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The Old Mill
---------------------
Dust had long settled on the skyscrapers above the old mill. The whole city had been abandoned to crumbling rot and the underworld. The ‘underworld’ was now the world actually, as individuals carved niches amongst the isolated streets and tall shadows. There was something deeply terrifying in the streets. There was little threat to a man with a guard (unless somebody snapped), even to a woman, but it was the desolation of purpose, as if everybody was blind and deaf. What had once been a grand centre of buzzing lights and a million sounds had turned into a decrepit horror of broken lights and a million echoes. Someone could walk down a large street and kick a can for miles without hearing anything but the thoughts in their head, the beat of their heart, the can, and the shadows rustling.
Sometimes the shadows struck. Tore down with a shriek and fell upon some person who had strayed nowhere in particular. The shrieks sometimes echoed, other times they cut short and were muffled in suddenly stifling air. Nobody knew what the shadows were. They came and went, flitting in peoples minds and suddenly they were dead on the road. Often people would plead, and then their hands would fly, and then they’d be cold.
However, one person never feared the shadows, both inside the mind and out. She lived in the Old Mill. Right in the middle of the city, underneath the three largest skyscrapers, now teetering towards each other as people flocked higher and higher, away from the horrific silence and the intermittent madness. She had managed to find it just as everything went wrong, an ancient treasure that had somehow stayed standing in a small piece of green. She’d managed to patch it up so she could live in it, and the touch of the wood, the simplicity of the design. Simply a small room, the mill shaft and then where it had broken and rusted into red dust on the floor. The wheel was intact, hanging loosely out of the stone wall, the only stone in the Mill. It rested limply on some concrete debris she found to stop it eventually tearing itself out and disintegrating. Despite the similarity between the city and mill, she found it far more comforting. It had stood and watched the city grow and forget it, all the while turning its wheel until the water had disappeared. She never feared anything in the mill. As people lost to shadows all about the city, the old mill separated her from ever increasing desolation and darkness. She’d scavenged from a shop she dimly remembered buying things in, and took some small lights and batteries. The unforgiving light, however, was the thing she liked least in the mill. She kept it on as little as possible, as the stark relief of the surrounding towers at night in the glare made her shiver and even cry, as the madness managed to reach her, even in her haven. She was determined to rid herself of anything that allowed the city in. Even as she was dying.
One day, she let this resolve harden. She opened the battered door and coughed as layer upon layer of dust greeted her from the floor. She swiftly closer her eyes and pulled a thin cloak over her face, and guided herself using what limited view she had from inside the cover, through the fabric mesh. She needed wax. She trotted down the now tangled and
insidious path, and dropped down onto the old road. Ahead of her was the main road out of the city, behind her the three towering tombs that marked where civilised madness had begun, and where only madness reigned now. She crossed the road, warily threading her way through some dead bodies, contorted in the position that they killed themselves in, and a broken sign depicting a smiling girl eating some food. She knew where there might be wax, but it’d be a dirty job. She entered a small road that crossed the main road, and set off into the gathering night.
The animals were the last in the city, in all probability, hoarded by some people swiftly losing their sanity to the metropolis. Half of the animals were dead when she got there, the other half nearly gone. There were no people to be seen. She was in another part of the city, a place she didn’t know except for the fact the animals were there. She’d heard some people talking about them, a chance of food. Now there was another chance for her. She went over to a dead animal, and gingerly used some broken glass to cut the fat from the animal. It hardly had any. She had to go to another animal and do the same. They were old shrivelled things, with names she couldn’t and needn’t remember. Soon her makeshift pockets carried fat, and she set off back to her Mill. On the way she heard a shuffling, and a half starved man crawled out from an alley and bleakly looked just past her, into the night sky that was shrouded by what remained of light pollution and clouds. He whispered, his ruined body cracking as he spoke to the heavens; ‘C, c….cruelty has a human heart, and jea….lousy a human face…..terror, the human form divine (at this he half laughed horribly)…and secrecy, the huma-’ The thin sound stopped at her ears and fell. Her half glance was all and she walked on. His hand feebly flapped and then another body lined the streets.
