Every night, Nico dreams of the same thing.
The flash of a blinding grin. The warmth of fingertips touching the tender parts of him in frosty air. The sound of a laugh, as light and airy as the church bells he remembers, but he knows some of the others donāt. Thereās an urgency that presses against his ribcage each time he hears it, a need to somehow capture the sound and keep it there inside his chest.
Sometimes they're somewhere hot, even though the air inside the dream is still biting. Sometimes the leaves just beyond the icy floor they can somehow glide across are a burnt orange, and other times they are stripped from the trees, lying crunchy on the ground around their roots.
Itās not something he sees, exactly, but itās something he just-
Something from life before this place, he thinks.
The compound is still dark when he wakes each morning, too early for the synthetic sunlight to have crept its way inside his sleeping pod. Around him there is the sound of the others snoring, some talking in their sleep, and like always the hum too.
Alex claimed to know that itās a generator, something to keep the power on down here. Laura pointed out that if it was that, it would be silent for a few seconds each time the lights flickered.
Nico wants to know how they can be so sure that they are underground, but itās not easy to argue with their logic. He hasnāt seen the sky for- Well, as long as heās been here.
He knows he has around forty-seven minutes before The Voice will disrupt them all. Awaken them with the chillingly cheery instructions to, ārise and shine.ā He knows, because once he counted them, all forty-seven chunks of 60 seconds of time. He had to; there arenāt any clocks here.
He also knows that soon heās going to need to dig again. That they all will, after breakfast. That the day will pass sweating in the oppressive heat of the tunnel, that his fingernail will turn brown first, and then black, that his fingertips will bleed when they come across the slice of broken glass or the sharpened point of bones.
Why, heād asked Ondrej, the day he woke up here and was shuffled towards the entrance of the tunnel. Why- Shouldnāt we have shovels, at least?
Wide eyes, and a hand raised quickly to cover his mouth had let Nico know that questioning was bad, but worse was-
Donāt tell anyone else that you remember shovels, that you remember before, Ondrej had hissed to him, later that night when heād cornered Nico before he climbed back into the sleeping pod heād woken in. It will let them know your procedure didn't complete.
Itās been two-hundred-and-four artificial sunrises since that day, and Nico is no closer to knowing who ātheyā are or what it is they are digging for, or if itās a good thing to remember. It gets you out of here, because there have been twenty-six evenings spent with a newcomer demanding to know how the rest of them could claim not to remember fireworks or birthday cake or rivers, only for them to wake and find them gone the next morning.
Nico had wanted to know if they knew about icy floors too, about changing leaves and church bells, but-
Thereās nothing good outside the compound, Rebecca said once at dinner, a dazed look in her eye. We were all brought here to be saved.
People come, another person goes.
The tunnel grows, longer until Ondrej tells them one day it needs to be wider.
To fit a truck, Nico thinks, but canāt say because trucks might be something from the before he shouldnāt know. Or maybe a small plane.
Heās been on one, he knows. Before. A small plane, one made to fit less than 50 people, but somehow bustling with laughter. One that small would be enough to get some of them out of here, but thereās no sky to fly towards, so he supposes it wouldnāt do them any good.
Only stagnant air, thick in their throats.
āI miss the winter,ā somebody mutters to the right of him, and the memories that word evokes are startling enough to have him look up from the ash brown earth.
Snow. Crisp white sheets of it a top mountains somewhere far away, somewhere home, but also dirty grey piles of it turned to sludge and lining the pathways of a city thatās also somehow home. Cold air clouding around his face as he laughs, a gloved hand in his.
When Nico looks, all he sees is the new guy- Jack.
Then their eyes meet, bright, bright blue, and Nico thinks, not just snow- Ice.
āWhat did you say?ā Nico asks, throat closing so the words sound as though they are scraping against it on the way out.
Jack only shrugs, gives Nico a tight-lipped smile.
āItās too fucking hot,ā is all he says, before his hands begin to move through the mud again.
Somehow, the colours get brighter, the picture clearer. Suddenly, he can see the leaves, the shape of them, their delicate points, their veiny underside and their waxy surface. He can see the stars too, because sometimes he and the faceless owner of the warm hands are somewhere dark, somewhere where they only need to look up to see the sky.
āThat oneās Capricorn,ā the guy- his guy, he knows now- tells him. This time his voice is closer, like if he reached out his hand in return he could touch the words, trace the space they make in the air. āLike you. Like-ā
The ghost of a touch on his inner bicep. Soft and tender.
Nico wakes up with a gasp.
The next day, he tells a joke. Just to see, just to know. Corny and louder than he'd ever usually be at the breakfast table, just so it carries to where Jack as sat, a few seats away. Stealing glances at Nico when he thinks he isn't looking.
Most people ignore Nico, a few of them groan.
Only Jack laughs. As he does his eyes flick upwards to meet Nico's again. It's small, the noise, pushed softly from between the careful parting of his lips, but it's enough.
The single chime of a bell.
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