A Day In Steave’s Life

He tried again while moving forward. Water slid around the soles of his shoes, cold enough to reach through the leather. At the center of the underpass, the pavement dipped, and the shallow film became a rippling pool. A plastic cup spun past his ankle. He caught himself against a tiled pillar, coffee sloshing over his fingers.

The underpass had always been a shortcut, a dim strip of concrete between the train station and the office towers. Now it seemed to draw water from every direction. The drains along the curb gurgled, choked with leaves and grit.

His phone rang.

“Mara?”

“steave.” Her voice broke beneath a wash of static. “Where are you?”

“Mercer underpass. I’m coming.”

“You can’t come through here. The road outside is gone.”

“I’m almost across.”

“No, listen to me. The water’s coming into the lobby. People are moving upstairs.” A sharp bang sounded behind her. “I’m at the library. The lower entrance is flooding.”

steave looked toward the far end. The stairs were still visible, but the water had reached the bottom step.

“I’ll get you out,” he said.

“You don’t know if there’s a way out.”

“I’ll find one.”

“steave - ”

The call dissolved into crackling silence.

He held the phone away and stared at the blank screen. A drop of water slid from his sleeve onto the glass. He wiped it with his thumb and started walking faster.

At the north wall, a blue sign pointed toward the service corridor. steave had passed it hundreds of times without noticing. The corridor ran behind the station shops and connected to a maintenance gate near the street. If the main stairs were flooded, it might lead him around the lowest part of the underpass.

He pushed through a metal door.

The corridor smelled of wet dust and old electricity. Pipes crowded the ceiling. Water ran along the floor in two narrow channels, carrying cigarette filters and bits of paper toward the underpass. steave kept one shoulder against the wall and moved by the light of his phone.

The service gate stood ahead, a waist-high metal barrier folded across the passage. Beyond it, a second door opened toward the uphill side of Mercer Street.

steave grabbed the gate and pulled.

It shuddered but stayed closed.

“Really?”

He pulled again. The latch had jammed. Rust flaked beneath his fingers. He kicked the lower bar, once, twice. The impact rang through the corridor and came back at him from the concrete.

His phone vibrated again.

Mara: The power is out.

Then another message appeared.

Mara: steave, please answer.

He turned toward the underpass. Water rushed beneath the service door now, no longer a thin sheet but a fast-moving stream. It spread across the corridor, climbing over the toes of his shoes.

He called Mara.

The phone displayed Connecting.

“Pick up,” he said.

The signal vanished.

For a moment, steave stood with the phone pressed against his ear, listening to nothing but the scrape of water and the distant groan of traffic. He imagined Mara in the library with the lights gone, waiting beside strangers while the city rose around them. She hated asking for help. If she had called twice, she was frightened.

He shoved the phone into his jacket pocket and wrapped both hands around the gate.

The metal cut into his palms. He leaned back, planted one foot against the wall, and pulled until his shoulders burned. The gate gave a fraction, then snapped back. A bolt clanged inside the frame.

“Move,” he told it.

He looked at the water. It had reached his ankles.

From the other side of the gate came a deep, hollow thump. The service door beyond it buckled inward. Water pressed against it, searching for a seam.

steave stepped onto the lowest rail and climbed. The gate shook under his weight. He swung one leg over, caught his trousers on a jagged edge, and dropped hard on the far side. Pain flashed through his knee. He grabbed the gate before it could fall and found the latch mechanism behind the frame.

A thick chain wrapped around it.

He tugged. The chain held.

He looked back through the bars. Water surged into the corridor, brown and foaming now. It carried a fallen traffic cone against the wall. The cone struck with a hollow knock and spun away.

steave reached into his pocket for his phone to use the flashlight.

His fingers closed around nothing.

He checked the other pocket. Then his jacket. The phone was gone.

“No.”

He turned toward the corridor. Water rushed past the gate, dark and quick, and something black floated near the wall. His phone flashed once as it rolled in the current, its screen briefly catching the overhead light. Then the water swept it beneath the gate and into the underpass.

steave lunged.

His hand struck only cold water. The current slammed his wrist against the metal rail, and the phone disappeared under the brown surface.

For several seconds he could not move. The loss seemed too small for the size of the disaster, yet it left him suddenly cut loose. Mara’s number, the maps, the alerts, the last message - all gone.

Behind him, the service door groaned.

steave wiped water from his face and gripped the chain again. He could not call Mara. He could not tell her where he was. He could not know whether she had received his promise.

But the gate was still between him and the street.

He braced both feet against the frame and pulled until the chain tightened. The links bit into his hands. His injured knee slipped, and he nearly went down. He caught himself, reset his stance, and pulled again with everything left in him.

The latch tore free with a violent crack.

The gate swung open.

A wall of water burst through the corridor behind him. steave threw himself toward the uphill door as the current struck his legs. It knocked him sideways, dragged one shoe loose, and spun him against the concrete. He reached blindly, found the door handle, and pulled.

The door opened onto Mercer Street.

Rain hammered the pavement. Cars sat abandoned at crooked angles, their hazard lights blinking through the gray. Water raced downhill around their tires, dragging branches, bottles, and a red newspaper box toward the underpass.

steave stumbled onto the sidewalk and fell to one knee. Behind him, the service door slammed shut under the pressure of the flood.

He pushed himself upright. His trousers clung coldly to his legs. One shoe was gone, and his bare foot met the pavement in a sharp scatter of gravel.

Across the street, the library rose above the flooding district, its upper windows dark. The lower entrance had vanished behind a churning brown sheet. Farther east, where Mara’s neighborhood began, the streets had become connected channels of water.

steave looked at the empty hand that had held his phone.

Then he started toward the library, limping uphill through the rain.

End of chapter one. 4 more chapters and about 10,585 words in the full book.