The fat spattered and stank, but the light was there, and at last the Old Mill was coated in real light. Then she slept.
The next day, or possibly the next after that, she discovered water. The water had run from a small aqueduct that was partially standing, and she managed to unblock and channel what little water there was until it fell, drip by increasing drip, onto the wheel. She now had a purpose, some point to defy the world, and the Old Mill was her tool for this. She knew somewhere she’d be gone soon. So she worked. She battered twisted girders until her hands bled and her muscles popped, but she worked hard, until at last, the wheel turned again, simply driving itself around as the water lamely fell onto the ancient iron. Then, finally, she stopped working and sat in the daylight that managed to seep into the golden dust. The wheel turned, and for once, all throughout the endless miles of city, there echoed the rushing of water, no matter how little. The wheel whined as it turned, but it worked! In all the aimlessness, this thing worked, she had real light and something that worked. She had made something do what it was supposed to – no corruption, no madness, just ancient things working, even for no purpose.
After that, she thought about what the dying man had said. Cruelty, jealousy, terror and secrecy. She half nodded to herself. She felt her ribs under her slowly tightening skin and knew each of those concepts intimately – they all had done at some time. Somewhere, they….they had crept up and taken everything, everything but the Mill, which somehow had stood and stopped the onslaught. The terrible thing was, ‘they’ was ‘them’ – her and the people of the city, of civilised madness. She wondered why she felt safe there in the Mill, and it was the comfort of the ancient simplicity, the lack of anything assuming and quick. The simple wood, stone and metal. The purpose it gave. The very real feeling. She smiled at the Mill and looked at the sky, where the milky sun grimaced with pity down upon the scene. Up above the skyscrapers trembled and glared down, malevolent eyes peering out with callous, salivating hunger.
‘Horror is in the human heart,
Madness is in the soul
Hatred is my blight
As all you, lose control’
She carved these into the wood. Like what the man said, but her feelings this time. Her hand bled from the glass, but she didn’t mind. The Old Mill had helped her in her last days – she knew they were, for she could barely move any further than the Mill itself, not even to check if he wheel was unblocked. She lay back and closed her eyes, letting the sound of water caress her distraught soul. The sound made her smile, and the carving on the wall in front of her gleamed to her. Dust rose about her, the Mill creaked, and the water trembled slowly but surely down the small slope into the tangled path. She grinned almost childishly to herself, and let go.
Up above, the eyes began to jump.
---------------------
Dust had long settled on the skyscrapers above the old mill. The whole city had been abandoned to crumbling rot and the underworld. The ‘underworld’ was now the world actually, as individuals carved niches amongst the isolated streets and tall shadows. There was something deeply terrifying in the streets. There was little threat to a man with a guard (unless somebody snapped), even to a woman, but it was the desolation of purpose, as if everybody was blind and deaf. What had once been a grand centre of buzzing lights and a million sounds had turned into a decrepit horror of broken lights and a million echoes. Someone could walk down a large street and kick a can for miles without hearing anything but the thoughts in their head, the beat of their heart, the can, and the shadows rustling.
Sometimes the shadows struck. Tore down with a shriek and fell upon some person who had strayed nowhere in particular. The shrieks sometimes echoed, other times they cut short and were muffled in suddenly stifling air. Nobody knew what the shadows were. They came and went, flitting in peoples minds and suddenly they were dead on the road. Often people would plead, and then their hands would fly, and then they’d be cold.
