Whispers of Steam

Mikhail Yablokov, trapped in Nalensk's undercity, is trying to find his way out. He despises his supervisor, Dmitri Remezov, who sent him on this mission. Mikhail follows a pipe in hopes of finding his way home. He recalls the stories of disappearances and whispers of the steam in the undercity. As he gets closer to what he believes is the exit, he hears strange sounds and begins to doubt his path. Despite his exhaustion and lack of sleep, Mikhail pushes forward, determined to make it home. But as he continues, he realizes that he may be lost and his surroundings become unfamiliar. Whispers of steam Mikhail Yablokov couldn't stop coughing. It wasn't a soft, dignified cough coming from the back of his mouth, or a blusterous clearing of the throat. There was a weight to the cough. It forced its way from deep inside his chest and brought tears to his eyes. It echoed off the walls of the narrow tunnel, the only sound apart from the quiet hiss of steam. Alongside his coughing came a sickening feeling of desperation. Mikhail was lost. He didn't know how long he'd been trapped in the maze of passages that made up Nalensk's undercity. The stubble on his cheeks and pain in his stomach gave him some clue, but the specifics escaped him. Two days? Three? Without the sun, those were meaningless numbers. After the coughing subsided, Mikhail spit a glob of phlegm onto one of the many pipes that lined the walls. In seconds, it began to sizzle and pop. He paused to make a mental note of it. Steam. Fifth from the bottom. Mikhail picked up his gas lantern from where he had dropped it and continued forward. He had been sent to the undercity by his supervisor, Dmitri Remezov. Remezov was a stupid man, clueless with the tool in his hands and worthless at giving directions. But his uncle was a servant in the towers. A few words in the right ears had earned him the position of plumbing supervisor for the eastern quadrant of Nalensk. Remezov, while a fool, was not without a certain cunning. He used every bit of power he had been given, rewarding his toadies and punishing those who questioned his leadership. All it had taken was a single joke, made while his mind was clouded with vodka, and Mikhail had found himself on Remezov's shit list. It hadn't even been a particularly good joke. Something about how Remezov's lips looked like a dog's anus when he pursed them. Word had worked its way to Remezov, and he had held a grudge against Mikhail ever since. The lantern flame was beginning to flutter. Mikhail raised the glass and steel lantern to eye level and checked the oil reservoir. Two centimeters left, three at most, running out of time. He gently lowered the wick another centimeter. Its light grew dimmer, and the darkness around him crept forward ever so slightly. Mikhail reached a T-junction and found what he believed to be a miracle. Bolted to the wall before him was a thick pipe, large enough for a small child or an even smaller man to crawl through. It was flecked with the remains of decades-old red paint. It was a pipe Mikhail knew well. This pipe would be his salvation. It was the same one he had been following when he first stepped foot in the Undercity. Remezov had gotten reports of pressure loss from his superiors in the towers. Things like this happened from time to time. Some room hundreds of meters down would lose water or steam pressure, and Remezov was forced to do the only thing he was good for, delegation. Most of the time it was nothing major, a tiny crack in an easy-to-reach pipe. This time was different. A production line had lost all steam flow. The politicians were angry. Finding the pipe in question was easy enough, but no damage could be determined. After doing some poking around, it turned out the pipe was one of the few still connected to the Undercity, a remnant of Nalinsk's early days. All Mikhail had to do was follow the pipe, and sooner or later he would find his way out. He felt giddy and lightheaded. He was going home. Something gnawed at the back of his mind, a cry of caution, a reminder to think things through. But Mikhail ignored it. He was hungry and thirsty and tired, so, so tired. He took off down the hallway, one gloved hand brushing the pipe on his right, the other holding his lantern firmly aloft, lighting his way home. Remezov's face when he saw Mikhail again would be the sweetest victory of all. He had never expected Mikhail to come home. Thirty years ago, when teams of men were sent down on a regular basis, the Undercity was still feared. Nalinsk had never stopped growing, sailing off poor districts to build giant towers that pierced the sky. Once, long before Mikhail's time, the Undercity had been a true city unto itself, but the decades had forgotten it, and now the only living memories of the Undercity were of a dark place, devoid of life. The older workers told stories. After it had been sealed off, patrols were still a regular practice. Teams of twenty or thirty would be sent down to maintain the pipes. The years passed, new pumps and turbines and boilers were built, and the Undercity became less and less vital. Fewer teams were sent in smaller numbers. Then