So Cuuute😊

So cuuute😊

Neo-Warsaw Vol II #2 Ashes and Embers

Stok pulls on the thick mitts and despite the trucks bouncing across the patchy street manages to clamp the helmet on. It swallows his head and tints his world grey. Bolek, already suited up drives, his foot slammed down on the pedal. The siren shrieks as they cut through the traffic, sliding hover-cars to the side like butter. The holo-display on the windshield shows them the way. Five minutes until they reach level 2 Wola. Five minutes until they arrive at the fire.

They roll off the street and into the courtyard outside the enormous high rise. People, still half asleep and in various stages of dress watch as the plumes of smoke cloud out the lights of the upper levels. The fire is a sprawling mass of orange and red flame that devours the top of the building. It spreads from out the windows and runs up along the sides of the building, its roaring sounds like a demented laugh. Stok stands almost in awe of its ferocity before Bolek grabs his shoulder.

“Come on let’s go!”

Their padded orange suits beam the words “ NW Fire Guard” in silver reflective material. On their backs are a small tank of water and an even smaller tank of oxygen. It’s barely enough to tackle a small fire, not to mention the behemoth that threatens to burn down a building 30 levels high.

“ What’s the plan?” Stok asks as they run into the building.

“Check for any people, get out as quick as we can when the others come.”

“ Same as always then.”

Bolek turns around, “ yeah.”

They both smile behind the helmets cover and then with a swift kick of the door, burst in.

They race up floor by floor like two rats in a maze. Running up the steel stairwell and through the tight hallways. A single beam from their masks cuts a slim ray of light through the smoke. Which gets thicker and stronger with each ascent. Soon enough the foul,bitter taste seeps through the masks filters and they feel their throats tense and burn. Aside from a small 3D map flickering in the corner of the masks display they navigate blind. With only their assurance that the building is a clone of every other high-rise in the city helping them.

Quickly they settle into their familiar routine. Stok blasts the small flames that lick at their arms and legs with the water to clear the path for Bolek, who runs down the corridor. Watching for any signs of life on the infrared scanner of the helmet.

They work as if choreographed, moving seamlessly from corridor to corridor. The pair is order in the middle of chaos.

The 30th floor. It’s become almost unbearable to breathe, the heat penetrates through their suits and burns their flesh, the flames are an unruly mass of tentacles that strike against the buildings concrete core. Stok’s bottle of water has long ran dry and he’s taken the one off of Boleks back. Leaving his comrade unarmed. They continue the way they have so far.

This time they find no-one, at least no-one alive. No doubt the medi-drones will pull the charred corpses out when morning comes.. Not that it matters now. Despite the roaring off sirens outside which no doubt means their back-up has arrived and that the courtyard is swarmed by fire guard, they still have to evacuate. No one else would volunteer to race into the flames.

Bolek drops the locket on the 13th floor. Stok swoops down to pick it up. He feels the coppers heat through his mitts and wonders how much pain it must have cost Bolek to keep inside his pocket. He’s never known his partner to be sentimental. As they run down curiosity wins over him. He flicks it open. His wife’s face smiles back at him. An old-style photograph of her, printed on paper, smiling. The way he thought she only smiled for him.

When the steel bottle strikes against Boleks helmet, it shatters it with a crack that sounds like a bone breaking. He falls down and before he even knows what’s happened Stok is on top of him. He raises the bottle up and then brings it down as hard as he can. Over and over and over. Until there’s no more helmet left. Only a gaping wet hole dotted with black metal, that leads into Boleks open skull.

When he exits the building. He collapses. The mob of guardsmen and drones that rush around the building don’t pay attention to him, until after the building has been reduced to a charred skeleton. He’s taken away in the back of a ambulance and treated for smoke inhalation. Throughout the whole procedure he doesn’t speak. His eyes puffy and red from crying. Everyone assumes it’s the death of his partner. Who tragically burned with the building that leads him to tears.

He stays a week in the hospital. A small, pristinely white room that smells like disinfectant, where he spends the time lying still in the bed, his eyes stuck to the holo-screen. A medi-drone occasionally checks on him but most of the time he’s left to his own devices. Friends from the departament come a few times, making thin attempts at jokes, pretending that without his partner Stok is the same. When they recover Bolek’s body they notice the abnormal blows to the skull. It’s not reported but soon the visits stop as word spreads.

No one sees Stoks wife the entire time. It’s almost a month later that she’s seen hidden at the back of the crowd at Bolek’s funeral. Dressed in black like a widow. Stok doesn’t show up, but sits in a cramped hotel room, wheelchair bound and clasping a bottle.

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Check out the first volume of Neo-Warsaw: https://gwmusko.tumblr.com/post/172234577239/neo-warsaw-volume-i

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nightmaire231

6 years ago