However, one person never feared the shadows, both inside the mind and out. She lived in the Old Mill. Right in the middle of the city, underneath the three largest skyscrapers, now teetering towards each other as people flocked higher and higher, away from the horrific silence and the intermittent madness. She had managed to find it just as everything went wrong, an ancient treasure that had somehow stayed standing in a small piece of green. She’d managed to patch it up so she could live in it, and the touch of the wood, the simplicity of the design. Simply a small room, the mill shaft and then where it had broken and rusted into red dust on the floor. The wheel was intact, hanging loosely out of the stone wall, the only stone in the Mill. It rested limply on some concrete debris she found to stop it eventually tearing itself out and disintegrating. Despite the similarity between the city and mill, she found it far more comforting. It had stood and watched the city grow and forget it, all the while turning its wheel until the water had disappeared. She never feared anything in the mill. As people lost to shadows all about the city, the old mill separated her from ever increasing desolation and darkness. She’d scavenged from a shop she dimly remembered buying things in, and took some small lights and batteries. The unforgiving light, however, was the thing she liked least in the mill. She kept it on as little as possible, as the stark relief of the surrounding towers at night in the glare made her shiver and even cry, as the madness managed to reach her, even in her haven. She was determined to rid herself of anything that allowed the city in. Even as she was dying.
One day, she let this resolve harden. She opened the battered door and coughed as layer upon layer of dust greeted her from the floor. She swiftly closer her eyes and pulled a thin cloak over her face, and guided herself using what limited view she had from inside the cover, through the fabric mesh. She needed wax. She trotted down the now tangled and
insidious path, and dropped down onto the old road. Ahead of her was the main road out of the city, behind her the three towering tombs that marked where civilised madness had begun, and where only madness reigned now. She crossed the road, warily threading her way through some dead bodies, contorted in the position that they killed themselves in, and a broken sign depicting a smiling girl eating some food. She knew where there might be wax, but it’d be a dirty job. She entered a small road that crossed the main road, and set off into the gathering night.
The animals were the last in the city, in all probability, hoarded by some people swiftly losing their sanity to the metropolis. Half of the animals were dead when she got there, the other half nearly gone. There were no people to be seen. She was in another part of the city, a place she didn’t know except for the fact the animals were there. She’d heard some people talking about them, a chance of food. Now there was another chance for her. She went over to a dead animal, and gingerly used some broken glass to cut the fat from the animal. It hardly had any. She had to go to another animal and do the same. They were old shrivelled things, with names she couldn’t and needn’t remember. Soon her makeshift pockets carried fat, and she set off back to her Mill. On the way she heard a shuffling, and a half starved man crawled out from an alley and bleakly looked just past her, into the night sky that was shrouded by what remained of light pollution and clouds. He whispered, his ruined body cracking as he spoke to the heavens; ‘C, c….cruelty has a human heart, and jea….lousy a human face…..terror, the human form divine (at this he half laughed horribly)…and secrecy, the huma-’ The thin sound stopped at her ears and fell. Her half glance was all and she walked on. His hand feebly flapped and then another body lined the streets.
The fat spattered and stank, but the light was there, and at last the Old Mill was coated in real light. Then she slept.
The next day, or possibly the next after that, she discovered water. The water had run from a small aqueduct that was partially standing, and she managed to unblock and channel what little water there was until it fell, drip by increasing drip, onto the wheel. She now had a purpose, some point to defy the world, and the Old Mill was her tool for this. She knew somewhere she’d be gone soon. So she worked. She battered twisted girders until her hands bled and her muscles popped, but she worked hard, until at last, the wheel turned again, simply driving itself around as the water lamely fell onto the ancient iron. Then, finally, she stopped working and sat in the daylight that managed to seep into the golden dust. The wheel turned, and for once, all throughout the endless miles of city, there echoed the rushing of water, no matter how little. The wheel whined as it turned, but it worked! In all the aimlessness, this thing worked, she had real light and something that worked. She had made something do what it was supposed to – no corruption, no madness, just ancient things working, even for no purpose.
