Tandem

Raechel Harchey

The cool breeze of a new autumn morning made her cheeks tingle as it brushed her skin. She allowed herself a single moment to appreciate being free of that place, free of those people with their sinister laughs and the rooms filled with recycled air. She closed her eyes and listened for the chirping of the birds in the trees as they announced the start of a new day but there was only silence. There were no trees near The Gauze, and so there were no birds chirping either.

The marble pavement beneath her was so pristine and perfect she was unsure for a second that she was allowed to walk on it. Perhaps there was not too much traffic entering a place like the Gauze and after what Raechel had experienced, she believed there may have been even less that existed. Nevertheless, she placed one foot in front of the other and began to set some distance between herself and the building behind her. The further away she got the quicker her steps became, carrying her away and back into the heart of civilization. She had been running for almost half an hour and had only just arrived in Atison, a grand and thriving city full of people going about their lives, completely unaware that a girl amongst them had recently undergone a transfer at the Gauze.

Her feet continued to carry her through the city towards the dockyard, the location of her safe destination. The Stack had been her home

since the accident. She hadn't been back to the house she'd once shared with her family since the accident, and she had no intention of ever going back.

The Stack was a thirty-storey building, separated into pod-like compartments called Nooks. Considered cramped to some and comfortable to others, the Nooks were six meters long in length and just over two metres wide. Many frowned upon those who lived there but for Raechel, it was all she needed for the moment. The only way of getting to the Nooks on the upper levels was to navigate the complex arrangement of metal ladders that were spread across the face of the building. The higher you got within the building the cheaper the rent charges were, and when you didn't have a lot of spare cash lying around, this was where you could expect to call home. Raechel's Nook was on the twenty-sixth floor and contained a multitude of items she had salvaged from various locations including her old home.

"Morning love, how are we?" Reggie, an older gentleman asked cheerily from his Nook. He lived on one of the lower levels of the Stack and would often greet its residents as they arrived back home. He had a kind face but one that had been ravaged by time. The years had not been kind to him and Raechel often wondered what he had seen in his lifetime, the places he had been and the people he'd met. When she first moved into her Nook shortly after her brother and father had died, Reggie had been the one to check up on her. In the beginning, he'd brought her cakes and pastries from the local market, making sure that she ate something. She had been very grateful for his presence in those early days. When the whole world felt like it was imploding in on you, it was comforting to know that there was at least one person watching out for you.

"Hey Reggie, I'm good thank you. How are you doing?"

"I'm doing fine young lady, just fine." Raechel watched as he wrapped the remainder of his sandwich in its wax paper wrapping. He reached for the handkerchief in the pocket of his shirt and dislodged a small box which fell to the floor. The lid was secured onto the box with tape so that the contents could not escape. Raechel darted over to pick the box up before passing it back up to him.

"Thank you my dear," he said. He placed the box back in his pocket and dabbed away the crumbs from around us mouth with the handkerchief. He rubbed at his eyes furiously. Raechel could see when he pulled his hand away from his face that his eyes were red and sore. "These legs aren't as strong as they used to be. I can't be jumping up and down as easily as I used to."

Raechel smiled and began her ascent up the nearest ladder. Reggie was the caretaker of the Stack and had been given a Nook for free in return for his continued labour. He'd arrived decades before Raechel

but he'd told her stories of the years he'd spent with nothing. Despite him rarely ever sitting down, Raechel didn't remember ever seeing him without a smile on his face. It was hard not to feel cheered up by his positivity. Raechel seemed to have caught him during one of the rare moments he was sat still.

She reached her little hideaway not long after, swinging herself into the curtain she had suspended above the doorway to salvage a small amount of privacy. It was the closest thing to a door in this place. She threw herself down onto the mat and lay with her eyes shut for a moment. The past few hours had been draining both physically and mentally and Raechel had no idea how she'd mustered the strength to navigate those ladders. As her body succumbed to the exhaustion that had begun to gnaw at her, Raechel felt a wave of terror wrap itself around her legs before weaving its way up towards her heart and then to her throat where it tightened around her windpipe, like a python constricting its prey into lifelessness. She fought to stay awake and fight whatever it was that had taken a hold of her, but the malevolent darkness had its way with the weary, it would always win.