The sky was a pale kind of grey, unspectacular, drab an uninteresting blend of clouds, sky and pollutants. It hung there very still, like a dusty curtain looming over the city threateningly. As if to warn everyone below, ignorant of its solemn attitude, that it could fall and blanket all of them with a damp quietness. It was made out of the same substance that killed men of boredom, not generous, not terrible just existing listlessly until one day it wouldn't exist and day silently full of regrets. Passed that exterior rain waited, it wouldn't be long before the uneventful sky would open with event and rain down onto the pavement below. The streets would shine like patent leather and glow in the moonlight, like a giant artificial mirror, slight distortion, the cracks in the ground like grooves to hide in, to cower, to sink and stand in absolute silence.
Even the rain would be mellow, no thunder or lightning, just the steady rush of water from the sky, filling the air with a cool calm and sounding like the applause of a million microscopic romantics, swaying back and forward at the marvel of nature. No one on the ground would feel it though; they'd escape into buildings, under umbrellas, or in their minds away from the world, away from everything. Stress would create a shell around them, their bodies, their minds, artificiality was always the first borne of detachment.
There were a billion people out there, somewhere, everywhere probably, thinking, scheming, walking, dreaming, crying, laughing, screaming in delight, screaming in horror, philosophizing, rationalizing, remembering, forgetting, controlling, submitting, winning, losing, fearing, imposing. So many options, so many lives all connected by the world they lived on and separated by the world they lived in. They quelled the beast inside of them, they relied on automation, cars, plans, trains they all took people somewhere, point A and Point B damned the points in the middle, sure they were someone else's point of origins and destinations but, for someone they were in the way! Even people who walked, walked automatically, their minds programmed to take them somewhere, they walked on invisible tracks never daring to take a step away from the usual. Loss aversion is what they called it , status quo bias is what they called it, laziness is what they called it, conformity, surrender…
The wind sighed, it was a odd sort of thing though. Not the kind of wind that blows before a rain storm, fragrant with the smell of rain and cool, wrapping around one's arms and laying upon the senses like a lover who had been missed for a long time. This was a deathly sort of sigh, resigned and angry, short and abrupt it snatched away the world for a moment and slapped it back into reality. Everything was anxious but, nothing was going to happen.
The ground shook and it felt for a moment as if it would escalate into a earthquake and the earth would open up and scoop everything within its ugly cavernous mouth, with teeth made of stone and a tongue of magma that licked upon the skin burning thoroughly but, with a sick precision. It didn't happen though, the rumbling stayed at its intensity before fading into nothing, underground the metal slug carried mindless robots from point A to point B, quietly reminding them there were things to buy when they departed the innards, things to consume, things to desire that they didn't already desire.
The slightest drop of rain fell upon his nose, it wasn't the first in a storm but, more like a premature mistake. It woke him from his reverie and he looked around at the other people, none of them had been touched. This was a secret between him and the sky, it whispered: 'It's going to rain' to him and only home. Though it was apparent by the sullen heartache in the sky, it was always nice to be told the secret, a special kind of thing, the kind of things children were vocal about loving.
His eyes looked up, in front of him a skyscraper, it reached to the sky and poked the sullenness, it prodded asking 'why?'. He looked up, his eyes hurt, his mind hurt. This was the Mishima Financial Empire and this was the castle. Outside people were calmly walking by, if automation could be called calm, a contrast to what it was like inside a buzzing hive of fear and anxiety. The kind of anxiety the people of Jericho surely felt when the walls fell. The building stood but, everything inside was on the verge of collapse, a hundred working people working at nothing, unsure of what the product of their work would be. The sort of craziness that came from driving on a bridge, then seeing a sign warning the bridge was incomplete and driving onward but never seeing the fall coming. It was there but, how much longer? Would it be swift? Or would they go on until lulled into calm and then snatched from under them?
He sighed; he had to put on a farce before going in, for some reason everyone in there was going to look at him for reassurance. He didn't know why, he had no answers, if destruction was coming he would make a horrible shield from it. Yet still they looked to him but, he looked somewhere else, into a fog where he couldn't see the other side.
Kazi Sumon stood up, sighed and walked back into the building, he felt his back clench as he braced for impact.
This was the first day.