After that, she thought about what the dying man had said. Cruelty, jealousy, terror and secrecy. She half nodded to herself. She felt her ribs under her slowly tightening skin and knew each of those concepts intimately – they all had done at some time. Somewhere, they….they had crept up and taken everything, everything but the Mill, which somehow had stood and stopped the onslaught. The terrible thing was, ‘they’ was ‘them’ – her and the people of the city, of civilised madness. She wondered why she felt safe there in the Mill, and it was the comfort of the ancient simplicity, the lack of anything assuming and quick. The simple wood, stone and metal. The purpose it gave. The very real feeling. She smiled at the Mill and looked at the sky, where the milky sun grimaced with pity down upon the scene. Up above the skyscrapers trembled and glared down, malevolent eyes peering out with callous, salivating hunger.
‘Horror is in the human heart,
Madness is in the soul
Hatred is my blight
As all you, lose control’
She carved these into the wood. Like what the man said, but her feelings this time. Her hand bled from the glass, but she didn’t mind. The Old Mill had helped her in her last days – she knew they were, for she could barely move any further than the Mill itself, not even to check if he wheel was unblocked. She lay back and closed her eyes, letting the sound of water caress her distraught soul. The sound made her smile, and the carving on the wall in front of her gleamed to her. Dust rose about her, the Mill creaked, and the water trembled slowly but surely down the small slope into the tangled path. She grinned almost childishly to herself, and let go.
Up above, the eyes began to jump.
You broke one of the primary rules! you're bad!
I will, however, let you off, as it's a well written story, and an intriguing look into a not too distant, and quite believeable future. I have to say, I did find certain parts confusing, and had to re-read them to get my head around it, but this is often a problem when creating a world that we are not familiar with.
I will, however, let you off, as it's a well written story, and an intriguing look into a not too distant, and quite believeable future. I have to say, I did find certain parts confusing, and had to re-read them to get my head around it, but this is often a problem when creating a world that we are not familiar with.
Mine's not too nasty. Tinged a little, perhaps - but more nostalgic than nasty.
Another thing - in reading the other stories, they're all dark and nasty, apart from Black Gloves......damn, I hardly ever write dark and nasty stuff!
Heh - same with mine.
So I just write it, read it, post it, forget it.
So I just write it, read it, post it, forget it.
Thanks. The more I read it through again the more I dislike it.
I always do that.
I always do that.
Mmmm ... I really like it.
This comp will be a toughie.
I don't think I've read anything of yours before, Cyclone - but will in the future. So hurry up and write something else.
*Many thumbs up*
This comp will be a toughie.
I don't think I've read anything of yours before, Cyclone - but will in the future. So hurry up and write something else.
*Many thumbs up*
Another one. Another good one. Quietly apocalyptic.
Dark - I liked it.
That's really all I can come up with this early in the morning.
That's really all I can come up with this early in the morning.
ooops, I called it 'The Old Mill'.
Meh.
Meh.
The Old Mill
---------------------
Dust had long settled on the skyscrapers above the old mill. The whole city had been abandoned to crumbling rot and the underworld. The ‘underworld’ was now the world actually, as individuals carved niches amongst the isolated streets and tall shadows. There was something deeply terrifying in the streets. There was little threat to a man with a guard (unless somebody snapped), even to a woman, but it was the desolation of purpose, as if everybody was blind and deaf. What had once been a grand centre of buzzing lights and a million sounds had turned into a decrepit horror of broken lights and a million echoes. Someone could walk down a large street and kick a can for miles without hearing anything but the thoughts in their head, the beat of their heart, the can, and the shadows rustling.
Sometimes the shadows struck. Tore down with a shriek and fell upon some person who had strayed nowhere in particular. The shrieks sometimes echoed, other times they cut short and were muffled in suddenly stifling air. Nobody knew what the shadows were. They came and went, flitting in peoples minds and suddenly they were dead on the road. Often people would plead, and then their hands would fly, and then they’d be cold.