the disappearances started. Mostly it would be one or two people at a time. Some thought they wandered off, lost themselves to the maze of tunnels, and were never found again. Others whispered of small groups of people that still lived in the Undercity whisking them away. A few even believed they were taken by the steam itself. A common theme among the stories was the whispers of the steam. The older workers, those who had been to the Undercity, swore up and down that sometimes the pipes would speak. If a man listened long enough, he would simply walk away into the dark, never to be seen again. Tal had always thought them to be old wives' tales, but when he first stepped foot in the Undercity, he was forced to reconsider that position. All of his stories had come back to him. Every half-remembered Tal, even the ones his mother had told him to keep him away from the old entrances. When surrounded by the dark, with only his own breathing and the sound of steam to keep him company, every single story seemed very, very true. It was one story in particular that stuck in his mind. The whispers of the steam. He'd always laughed at the idea of the souls of the dead living on inside pipes, leading others to their doom. It was childish superstition, rubbish, nonsense. But he couldn't stop thinking about it. Mikael stopped. He had heard something. It was faint, barely audible, but it was definitely there. A gurgling sound. Like a drowning man inhaling a mouthful of water. As he listened, the sound seemed to grow louder. Mikael ran. Nothing was going to stop him now. Not when he was so close to going home. He ran until his legs screamed for him to stop and his lungs burned. Suddenly after what felt like a kilometer, Mikael paused. He held his breath, listening for any sound. Seconds crept by. Nothing but the faint hiss of steam. Finally, he sucked in a breath of air. Too fast, he thought, as he fell to the floor. He began coughing again, that same thick, heavy cough. His throat burned, and unthinking he reached for the canteen at his belt. There was maybe half a sip of water left at most. He unscrewed the top and brought it to his lips. Mikael paused. It was the last of his water. But he was nearly home now. He had to keep up his strength. The water had a coppery tang to it, and was far too warm. But it might as well have been fresh from mountain spring. It was the best water he had ever tasted. He took long, deep breaths. He was acting ridiculous, running from an imagined sound from an old myth. A laughter built up inside him, jumping at noises in the dark, getting lost in the outer city. It was all so absurd, he had no choice but to laugh. It echoed down the tunnels, slipping through crevices and between pipes, and came back to him sounding like the noise of a man in hysterics. There was a hint of madness in the laugh. Even Mikael could hear it. But after all this, he could afford to be a little bit mad. He had to stay strong. Had to keep going. Mikael imagined the look on Remazov's face when he would walk into his office. He wondered what he would say to the man. Probably just step in, sit in one of the cramped metal chairs, and smile. He imagined Remazov pursing his lips like he always did, and another laugh threatened to overcome him. Mikael got to his feet, his head spinning for a moment. But he shook it off, placed his right hand on the pipe, and continued onward, with just a hint of a smile on his face. He was going home. The voice in the back of his head was growing louder. It was rattling its cage and screaming for him to stop, to listen, to think. But he was in no position to do any of those things. The lack of sleep was beginning to take its toll on his mind. He had only slept for brief stretches of time, curling up in a junction when he had no more strength left in him. But the anxiety from his waking life crept into his sleep, and the nightmares would leave him shaking and sweating long after awakening. He dreamt of white shadows and lost souls, of his mother's face in a pool of blood, of being swallowed by the pipes. Mikael decided he would sleep for two days straight when he got home. He would eat a great meal of potatoes and bread, drink half a bottle of vodka, and sleep. But he had to get home first. He made his way through the tunnels, past twists and turns, junctions and intersections, the pipe his only guide. He almost overlooked the toolbox. His lantern had grown dim, and the air was starting to feel thick and heavy. The light played over the toolbox, showing only the slightest outline. He paused, blinked, and looked again. It was still there, mistled against the wall, right where I dropped it. It was his. He was sure of it. Mikael ran. He was nearly there. He had dropped the toolbox only meters from the entrance. But how many? Twenty? Thirty? Surely, no more than thirty. He was almost home. He would kiss a girl and punch Remazov right in his mouth. He would drink and sing and dance. Mikael would live. Twenty meters passed. Thirty. Forty. Fifty. This is wrong. The thought filled his mind. I should be at the gate by now. This is wrong. Mikael stopped. He raised his lantern's wick and lifted