Silver Light Chapter 4 (Patreon)

I had no idea what time it was by now, but it seemed like there should be less people wandering around on a wednesday night. Nevermind, what am I talking about? This area is a fairly popular student hang out area, and as we all know… students drink every night. They don’t stick to the common friday and saturday night like normal people.

The square that had been our destination was old. The flagstones were worn smooth along the common routes people took to make their way across its thirty or so yards of width. Some statue to a long dead man on horseback stood in the center, tarnished green and white where time and the elements had taken their toll. Boston was full of little places like this, where you turned a corner and walked briefly back in time.

To me it seemed like the type of place that should be quiet and peaceful, with an atmosphere of bittersweet memory. Instead, it was teeming with people. Capitalism had encroached on the old place, lining it with bars and clubs to cater the the nearby student population. The lights and noise of those establishments jarred with the time worn stone and its weathered green centerpiece.

As we approached, I noticed the atmosphere was tense and the police were doing their best to calm people down and get them moving home. The cops seemed to be few in number though, and it looked like a rather futile attempt that was doomed to fail.

The bar we wanted was on the other side of the square from where we’d entered, and I was dreading getting through it to find our friends. Crowds like this were scary. There was nothing worse than a group of scared and confused human beings.

“We have to go through that?” I asked uneasily.

“Yeah I’m afraid so. We’ll try and skirt around the edges for now though,” Fiona replied, then began to move in, “Alright stay close okay?”

I did so, following her into the bowels of hell. Am I being dramatic? Definitely, but whatever… I am who I am. Plus I’m like five feet tall now so crowds are suddenly a lot more dangerous than when I was six foot plus. Damn though shrinking was actually more jarring right now than having my gender changed on me out of the blue. The whole world looked different from down here. Also door handles were now at an appropriate height. I wasn’t really upset about that part.

I was so distracted thinking about my new height that I didn’t see a curb that my friend had just navigated. Just like that I was off balance and doing a windmill impression with my arms. I was teetering on the edge of falling over when a warm, strong hand gripped mine and steadied me.

I looked up into amused grey eyes, the owner of which said, “Wow. Nice job Elph. I think I’ll keep hold of this hand and make sure you stay upright for more than a few seconds at a time.”

I blushed deeply again, something that had apparently followed me from my old body. Damn it, why was I like this?

“Um, sure,” I shrugged, trying to act nonchalant.

“Good girl,” she laughed, and pulled me along.

I tried not to think about how nice her hand felt, soft skin contrasting with a few calluses. The crowd was all callus at the moment though, and police were trying to break up a fight between two very drunk looking men. A few people were laughing and chanting some phrase about having the two people beat each other further. No one seemed to want to leave the safety of the crowd and venture into the dark streets though.

We were almost to the bar when a shout when up from somewhere in the crowd. Fiona and I both turned to look as someone began pointing out over the rooftops. When I followed the direction indicated, I gasped. There was light coming from somewhere other than above. It took a few moments before I realised that there was also smoke pouring up into the sky. A building was on fire somewhere close.

“Shit that’s not far away,” Fiona swore, “About a quarter mile, if that. We need to get out of here as soon as we find the others.”

“Yeah let’s move while everyone is staring at the fire. At least people won’t be moving around as much and we can walk faster,” I nodded.

“Right, let’s go,” she agreed.

We made it to the bar soon after, able to move more freely now that people were congregating where they could goggle at the fire. Even in the minute or so it took us to reach the bar the blaze seemed to be getting larger. A few wisps of flame could be seen above the two or so storey tall buildings in the way.

Inside the bar was relatively calm compared to outside. A few patrons of the place had decided to stay indoors with the staff, who were currently crowded around the small windows trying to see what the fuss was about. The bar itself was the kind of place that had been built to look old while keeping the open plan design of a more modern place. Old dark wood had been used for many of the tables and bar, and cheap landscape paintings hung around the place. Someone had thought to put a bunch of candles out and lit them, allowing those inside to see somewhat.

A few moments after we entered, a worried looking woman in the staff uniform approached us, “Hey there, you’re free to take shelter in here but we’re not serving drinks anymore sorry. At least not until they get the power back on.”

Fiona and I exchanged looks before she replied, “Right. We’re not going to stay, we’re just looking for our friends who were at that table over there. We’ll be out of your hair in a moment.”

“Oh that group! They left pretty quickly. I can’t tell you any more than that though I’m sorry,” the woman replied.

“Ah damn. Thanks anyway,” Fiona sighed.

I was about to suggest we take a look at the crowd outside a bit more to see if they were in there, when a guy about our age spoke up from a chair nearby, “Hey you looking for Polly and Harry and all them?”

“Yeah!” I said quickly, and my friend nodded her agreement.

“They left as soon as this all started,” he told us.

“Did they say where they might have gone?” I asked eagerly.

He tried to remember for a moment, then shook his head, “Nah when they left all I heard was that Beth chick joking about her… Pepa cake tin plan? Something like that. I don’t know what that means.”