However, one person never feared the shadows, both inside the mind and out. She lived in the Old Mill. Right in the middle of the city, underneath the three largest skyscrapers, now teetering towards each other as people flocked higher and higher, away from the horrific silence and the intermittent madness. She had managed to find it just as everything went wrong, an ancient treasure that had somehow stayed standing in a small piece of green. She’d managed to patch it up so she could live in it, and the touch of the wood, the simplicity of the design. Simply a small room, the mill shaft and then where it had broken and rusted into red dust on the floor. The wheel was intact, hanging loosely out of the stone wall, the only stone in the Mill. It rested limply on some concrete debris she found to stop it eventually tearing itself out and disintegrating. Despite the similarity between the city and mill, she found it far more comforting. It had stood and watched the city grow and forget it, all the while turning its wheel until the water had disappeared. She never feared anything in the mill. As people lost to shadows all about the city, the old mill separated her from ever increasing desolation and darkness. She’d scavenged from a shop she dimly remembered buying things in, and took some small lights and batteries. The unforgiving light, however, was the thing she liked least in the mill. She kept it on as little as possible, as the stark relief of the surrounding towers at night in the glare made her shiver and even cry, as the madness managed to reach her, even in her haven. She was determined to rid herself of anything that allowed the city in. Even as she was dying.
One day, she let this resolve harden. She opened the battered door and coughed as layer upon layer of dust greeted her from the floor. She swiftly closer her eyes and pulled a thin cloak over her face, and guided herself using what limited view she had from inside the cover, through the fabric mesh. She needed wax. She trotted down the now tangled and
insidious path, and dropped down onto the old road. Ahead of her was the main road out of the city, behind her the three towering tombs that marked where civilised madness had begun, and where only madness reigned now. She crossed the road, warily threading her way through some dead bodies, contorted in the position that they killed themselves in, and a broken sign depicting a smiling girl eating some food. She knew where there might be wax, but it’d be a dirty job. She entered a small road that crossed the main road, and set off into the gathering night.
The animals were the last in the city, in all probability, hoarded by some people swiftly losing their sanity to the metropolis. Half of the animals were dead when she got there, the other half nearly gone. There were no people to be seen. She was in another part of the city, a place she didn’t know except for the fact the animals were there. She’d heard some people talking about them, a chance of food. Now there was another chance for her. She went over to a dead animal, and gingerly used some broken glass to cut the fat from the animal. It hardly had any. She had to go to another animal and do the same. They were old shrivelled things, with names she couldn’t and needn’t remember. Soon her makeshift pockets carried fat, and she set off back to her Mill. On the way she heard a shuffling, and a half starved man crawled out from an alley and bleakly looked just past her, into the night sky that was shrouded by what remained of light pollution and clouds. He whispered, his ruined body cracking as he spoke to the heavens; ‘C, c….cruelty has a human heart, and jea….lousy a human face…..terror, the human form divine (at this he half laughed horribly)…and secrecy, the huma-’ The thin sound stopped at her ears and fell. Her half glance was all and she walked on. His hand feebly flapped and then another body lined the streets.
The fat spattered and stank, but the light was there, and at last the Old Mill was coated in real light. Then she slept.
The next day, or possibly the next after that, she discovered water. The water had run from a small aqueduct that was partially standing, and she managed to unblock and channel what little water there was until it fell, drip by increasing drip, onto the wheel. She now had a purpose, some point to defy the world, and the Old Mill was her tool for this. She knew somewhere she’d be gone soon. So she worked. She battered twisted girders until her hands bled and her muscles popped, but she worked hard, until at last, the wheel turned again, simply driving itself around as the water lamely fell onto the ancient iron. Then, finally, she stopped working and sat in the daylight that managed to seep into the golden dust. The wheel turned, and for once, all throughout the endless miles of city, there echoed the rushing of water, no matter how little. The wheel whined as it turned, but it worked! In all the aimlessness, this thing worked, she had real light and something that worked. She had made something do what it was supposed to – no corruption, no madness, just ancient things working, even for no purpose.
