MEMMORIA | ONC 2020

002: Gōruden'urufu

A small dark rag of sky greeted Agatha's green eyes once she came across the front door and looked up to meet the clouds. The rest of the buildings around made anyone feel tiny, as their height was such they almost covered the whole sky. The girl barely remembered the last time she had been outside the condominium. It was such an uncomfortable feeling offered by the reality outdoor it was preferable to stay locked in the happy cage of her flat. The narrow streets were solitary, as a soft rain was pouring down. No one was out there when raining.

Only the blue and pink colour lights that enlightened the pathways glowed shattering the darkness, as most of the buildings had no windows and the screens that once reproduced commercials and news over their flat facade were mostly out of functioning.

She followed Viking to the place where Pippo should be at, waiting for her to meet him. What would he have to say this time?
He never came to Agatha's flat as a part of their agreement. If one day her business was discovered, she didn't want them to relate Pippo with her.

So,  instead of meeting at the regular places or communicating through text messages or any other technological manner, Pippo and her always met in a shadowed spot of the city where cameras were off or they were just not there. A hard thing to do, as every corner had one, but Pippo was clever and he knew few places like this.

The air carried a smell not far from sulfur and fuel, making those streets the living proof of hell. As they walked the rain became thicker. Some meters served as a wall between Viking and Agatha, only to pretend they didn't know each other. Although streets were empty, one never knows who's watching.

The kid ran with incredible agility, getting under the small roofs that almost covered the tight sidewalks, trying to get cover from the rain. Agatha hurried to catch his speed and try not to lose his trail.

The city scene was dark and rotten. Most of the facades were decadent and stained with something similar to rust, even if they once were painted with amazingly bright colours, the only thing that made them look not so ugly were the graffities and wall arts made by the secret street artists.

The Earth wasn't as kind as it used to be anymore and everything that had been built by men was suffering the consequences. At least inside Sulis walls, everything was only a twisted memory of what it once was.

Viking seemed to know the streets very well, as he took turns through places Agatha didn't even know existed. She wasn't much of an outdoors person anyway. I mean, what was left to see there but crowded paths with silent, gloomy people and crumbling buildings?

A small market with Chinese lanterns and a white tree at the centre of a small garden had been hidden all this time behind an abandoned parking lot. The place was almost taken from a fantasy videogame. White trees were a rare invention that preserved nature tangled with nanotechnology. A silly attempt of the science to turn trees to eternal things. One of the human mistakes, and like the Memmoria helmets, it had been erased of the colony as if it were a disease.

They walked across the empty market without getting too much rain over them, and soon, they were at the other side of the district. The girl thought it would be easy for Viking to wander at night and even with eyes closed he would still know any corner. That might be the reason Pippo always sent him to run all his errands. Viking had lived in those streets for a long part of his life, so it was a habit for him to slip through the alleys and rooftops escaping the common dangers of the homeless.

After fifteen minutes of rushed walk, a rusty iron bridge that connected two pieces of soil across a wide black lake was drawn in the sightline. A really tall man with golden blonde hair and even more blonde beard was standing under it, placing his heavy fake leather boot against the wall covered by sunflowers and green leaves. That one was Pippo. He must've been at least five feet tall.