“Oh shit,” Fiona whispered.

“What?” I asked her.

“Nothing,” she said, then turned to the helpful dude, “Thanks for your help man.”

We left the bar and I felt a bit defeated to be honest. We’d walked all the way back and found that our friends had left. What were we going to do now? My apartment had a lot of useless shit in it now. None of my clothes would work, none of my tech worked… I mean there wasn’t anything there for me anymore.

When I looked over at the fire that had been relatively small before i was taken aback by the change. The wisps of flame from before had turned into skyward reaching geysers of fire.

“Shit that’s not good. Where do you think they went?” I commented.

“I know where they might go… you know, when they realise that things are going to be more permanent,” Fiona told me as she led me away.

“Where?”

“Pepacton Reservoir. Beth’s family owns a cabin over there and it’s really out of the way. Beth has this crazy apocalypse plan to hole up there if things go south because she’s a daydreamer like that. It’s a long way off though… like two hundred miles as the crow flies. I don’t know what to do to be honest,” she said, running her free hand through her short hair anxiously.

“Um. I guess we should go to… your place? I don’t have anything at home, not even food, so there’s no reason to go back there and… yeah we’re sticking together so…” I said, uncertain if it was okay for me to invite myself to her place.

“Yeah that’s a plan. I think we should check their houses and see what’s going on tomorrow, collect some shit, then get the hell out of this city before things turn really sour,” Fiona said thoughtfully.

Leaving the square we took a route close but not through the blaze that seemed to be getting larger and larger by the minute. The streets were dark and eerie with the dim orange glow being the main source of light now. People moved through the shadows and the dark with watchful eyes. It was clear the city had a general air of fear already as people tried to figure out what was going on. It was hard not to realise something momentous had occurred when everyone had experienced the same strange loss of gravity and light as something broke reality.

When I’d originally left the bar I’d taken some quieter streets, but now we were travelling along one of the more well used ones. The effect of the catastrophe could not be understated here. Cars lay strewn across the street like they’d been lifted and thrown. Several looked like they’d collided with each other. The worst part was the bodies. There weren’t a whole lot of them, but occasionally you’d find someone crying and holding a body, or worse, just the body lying where they had been crushed or in an accident. I did my best to block it out, but I don’t think I would be forgetting those scenes any time soon.

It was a nervous trip to Fiona’s house, but we made it to the place she rented fairly easily. Her place was a fairly standard two storey wooden affair, where the top was one apartment while the bottom was another. Her’s was on the top floor, and we ascended the stairs and entered. Inside it was actually fairly nice, clean carpet and walls devoid of holes. I was jealous, my place had a few holes in the kitchen, and the carpet was a threadbare mess.

Following Fiona’s lighter into what turned out to be the kitchen, she passed it to me and said, “Hold the lighter while I get some candles out so we can see.”

“Why do you even have candles?” I asked, glancing curiously around. The place seemed to be just her, which was easier as far as explaining who the hell I was. Shit I didn’t know the answer to that question, other than “me”.

“Cos I’m a hopeless romantic and I wanted to have them ready in case I was going to cook for someone,” she said with a sigh.

“Cute. I take it that there wasn’t much luck with the whole romance thing though?” I smiled.

“For a time there was,” she sighed, getting up with two long candles and taking the lighter back, “But turns out she was a waste of time. I’ve been avoiding getting my heart broken again since then.”

“Yeah… I’ve had issues on that front as well. Never make it past three months. It sucks,” I smiled, patting her awkwardly on the arm as she tried to light the candle.

“Yup. Now quit trying to burn my house down and let me light this thing,” she said, frowning at me.

“Oh right, my bad,” I said sheepishly, turning to get another look at the kitchen.

It was clean, but in a way where you think that it’s more likely that the place just isn’t used rather than kept that way. She had the bare minimum of utensils and that was about it.

Raising the candle she’d finished lighting, she motioned me ahead of her. I went where she directed, opening the door to what she told me was her bedroom. Inside it was clean, but messy. Clothes hung on a chair and lay on the ground, but I couldn’t see any dirty clothing or used plates like in my room.

I turned to see the rest of the room and got the fright of my life. A person was just lurking in the corner like nothing was happening, and I gave a girlish scream and fell over. My butt hit the carpet about the same time I realised that I had not in fact seen a person, but just a suit of armour.

I mean a real honest to god suit of armour, gleaming silver and looking terribly deadly and functional. If I had to guess based on my bored wikipedia nerdiness sprees, I’d say it was late medieval, just before that type of protection became obsolete. The cuirass was two or three interlocking plates, while the joints had more than that. It was damn impressive looking and I looked over at Fiona to ask why she had a damn suit of armour in her room. I found her laughing hard and struggling to keep the candle from falling out of her grasp.

“Why do you have a suit of armour?” I squeaked.

She pulled herself together, and looked a little embarrassed when she replied, “I’m into HEMA… I um. Yeah. Not the crazy authentic kind where everyone is super anal about using ancient techniques to forge weapons or whatever. That suit is made using way better materials than they ever had back in the medieval times and… shit I’m rambling sorry.”