After that, she thought about what the dying man had said. Cruelty, jealousy, terror and secrecy. She half nodded to herself. She felt her ribs under her slowly tightening skin and knew each of those concepts intimately – they all had done at some time. Somewhere, they….they had crept up and taken everything, everything but the Mill, which somehow had stood and stopped the onslaught. The terrible thing was, ‘they’ was ‘them’ – her and the people of the city, of civilised madness. She wondered why she felt safe there in the Mill, and it was the comfort of the ancient simplicity, the lack of anything assuming and quick. The simple wood, stone and metal. The purpose it gave. The very real feeling. She smiled at the Mill and looked at the sky, where the milky sun grimaced with pity down upon the scene. Up above the skyscrapers trembled and glared down, malevolent eyes peering out with callous, salivating hunger.
‘Horror is in the human heart,
Madness is in the soul
Hatred is my blight
As all you, lose control’
She carved these into the wood. Like what the man said, but her feelings this time. Her hand bled from the glass, but she didn’t mind. The Old Mill had helped her in her last days – she knew they were, for she could barely move any further than the Mill itself, not even to check if he wheel was unblocked. She lay back and closed her eyes, letting the sound of water caress her distraught soul. The sound made her smile, and the carving on the wall in front of her gleamed to her. Dust rose about her, the Mill creaked, and the water trembled slowly but surely down the small slope into the tangled path. She grinned almost childishly to herself, and let go.
Up above, the eyes began to jump.
---------------------
Dust had long settled on the skyscrapers above the old mill. The whole city had been abandoned to crumbling rot and the underworld. The ‘underworld’ was now the world actually, as individuals carved niches amongst the isolated streets and tall shadows. There was something deeply terrifying in the streets. There was little threat to a man with a guard (unless somebody snapped), even to a woman, but it was the desolation of purpose, as if everybody was blind and deaf. What had once been a grand centre of buzzing lights and a million sounds had turned into a decrepit horror of broken lights and a million echoes. Someone could walk down a large street and kick a can for miles without hearing anything but the thoughts in their head, the beat of their heart, the can, and the shadows rustling.
Sometimes the shadows struck. Tore down with a shriek and fell upon some person who had strayed nowhere in particular. The shrieks sometimes echoed, other times they cut short and were muffled in suddenly stifling air. Nobody knew what the shadows were. They came and went, flitting in peoples minds and suddenly they were dead on the road. Often people would plead, and then their hands would fly, and then they’d be cold.
However, one person never feared the shadows, both inside the mind and out. She lived in the Old Mill. Right in the middle of the city, underneath the three largest skyscrapers, now teetering towards each other as people flocked higher and higher, away from the horrific silence and the intermittent madness. She had managed to find it just as everything went wrong, an ancient treasure that had somehow stayed standing in a small piece of green. She’d managed to patch it up so she could live in it, and the touch of the wood, the simplicity of the design. Simply a small room, the mill shaft and then where it had broken and rusted into red dust on the floor. The wheel was intact, hanging loosely out of the stone wall, the only stone in the Mill. It rested limply on some concrete debris she found to stop it eventually tearing itself out and disintegrating. Despite the similarity between the city and mill, she found it far more comforting. It had stood and watched the city grow and forget it, all the while turning its wheel until the water had disappeared. She never feared anything in the mill. As people lost to shadows all about the city, the old mill separated her from ever increasing desolation and darkness. She’d scavenged from a shop she dimly remembered buying things in, and took some small lights and batteries. The unforgiving light, however, was the thing she liked least in the mill. She kept it on as little as possible, as the stark relief of the surrounding towers at night in the glare made her shiver and even cry, as the madness managed to reach her, even in her haven. She was determined to rid herself of anything that allowed the city in. Even as she was dying.