it above his head. The tunnel lit up. He could see no gate, no stairs, nothing familiar. Water was beating on the walls. The air felt thick and wet. The hiss of steam had grown louder. The voice in the back of his head was screaming now. Mikael tried to ignore it, tried to press on, tried to continue to believe he was going home. He found his mind drawn back to the toolbox. He had been running when he dropped it, and it had made a clattering noise. His tools must have fallen out, but the toolbox he had seen was sitting upright, tucked away in a corner. No, no, no, no, no. A question fought its way to the surface of his clouded mind. It nearly dropped him to his knees. When he first stepped foot in the Undercity, which side had the pipe been on? Mikael tried to remember. He pictured the scene in his mind. A thick pipe, big enough for a child to fit through, hints of peeling red paint, jutting out from the right side of the tunnel. When he found it again, he would have had to put it on his left to be going home. Mikael turned his head to the right. There was the pipe. Mudak. Mikael wanted to cry. He wanted to beat his head against a wall. All of the frustration inside of him, all of the terror and exhaustion and hopelessness spilled out in a single agonized scream. Mudak. The word echoed off the walls and filled his mind. After it passed, he was answered with only the sound of his breathing and the steam. No, that was wrong. There was something else, too. Faint, coming from behind him. A gurgling sound, like a man swallowing a mouthful of water. Mikael tried to ignore it, but he found himself walking forward once more. He couldn't stop looking back over his shoulder. He thought he could make out a faint outline, just beyond the pool of light that surrounded him. It looked wrong. Like a man, yet almost entirely unlike a man. Mikael shook his head and blinked. The shape was gone. He lifted his sputtering lantern and raised the wick once more. The light drove the shadows back and revealed an empty corridor behind him. His eyes were playing tricks on him again. Mikael wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Part of him wanted to turn back. He knew it was the only way he would ever reach the surface again. But a fear had crept inside of him and taken hold of his body. He stepped forward, lantern burning at full strength, its flame flickering, rising up and dying down. He moved forward. He was too weak to turn back now. The hiss of steam grew louder and louder. Mikael realized he was nearing the rupture in the pipe. His hair felt wet. His clothes seemed to stick to his body. Up ahead, no more than ten meters, superheated steam poured from the pipe, scorching the air around it. The lamp went out. Frantically, Mikael reached for his coat pocket, feeling for the lighter tucked away inside. He yanked it out and tried to flick it on, once. Sparks flew but didn't catch, twice. His hands were shaking. On his third try, the sparks caught, and a small flame burst into light. He held it up to the oil reservoir on his lamp, empty. The flickering light formed a small circle of illumination around him. Shapes just outside seemed to twist and ripple as the light passed over them. Something caught his eye. Underneath all of the panic and despair, Mikael was still a plumber at heart, with a plumber's eye for detail. The pipe hadn't burst. There was no buckling, and the hole the steam was gushing through was concave, not convex. A puncture. Over the hiss of the steam, he heard another sound. The gurgling. It was louder than before. Much louder. He turned. There, just outside of the dancing light, was a hairless, pale figure. The white shadow from his dreams. It stood on two legs, hunched over like a grandmother. Its arms were tucked under its chest, but they seemed far too long. Its gnarled fingers almost brushed the ground. Its head was bulbous and asymmetrical, with strange lumps seeming to emerge and then recede. It had a vaguely human-looking face, with a thin slit of a mouth and almost no nose to speak of. Its eyes were large, black pools, and they were staring directly at him. It opened its mouth and let out a low gurgle. Mikael ran headfirst into the steam. It scorched his skin, turning it red and raising blisters that burst in seconds. The pain was unimaginable. He dropped his lighter. He wanted to scream, but he held his breath lest the steam cook his lungs from the inside out. He kept running, unable to think, unable to feel. His heart was pounding in his ears. After almost a minute, he stumbled and fell, sending his scorched face straight into the floor. He took every ounce of willpower he had left to keep himself from screaming at the pain. He scrambled underneath a line of pipes and held his breath, listening. The gurgling grew closer. Mikael could barely see a meter in front of him. He felt its presence before he saw its feet. The creature stopped, and the pitch of the noise shifted. A cough was brewing inside of him. He willed it down, tried to take short, shallow breaths. The air was thick with moisture. His throat felt clogged. The creature took a halting step forward. Mikael coughed, just once.