A rising fall (City Book 1)

0011001100110100 In the darkest hour of the eve, The Teller told his tale of tantalising terror. It whispered itself into the sleep of all the Mothers, Children and Fathers who lay together At Peace; its voice at first no louder than the sound of a tiny gust of air passing gently through the slips in a doorway; a sound that was sweet and curled into their ears, creeping into their thoughts to mask as their own conscience before forming to fill the space in their minds and to inturn paint their perception, describing the dream in avid detail; the despair that fed from the erasure of this City; the sprawl of greyish emptiness, their conscious purgatory.

As The Teller finished its readings, its voice had contorted and built to a calamitous shriek as The Collective, in their suggestive sleep, tossed from one side to the other, unable to escape their cerebral torture as new truths unfolded in their minds until a word was spoken which invoked a gentle calm that fixed them into a longing slumber, one that would have their conscience quiet and at ease.

Outside of the dormitories, in the highest part of the complex, The Behemoth prepared, pondering over the coming dawn.

Below him men were circling and building fronts while beyond them, the stampede of desperate legs gained velocity and volume.

They would only have several hours before the wave of violence was spilling at their shore. There was no time for complacency. “Have The Woman brought here� said The Behemoth to a White Heart who stood guarding the entrance.

The soldier left his post and stormed through the complex, sneaking into the dark of the dormitory; from where The Teller had just been and not where it now was. The White Heart grabbed the woman, holding his hand over her mouth to quieten her fright then carrying her over his shoulder out of At Peace and through the complex while she continued to bask in a deep unconscious 239