One day, she let this resolve harden. She opened the battered door and coughed as layer upon layer of dust greeted her from the floor. She swiftly closer her eyes and pulled a thin cloak over her face, and guided herself using what limited view she had from inside the cover, through the fabric mesh. She needed wax. She trotted down the now tangled and
insidious path, and dropped down onto the old road. Ahead of her was the main road out of the city, behind her the three towering tombs that marked where civilised madness had begun, and where only madness reigned now. She crossed the road, warily threading her way through some dead bodies, contorted in the position that they killed themselves in, and a broken sign depicting a smiling girl eating some food. She knew where there might be wax, but it’d be a dirty job. She entered a small road that crossed the main road, and set off into the gathering night.
The animals were the last in the city, in all probability, hoarded by some people swiftly losing their sanity to the metropolis. Half of the animals were dead when she got there, the other half nearly gone. There were no people to be seen. She was in another part of the city, a place she didn’t know except for the fact the animals were there. She’d heard some people talking about them, a chance of food. Now there was another chance for her. She went over to a dead animal, and gingerly used some broken glass to cut the fat from the animal. It hardly had any. She had to go to another animal and do the same. They were old shrivelled things, with names she couldn’t and needn’t remember. Soon her makeshift pockets carried fat, and she set off back to her Mill. On the way she heard a shuffling, and a half starved man crawled out from an alley and bleakly looked just past her, into the night sky that was shrouded by what remained of light pollution and clouds. He whispered, his ruined body cracking as he spoke to the heavens; ‘C, c….cruelty has a human heart, and jea….lousy a human face…..terror, the human form divine (at this he half laughed horribly)…and secrecy, the huma-’ The thin sound stopped at her ears and fell. Her half glance was all and she walked on. His hand feebly flapped and then another body lined the streets.
The fat spattered and stank, but the light was there, and at last the Old Mill was coated in real light. Then she slept.
The next day, or possibly the next after that, she discovered water. The water had run from a small aqueduct that was partially standing, and she managed to unblock and channel what little water there was until it fell, drip by increasing drip, onto the wheel. She now had a purpose, some point to defy the world, and the Old Mill was her tool for this. She knew somewhere she’d be gone soon. So she worked. She battered twisted girders until her hands bled and her muscles popped, but she worked hard, until at last, the wheel turned again, simply driving itself around as the water lamely fell onto the ancient iron. Then, finally, she stopped working and sat in the daylight that managed to seep into the golden dust. The wheel turned, and for once, all throughout the endless miles of city, there echoed the rushing of water, no matter how little. The wheel whined as it turned, but it worked! In all the aimlessness, this thing worked, she had real light and something that worked. She had made something do what it was supposed to – no corruption, no madness, just ancient things working, even for no purpose.
After that, she thought about what the dying man had said. Cruelty, jealousy, terror and secrecy. She half nodded to herself. She felt her ribs under her slowly tightening skin and knew each of those concepts intimately – they all had done at some time. Somewhere, they….they had crept up and taken everything, everything but the Mill, which somehow had stood and stopped the onslaught. The terrible thing was, ‘they’ was ‘them’ – her and the people of the city, of civilised madness. She wondered why she felt safe there in the Mill, and it was the comfort of the ancient simplicity, the lack of anything assuming and quick. The simple wood, stone and metal. The purpose it gave. The very real feeling. She smiled at the Mill and looked at the sky, where the milky sun grimaced with pity down upon the scene. Up above the skyscrapers trembled and glared down, malevolent eyes peering out with callous, salivating hunger.
‘Horror is in the human heart,
Madness is in the soul
Hatred is my blight
As all you, lose control’
She carved these into the wood. Like what the man said, but her feelings this time. Her hand bled from the glass, but she didn’t mind. The Old Mill had helped her in her last days – she knew they were, for she could barely move any further than the Mill itself, not even to check if he wheel was unblocked. She lay back and closed her eyes, letting the sound of water caress her distraught soul. The sound made her smile, and the carving on the wall in front of her gleamed to her. Dust rose about her, the Mill creaked, and the water trembled slowly but surely down the small slope into the tangled path. She grinned almost childishly to herself, and let go.
Up above, the eyes began to jump.