can't blow up buildings, can't have secret meetings that are not watched over by someone from the government... There's quite a lot I'm not even mentioning because they'd require a lot of additional explaining and my coffee would definitely get cold." she said and took a big gulp of coffee. "Also, did you make my coffee?"

"Oh, no, it was Eliza." He said and gestured towards a short girl who had taken Mira's order. "I've only recently started working here, so they're not letting me make anything myself, I'm basically only working as a waiter."

"Wait, you said you're new here... but you definitely didn't arrive this year, right?"

"Oh no, I arrived last year, I used to live on Level 6 prior to that. I worked at the bakery in Level 8 before, but was promoted to this bunch of people who can't believe I could even make a simple black coffee right." He sighed, flabbergasted. "I know I'm ranting, but like, can you not? I was promoted for a reason, and you're just making me carry out cups and plates-" he was interrupted by the door opening. "Okay, customers. Gotta go back. Talk to you later!" He waved and ran back to the counter.

Without waiting too much, Mira finished her meal, drunk the last sip of coffee and left. She wanted to wave goodbye to Prescott, but he looked so busy, that she decided to not bother him.

Mira walked around the level a little bit more, but realized she had explored all it had to offer.

"It really is tiny, wow. Level 4 was at least 5 times as big as this one."

She walked one more time around the perimeter of it, and decided to head home. She took the elevator up, which surprisingly to her, worked a bit differently than the ones she had seen before. It didn't have floors for buttons, it had apartment numbers, meaning she didn't even know what floor she was staying on. As she barely had any time before that, she now had the luxury to see what the view out her window was. She drew out the curtains that were closed before and sat down in front of the window. Mira saw the sun setting in the screen filled sky, which looked as beautiful as an artificial sky could. She scooted closer to the window and looked down. She estimated she must be on the 6th or 7th floor of the building before she got dizzy from the height. As she had never seen buildings this tall before, and to add it all up, has never been in one this tall, she was overwhelmed to a point that she felt she might even throw up. She laid down on the floor by the window and looked up. She saw what looked like the Milky Way, and wondered how it would look like in real life, on the actual sky, not the one made of LCD screens. Mira wanted to hear the announcement, wanted to hear the anthem, something, that would make her feel more at home, but everything was quiet. She wasn't sure if it was because of the excellent sound-proofing in the building, or if the people were just not making any sounds, but the whole level was extremely silent. She swore she would be able to hear anything that happened on the opposite side of the level, if she'd only opened the window, but she didn't. Without overthinking it too much, she closed the curtains back up and went to sleep.

The next morning Mira woke up feeling rather out of it. Maybe it was because she was in a different place, maybe the bed wasn't the most comfortable one, but she felt rather under the weather. She spent a good 30 minutes in bed, with her blanket up to her eyes and just wanted to disappear, or at least go to sleep. After her alarm clock rung 3 more times, with each one being more and more loud, she had no other choice but to get out of bed. She walked to the fridge and looked if there's anything inside, as she definitely didn't buy anything. To her surprise, there was some bread and some peanut butter on one of the shelves, both unopened. The sight of one of her favourite foods made her mood just a little smidge better. She quickly spread the peanut butter on the bread and took a deep bite. Interestingly enough, after half of the sandwich, she already felt completely full, making the rest of her meal look almost inedible. With a sad look on her face, she placed the rest of the sandwich on a plate and put it in the fridge, hoping that her future self will feel better and will want to finish it, preferably in one bite. She then drank a glass of water and realized she was almost late for her first day as an intern. She splashed some water on her face, quickly put on some clothes and left the building.

The day went by uneventfully. All Mira did was follow other officers around and look at old cases, which, in her opinion, were boring, mainly because they were solved too easily. In all of the cases she was shown, the culprit was found, arrested, and sent to the below on the same day as the crime was done in, which seemed oddly suspicious.

"Why would the culprit come forward so soon?" she kept asking after looking through each file.

"It's because they know that the law is absolute, and if they don't show themselves within 24 hours of the crime, they might spend way longer in the below." all the officers would answer, almost robot like, without even glancing at her.

"But that doesn't make sense! If they didn't come forward, there would still be a slim chance of them getting away, why would they even want to confess? After all, there are no people who have actually returned from the below, wouldn't it make more sense to just wait it out?"

But the officers would not reply to such ideas, they would all just ignore them. To them, the idea that someone would not confess seemed absurd and laughable for some reason. Mira couldn't stop thinking what would happen if the organisation her mother leads actually pulled something off. None of them would come forward, as as of the situation at that point, the people that would actually place the bombs, would be outsiders, with no such idiotic thinking. They would never come forward.

After a full day of boresome work, Mira went to the cafe again. It seemed that luck was on her hands, as Prescott worked on that day too. She ordered the same coffee and meal as always, sat down, and luckily to them, there were little to no customers, so both of them could chat almost uninterrupted. They talked about multiple completely unrelated things, such as siblings, which apparently Prescott doesn't have, dreams, aspirations, their favourite old school films and movies. After a rather long discussion, that included loads of question if that really happened 70 something years ago, they finally agreed that Prescott was a Hufflepuff, while Mira was a Ravenclaw. They talked about how they heard that there used to be a test that would determine which house you really belonged to, and wondered if the questions were hard.

After spending a good few hours talking, Mira noticed that it had gotten rather dark inside. As more and more customers filled the cafe, Mira decided it would be a good time to leave. She took one of the croissants that she get around to eat and went home.

The studio apartment she was staying at still seemed rather unwelcoming, and Mira didn't know what could make it more cozy. She drew back the curtains, but the sight of towering buildings only made her more uncomfortable. She closed the curtains and went to bed. Mira covered herself with a blanket, tucking her head under it, and just laid there, practically without any motion. She started thinking about the things she had left behind, and how different her life had become. In the span of a single year, she had not only went up 4 Levels, but had gotten a temporary staying warrant 5 Levels above the Level she was born in. She remembered the people she had lost in the meantime, but decided to not think about it too much. She then hugged one of the pillows that was on her bed, poked her head out of the blanket, and fell to a deep sleep.