Souls Below - Rebellion

Chapter Twenty-Two.

I threw myself onto my bed, the mattress sinking beneath me like a long-lost friend. After nine nights curled on crates and concrete, the soft bedding and clean pillow felt like heaven. My wet hair fanned out across the sheets, still damp from what might have been the best shower of my life—hot water, real soap, and enough time to scrub away a layer of grime and maybe, just maybe, a sliver of the guilt clinging to my skin.

I hadn’t said a word to Calian after we got back. I took the personal stairwell straight to the upper quarters, leaving Jerard to deal with him—directing him, no doubt, to the cramped office attached to his workshop. I couldn’t look at either of them. Not yet.

Turning on my side, I let my gaze drift toward the window. The city blinked back at me through the glass, hazy lights and faint silhouettes etched into the dome’s curvature. I hadn’t realized how much I missed this view—this strange, broken skyline I’d grown up beneath. It didn’t feel like home when I left… but now, after everything, it almost did.

With a sigh, I reached for the bag I’d dumped beside the bed. My fingers fumbled through the contents until they closed around a familiar shape. I pulled out the small device, the screen flickering softly to life in my hand.

Krane’s face flashed across my thoughts—not the version of him I knew best, the one with a crooked grin and dry jokes, but the one I saw tonight. Cold. Distant. Hurt. The look he gave me when he realized I’d already met Calian… it carved something sharp through my chest. Betrayal and disbelief. As if I’d just proven every awful thing he feared about the Uppers. About me.

My thumb hovered, then tapped the screen. I typed a short message and sent it before I could change my mind. My heart leapt into my throat as it went through—one tiny signal fired into silence. Part of me hoped he’d respond. The other part knew he wouldn’t.

The device rested on my chest as I lay back again, staring at the ceiling as if the answers might be carved in its rusted metal. Things were spinning too fast. Everything I knew—my routine, my friendships, the rules I used to navigate this world—was unravelling. And at the center of it all was an Upper I never should have trusted. Never should have followed.

I heard Jerard’s footsteps pass my door. No pause. No knock. No sarcastic comment about how I probably flooded the bathroom. Nothing. He always checked on me, always. That silence rang louder than any lecture could. I’d f****d up. Worse than I thought.

I checked the device again. Still no reply. A sharp ache curled in my stomach, guilt winding its way through my ribs. I hadn’t just broken the rules—I’d broken something between Krane and me. Something I wasn’t sure I could fix.

‘Makers, why was I such an i***t? Why couldn’t I be like the other Lower kids?’

I turned onto my side and slipped the device under my pillow, blinking at the city lights beyond the window. The faint whistle of night rotation echoed distantly, a mechanical lullaby I’d grown up with but never really noticed until now. I missed normal. Makers, I missed it.

Back when Krane wasn’t mad at me.

Back when the guards didn’t want my head.

Back when Uppers were just a rumour and not a real boy with bright blue eyes and too many secrets.

My hand reached under the covers, fingers brushing the cool surface of the pendant Krane had made. I held it close, the tiny stone glowing faintly in the dark, despite being cut off from the light above. Somehow it still shone.

I didn’t deserve it.

Still, I curled around it, pressing it to my chest as if it could keep the world from falling apart. I whispered a silent wish—for things to go back to how they were. For Krane to forgive me. For a moment of peace in a world spiraling further out of reach.

Sleep took me slowly, wrapped in the soft hum of the city and the last warmth of something I was already losing.

~*~

…Images blurred past outside the pristine, white-framed window—flashes of green, ivory, and gold that seemed almost familiar, though too swift to hold onto. Beyond the glass, something vast stretched in every direction. Mountains? Trees? Spires? My mind tried to name them, but the moment I reached for clarity, it slipped like water through my fingers.

My gaze dropped again to my hands, folded in my lap like a well-rehearsed posture. The white dress shimmered with golden filigree that moved when I breathed, as though the fabric were alive. The gold cord around my waist glinted under the ambient light, tied in a precise knot that tugged against my ribs each time I shifted. Too tight. Too rigid.