It was my turn to laugh, but it sounded way too close to a giggle for my own comfort. It was just that her rambling was kinda cute, and I wanted to chuckle and… gah.

“Cool, uh but what is HEMA?” I asked.

“Oh uh, Historical European Martial Arts,” she told me, blushing a little now. I’m guessing she’d gotten shit for it in the past.

“That’s pretty cool! Do you have a sword? Can I see it?” I asked eagerly, the nerd within me lighting up.

“Whoa, phrasing,” she laughed, “And yeah I have a few. Most are blunt but I have two that are really nice and sharp. Those are just for display though.”

“Can I see them?” I pleaded.

“Um yeah sure, they’re in the closet hold on,” she nodded, turning around to open the closet and retrieve two swords from a little rack in there.

There was a lot of them, I think I counted eight in total before she closet the closet again with the two sharp ones she’d mentioned.

“Now, I’m not letting you hold them cos you’ll just cut yourself or stab yourself or something, but I’ll hold it out for you to see,” she teased.

“Aw that’s no fair… but… yeah I see your point,” I sighed, then went right back to being excited when she drew the first one.

It looked fairly functional in design. There were no bells and whistles on it, just sleek steel and dark leather on the hilt. She held it reverently, like it was precious and irreplaceable, and I realised that it actually was just that. It was a sword made using technology that as a race we might never possess again, using materials we would never be able to create again. Sure it was still steel, but it was steel that had been carefully mixed using hyper sensitive equipment. None of that was possible anymore.

“You realise that this is probably worth a hundred times its weight in gold now?” I asked quietly, awestruck as I realised how much we were going to lose as a civilisation.

“Why?” she asked, a little crease appearing between her brows as she tried to follow my thought process.

“Because this was made using all sorts of techniques or machines that we might never have access to again. There will be no more swords like these,” I explained reverently, reaching out to put a finger on the flat of the blade.

“Oh… wow yeah…” she blinked, staring down at the sword with even more care now, “And it’s going to be even more useful when people realise their guns aren’t working.”

“Oh! You still have those shells? Maybe we should test them?” I asked with obvious excitement. I liked setting things on fire. In controlled environments of course. I wouldn’t want to start a fire like the one back at the bar.

“Oh snap you’re right,” she said, her eyes lighting up, “Yeah let’s go put them in the bathtub!”

She dug around in her pocket for the shells, found them and grinned at me. I followed her eagerly into her small but clean bathroom. The tub would never be able to fit her laying down, but it doubled as a shower in the same way you often found in older houses.

Fiona produced a knife from somewhere again and leaned down to the tub. Carefully she used the tip of her knife to pry open the shells one after another. She collected the buckshot and placed it aside along with the wad. Next came the powder, which she poured out into two separate piles well away from each other.

“Alright, I’m going to light it with the candle,” Fiona said.

“Wait just like that? But won’t it blow up or something? I asked, stopping her hand.

“Hmm? No, a lot of people think that gunpowder explodes violently or something, but out in the open like this without being compressed into a cartridge it's just going to make a big candle basically,” she shook her head.

“Oh… right carry on then,” I said sheepishly.

She winked at me, then leaned down and used the candle to light it. To my untrained eyes, I didn’t know what to expect, but I was sure that at least a pillar of flame should have been rising up out of that tub. Instead however we got a flame not even an inch high that burned lethargically. There was no explosion, as I’d thought there was, nor a large candle like Fiona had described.

“Um, is that what you meant or…?” I asked in confusion.

Shaking her head with a touch of concern she said, “Nah I was expecting a flame like four inches tall or something. Also it should have burned damn fast too. That’s really odd. I’m going to light the second pile.”

She did so, and it reacted in much the same way as the first, maybe a little slower to burn even. We stared at each other as both piles still burned in the tub. Guns were out too. No more guns, no more electricity.

“Your sword and your skills with it are suddenly way more impressive,” I said seriously.

She frowned and squinted at me, “Wait so they weren’t before?”

Oh no! Foot in mouth!

“No no I mean… I just… shit…” I said, stammering over my words.

Her serious and slightly hurt expression cracked and opened into one of teasing amusement at my words, “Oh wow you are just the easiest person in the world to tease. It’s okay, I know what you meant.”

I made a grumbling sound and frowned at her in reply.

“Awww and now she pouts! So cute!” laughed Fiona.

I couldn’t hold the so called pout, and broke into a smile, “So where am I sleeping tonight?”

“My bed? I’ll sleep on the floor or something,” she said, her joviality replaced by an awkward shuffle of her feet.

“You sure?” I asked, feeling bad about sending her onto the floor.

“Yup. I’ll be fine. Practice for sleeping on the ground later on,” she smiled.

“Oh. Damn…” I mumbled, realising she was right.

We were going to be roughing it for a long time as we left the city, that was for sure. My city boy… girl… my city person ass was going to be sore as hell.