Heat

Water dripped in the distance, nothing more than a trickle, slowly traipsing its way from roof to floor, and then into the many cracks of the tunnel, rent apart by the storm. I looked down in that direction, noting to myself the location, so that one-day I might return, and seek out the precious water source. But now I cannot. The torchlight illuminates the footprints in the dust, little footprints, spaced unevenly on the rough ground, lead me on. In the darkness there is no sound other than the trickling water. Slowly it begins to fade, receding off into the distance as my feet carry me further and further from the tunnels I know. Suddenly the harsh light from above is in front of me, a patch of tunnel where the roof has collapsed in, revealing the walls and floor of that which has become my home, that which used to be nothing more than the place where the refuse of the city passed, the sewers. I dare not venture out into the sunlight, but I see the small footprints going through a small passage, which leads out into the other side of the sunlight. The passage is too small for me however, so taking up my coat, I wrap the back of my neck and my head up, and run across the concrete. The coat immediately heats up, and through my boots I can feel the softness of the ground, and the intense heat that radiates up from it. I am through, but the coat is smoking. I take it off my back and look at it, seeing the leather cracked and dried, and it falls apart in my hands. The sun has turned from being the warmth of life, that which comforted us, and helped us to grow, to a destructive force to be feared, and kept away from.