I wasn’t supposed to move much.

I wasn’t supposed to fidget.

And yet, I couldn’t stop.

Unease built in my stomach, a fluttering anxiety with no name. I could feel people walking past, feel their eyes glance toward me and move on. Were they guards? Servants? Strangers? Each presence made the tension coil tighter. Why was I so nervous?

I tried to remember. Tried to focus on the faint thread of a thought just beyond reach. A journey… a city… something important… someone important. But the harder I focused, the more distant it became—like a book you’d half-read but forgotten the title of.

The seat beside me shifted.

I turned quickly.

A man sat there, regal in his stillness. His beard was neatly trimmed, the lines on his face carved by time and wisdom, not weariness. His emerald eyes sparkled with warmth, and when he smiled, something in me ached. A feeling, unshaped and wordless, rose like a tide in my chest. It wasn’t just comfort he brought—it was home.

My hands stilled. My shoulders relaxed. I slouched ever so slightly into the plush cushion of the chair, as though my body remembered something my mind had forgotten. His hand found mine, resting over my restless fingers with the same ease a parent hushes a child.

“Be still, my daughter.”

His voice was velvet and iron—soothing, steady, and heartbreakingly familiar. I wanted to ask him something. A hundred things. Where are we? Who are you? What am I afraid of? But I couldn’t open my mouth. The words burned behind my lips, unable to escape.

Outside the window, the blurring shapes began to slow—resolving not into clear images, but suggestions: A tower that looked half-submerged in fog. A city carved into stone. A great bridge suspended in air. Then, faces—flashes of people I didn’t know, but who seemed to know me.

The man’s hand squeezed mine gently.

“There is nothing to fear. We are nearly there.”

I turned to him again, breath catching. “Where are we going?”

But the words never left my throat.

The dream was slipping.

Fading like light at dusk.

The world outside the window fractured into light. The warmth of his hand vanished. The dress disappeared in a blink, replaced by coarse sheets tangled around my legs. And just before I fully woke, a single thought whispered through the haze of sleep, like a memory from another life:

You have always been more than what they told you….

~*~

I slammed the hammer down on the dented pipe, a grunt slipping through clenched teeth as the vibration shot through my arms. The blow bounced off awkwardly, barely making a difference, my wrist throbbing from the effort. A crappy worker bot had malfunctioned three days ago, slamming itself repeatedly into the main water line near the District wall. Since then, Jerard, Greaves, and two Techs from the upper sectors had been working alongside me to get things running again.

One of the Techs was a gangly man with long, tangled hair and a permanent scowl. The other was a teenage girl—a strange, jittery thing who carried around a device that beeped and blinked every time the water flow stabilized. She looked like she’d assembled her outfit from a bin of lost clothes: one side of her blonde hair cropped short, the other braided and pinned with beads, ribbons, and tiny pieces of metal which clinked when she moved.

She kept sneaking glances at me, her curiosity practically humming off her like static. I didn’t blame her—Tech kids rarely made it down here to the Makers sector. I tried to ignore her, focusing on the pipe, but Jerard’s voice cut through my concentration right as I swung again. The hammer twisted in my grip, smashing my wrist at an odd angle.

“s**t—” I hissed, letting the hammer clatter to the ground. Jerard and Greaves both looked over. I waved them off with a forced shrug, cradling my wrist and biting back the sting. The last thing I needed was their concern.

I slumped against the wall, gulping water and letting the sweat cool on my skin. My shirt stuck uncomfortably to my back, so I peeled it off, leaving the tank top underneath. My body ached from the constant labour, and the tension between me and Jerard only made everything worse. He hadn’t spoken more than a few clipped sentences to me in days, and I couldn’t tell if he was angry or just… disappointed.

I noticed the girl edging toward me again, pretending to check her device, subtle as a crashing bot. I braced myself.

