Carter Hall could not sleep. His eyes were closed, so tightly that pinpricks of light burst out of the dark and assaulted his vision, but his mind would not rest. From his room, several floors above New Angeles’ academy, he could hear kids yelling to one another as they were rounded up to serve their detentions. He had wrapped his head in his jacket, but somehow he could still hear the mesh of voices flowing through the thick floors. Hardly able to stand it, Carter shot up, but a sharp pain racing through his head didn’t let him stand. He sat back, looking around his familiar office:

A dark wood desk, piled with papers and books and a candle halfway burned. Bookshelves lined the walls behind it from floor to ceiling, some of which were filled with his tiny script depicting what he was told the surface world looked like before the Fall. His great-grandfather had told him stories passed down, about air and endless views, sunlight, natural grass and trees and fragrant flowers that grow as they please. Carter wanted to see them. He wanted to see the sun, he wanted to feel fresh air and smell the earth his great grandfather told him about. He dreamed about it, about a clear world full of life. Carter sighed. His hair was in his face, but he didn’t care. It was a veil of straight, light golden-brown, and the rest of it was tied tightly with a black tie. His pale green eyes were shadowed, tired. Behind rectangular glasses, they were slightly magnified.

He slid forward, resting his pounding head in his hand. His last class had been full of monsters, but older kids were often like that. High on life, or other things, and unwilling to stay seated. Carter preferred the younger ones, who especially loved his stories and lessons and absorbed what they heard. But they had just as much energy as the older kids, and after a week of shouting and calming tactics, Carter’s voice was spent and a bit raspy. He always took to his office above the classrooms to sleep off the day’s headaches, but today he was oddly aware of every sound on the floors below. He glanced to the wardrobe to his right, nestled in a corner of the room, contemplating changing clothes before leaving.

The white buttondown shirt appeared to be slightly too large for him, wrinkled as though he had scrounged it up from the bottom of the closet floor. He had rolled the sleeves part of the way up. His black pants were almost as wrinkled, but not quite as oversized as his shirt. He had taken off his shoes, black ones with silver buckles, and they rested on the rug beside him. It was an old one, the rug, faded brown and red, braided around the edges in gold, covering most of the old dark wood floor. It muffled footsteps, quieted the loudness of voices. If only that were the case downstairs. Frustrated, tired, Carter loosened his red tie and slid back into his shoes. If he was unable to block out the sounds of life in his office, he would go somewhere he could.

Out of the office, locking the door, across the hall, down the stairs, through another hall, and down the main stairs, he left the school behind. Somehow leaving the school only made his headache worse. Voices were magnified, every sound bouncing in his skull and only getting worse. He kept his eyes to the ground, watching his feet as he walked, avoiding the bulk of people. It bothered him that he couldn’t tune the world out as he did so often. Everything was so strident, and when he pressed his hands over his ears, his heart beat thumped and his blood rushed like the river somewhere nearby but five times louder. Carter was almost at a loss for what to do. All he wanted was silence, a simple request, but in New Angeles, silence seemed only to come with death. When he heard the dull music he had to look up. Without realizing it, he had wandered into the western area of New Angeles, where the low-brow hangouts were situated. He crossed the road and vanished into an alley. The shortcut would take him away from the noise, and most of the people.

Through the drip of condensation off the roofs rising high on either side of him, Carter heard the pat of flat feet trying to fall in step with his stride. Someone was following him. It was someone with a cold or something, he though, because his breaths were a bit hoarse. The flick of metal against metal clinked against his eardrum, and the footfalls became louder. They were fast, approaching quickly. Carter stopped.

He brought his elbow back as hard as he could, connecting with something soft. A grunt of pain escaped the stalker‘s throat, and Carter turned with a closed fist; he swung with purpose. It coupled with the hooked nose on the would-be mugger’s square face and threw him back. Carter stepped forward and kicked him, the blow landing square in the center of his chest and knocking him to the ground. Before the filthy man could regain his composure and stand, Carter pressed his foot down, keeping him there and pulling a blade from his pocket. With a press of a small lever below the hilt, the blade expanded twenty inches. Carter bent down, pressing the blade to the scrounge’s neck, and grabbing the knife from his open hand. Pocketing it, he lifted his foot and backed several paces away, holding the blade aloft in front of him. The mugger sat up, but didn’t move. His eyes--one had a milky film over it--were wide and glaring, both worried and angry. Carter stepped down the alley backwards, with one hand behind him feeling for obstacles. Coming out of the shadow of the two clubs, he turned and stepped onto the past stretching beside the river.

Retracting the blade and sliding it back into his pocket, Carter took to watching the river. It was swift, but not too huge and not terribly powerful. But a little ways away from New Angeles was a small area of rocks and moss, making a bit of a crevice that blocked out the noise of the city and was good for escaping the pains of life. Carter moved along the length of the river, watching it without paying much attention to where his feet went. He had walked the path many times. The water was calming, but oddly loud. Louder than the other day as it competed with the noise of the bars and clubs on the other side.

Carter let his mind wander, and stared at the unknown area of the cavern. The area beyond the river was black, always black, always so strange and mysterious. No one was allowed over there, and Carter didn’t know why. He wanted to know why, but there was no way across the river except to swim it. But strange creatures were under the water; creatures that would only drag a straggler under if they were to touch the finicky things. Of course, it could all be made up to stop adventurous minds from wandering outside New Angeles. No one has ever seen the creatures, and Carter couldn’t find any evidence of them written in his books. But the stories of their attacks were gruesome. He hardly believed they existed, but he didn’t want to be proven wrong.

Leaving the path, he returned to the noise and bustle and faint music. Joining the stream of people, he looked up let his gaze sweep across sign after sign. Finally Abbey Lounge appeared, and he picked up the pace. It would at the very least be quieter in the bar rather than outside, and he could at least numb his headache with… Nothing. If he decided to drink, the aftermath would not be worth it. Still, the place offered its share of interesting people. Always talking, sharing stories or lies, and he loved to listen in. Carter opened the door to a dull roar of overlapping voices that agitated him, but would eventually become a pleasing hum in the back of his mind.