Leaks in the Pipe: Prologue

It was the very best feeling in the world. Sitting on the outcropping, the smooth marble so chilled I could feel the cold seep through my gloves. My ears waited patiently to hear the occasional soft flick of water droplets fall from the leaking ceiling into the watery expanse that sat below my dangling legs. To feel my aching muscles burn satisfyingly as they finally had a chance to unclench, and to fill my lungs with the filtered air, every exhale smoky with my stresses.

The room used to be a ballroom perhaps-tables and chairs still stood up somewhat in the water, and to the left was an enormous glass window, showing the opposite end of the city in all of its splendor, the lights dancing in the water as the partygoers likely did back when they were alive.

For a single moment, I could almost see it again, I felt myself back there, that beautiful, colorful slice of heaven. I saw the buildings in the water as a lie, bright and alive, imagining the angels sleeping peacefully on the floor made my tongue tingle with a thirst for ADAM, and I clenched the edge of the marble nostalgically as Mr. B's strong scent filled my nose. All products of the rose-colored lenses I could never fully peel from my eyes.

But then the distant screams bounced through the halls, or the rude sound of a drill revving would bubble up from the earth, and I would be in the darkness of the ballroom, looking down at my face's reflection. The face I've always had, the face with one bright yellow eye, glowing like the stoplights I saw on the surface.

Whenever I saw myself back there, I always remembered another face. She had two eyes instead of one, she wore a silky dress that caressed her skin, all in lavender, her very favorite color, and a silver crown. It filled me with a frustration so dense, and so sharp that I felt my brain burn in my skull.

She had a name...it started with a P. P...P... I tried so hard to remember, thinking of her smile, and her laugh, the naive giddiness I felt back there melting through my fingers, unable to grasp it any more than I could hold the water sitting at the bottom of the room.

As I remembered it started happening again, warm water started leaking within the hard shell of my face, without meaning to, a high-pitched whine came from my throat as I reached up to grip the top of my head until the water stopped and I felt the drumming in my body slow back down.

I sat for a while longer, trying to force any thoughts out of my mind until, slowly, a compulsion itched at the back of my mind, begging me to stand up and walk back out of the room the way I came-I was being called home.