“Hi!” she blurted out suddenly, bouncing into my line of sight like a spring wound too tight. “I’m Zinnivia—but you can call me Zinny! Or ViVi! Or Nivia—really, anything works. I mean, not anything anything, but you know… whatever!” I blinked, thrown off by the sheer speed of her words. Her energy crackled like a live wire, and I had no idea how to respond. She blushed hard, tugging at the hem of her shirt. “Sorry. Pa says I’m too much for most people. You’re Amira, right?”

I stood slowly, brushing my hands on my pants, not sure if I should talk or walk away. I didn’t do friends, I barely had Krane, and even that was complicated now. Friends meant questions. Questions meant risk.

“Yeah,” I replied, hesitant. “But everyone calls me Mira.” I offered my hand. She squealed and grabbed it with both of hers, shaking far too enthusiastically. The man she’d arrived with—her Dad I assumed—was watching from across the worksite, his expression a tightrope between concern and exasperation. “That your dad?” I asked, nodding toward him.

Zinnivia sighed. “Yeah. He gets weird when I meet new people.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “Says I wasn’t born right. I’m too… extra all the time. " she twisted her hand around in the air enthusiastically. “That’s not normal, apparently.”

Not normal. The words hit too close.

“So does mine,” I murmured, and her head snapped up, eyes wide and sparkling. “I’m too curious. That’s not normal either, not for a Lower. I ask too many questions.”

Her mouth formed a little ‘o’ as her gaze shifted to Jerard. “And you have Jerard Gearmaster as your dad. I thought my rules were bad.” she made a pained face. I flinched at the word ‘dad’, but didn’t correct her. That would only lead to more questions—ones I wasn’t able to answer. A beep sounded from her device and she snapped back to attention, fingers dancing across the screen.

Jerard called my name. “This area’s clear. Pipes are holding.”

Zinnivia held up her device proudly. “Zeebot says all clear!” she chirped, doing a weird little dance. I actually laughed, despite myself, her father’s disapproving stare landed on me instantly, but I didn’t care. “Does this mean I won’t see you again?” she asked suddenly, all bounce gone, her voice small and uncertain.

I hesitated. She was from the Tech sector. I didn’t have clearance to go anywhere near that place, not with my lack of ID. Jerard and Zinnivia’s dad approahced, his glasses sliding down his nose.

“Our job’s done,” her father interrupted before I could answer. “Time to go home, Zinny.” Her eyes found mine, hopeful.

“I don’t travel between districts,” I explained softly. Her face dropped. “But… if you’re ever around here again, come find me. We could be… friends.” The word felt strange in my mouth, rusty and unfamiliar.

Her whole face lit up like a solar flare. “OMG Yes! Yes yes yes!” she bounced, glowing with excitement. Even her father looked surprised.

“That would be… nice,” he responded quietly, more to himself than to me. Zinnivia grinned so wide it looked like her face might c***k in half.

Jerard wrapped up the conversation, exchanging a few more words with her father before we split ways. As we walked, I found myself already thinking of Calian. I’d gotten used to finding him at the end of the day, asking him about the Upper City and watching the way his eyes lit up when he talked. I didn’t know when that habit had started, or what it meant, but I was glad for the distractions.

Jerard and I walked in silence, the crowd of the Makers District moving around us in a steady pulse of sound. I kept my eyes on the ground.

“That was kind,” Jerard spoke finally, voice low. “What you said to Zinny.”

I gave a noncommittal nod, shoving my hands into my pockets. “She feels out of place in her sector. Like I do.” My voice dropped. “I know what it’s like when people treat you like there’s something wrong with you.” He let out a heavy sigh. The kind I was growing too used to hearing.

“I’ll meet you back home,” I added quickly, not giving him the chance to say whatever lecture he was about to deliver. My legs moved before my mind caught up, breaking into a run. The wind tugged at my hair, cool against sweat-damp skin.

I felt guilty. I was avoiding him, and I knew it. But Jerard had changed too—gone colder, more guarded. Maybe I wasn’t the only one hiding.

And maybe… that was the problem.