Sci-fi Novel - Underground City - Part 24

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Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17
Part 18
Part 19
Part 20
Part 21
Part 22
Part 23

Part 24

Puhepa said to her son Sitta, who was at the breakfast table, “finish your eggs, or you won't understand the lessons.”

”You didn't eat eggs when you were a kid, " Sitta said.

“I would work more if I knew the consequences,” Puhepa said. She was a short woman, like her son. She had lost her husband but managed to hold on to life again.

"It's easy to say," said Sitta.

“Try to take advantage of my life experience. We should not repeat the same mistakes in every generation,” Puhepa said.

After Sitta threw the rest of the egg in his mouth, he said, “Where is my brother?”

"He went to work before the lights turned on."

“Why is he interested in work that much?”

“He doesn't tell me, but he's got a girl at the workplace.”

“How do you know something like that?”

"Mothers know. I can see how your day went. Did you fall in love with a girl? Did you fight with someone? Did you get some bad news? I understand it all before you say it. You can never lie to me.”

“You can't understand.”

“Your brother started brushing his hair before he left the house,” Puhepa said. After baking her eggs, she sat in the chair opposite Sitta and started to eat breakfast.

"I would also have understood that.”

"You'd understand if you paid attention. Mothers take care of everything their children do.”

“As far as I can tell, mothers have created the small mountains, they would also create the great ones, but they did not want.”

”I should have the right to brag," Puhepa said immediately after listening to the voices coming from outside. It was as if there were explosions somewhere.

Sitta stood up saying, “Let me see what is going on,” and quickly walked out of the house, passing through the small tunnel of their home and reaching the main street. He followed the war cars moving from the road, the soldiers with machine pistols and electric shocks on their belts. It was understood from the faces of soldiers who were armed with knitted iron armor that the incident was serious.

Sitta was fascinated by the advance of troops. A bomb fell about a hundred meters away, and the war cars around it took off and flipped as if they were matchboxes. With the impact of the falling bomb, all military vehicles were stopped.

When Sitta saw giant-sized wheeled balls coming from behind, he turned to his street in a hurry. Meanwhile, sirens began to be played in the city Sitta took his mother who was trying to figure out what was going on by talking to the neighbors to the street. The military troops neither retreated nor advanced, but Sitta predicted that this status would not last long. He had held his mother's arm and hurried to walk to the mini-train station. In the meantime, the sound of intense explosions began to be heard again from the street. Sitta saw fire columns and burning shops on the edge of his field of view. It was as if the dragons had entered the city and burned down everything that came before them. The smoke spread from the fires was heading east in the large tunnel. They had already begun to smell the burning coal and gunpowder.

There was a crowd waiting in excitement at the train station. "I wonder if the train doesn't come" asked Sitta to the guy carrying a yellow-haired girl on his shoulder.

“We've been waiting a long time, I think it won't be able to come,” he said in a troubled tone.

Sitta wished his mother had learned to ride a bicycle in time. He didn't take his one-wheeler bike with him because he couldn't leave his mother behind. Meanwhile, the light emitted by the street lights had become low and shaky.

”The train will not come, let's walk," Puhepa said. When they went back to the street, they saw that the flames were advancing in the suburbs of the city. Now the soldiers have filled the giant cannons they've been through and started firing. It was unknown where they threw the balls, and the balls that exploded with a considerable noise were falling into the columns of fire beyond. Meanwhile, the air became heavy due to the smoke approaching them, and it was clear that the chimneys of the city were not enough to liquidate the smoke.

They began to walk towards the city center with frequent steps. Children were crying around them, men and women trying to cover their faces with their clothes because they were affected by smoke. Sitta saw an old woman fall on the ground, curled in despair, coughing as if her lungs were removed. One moment he thought of helping the woman, and then he decided to save his mother, and then he kept running and advancing.

Puhepa who was pulled by Sitta was breathless, “I wonder if we should go upstairs?” she asked. Sitta said, “the upper floors are worse because the smoke rises with the effect of heat.” The city's air was already a few degrees warmer, they were both sweaty, scared and agitated, and they were all fired up.
Because war cars and cannons blocked the roads, the wounded soldiers were carried by stretchers. They heard that a soldier, covered with blood, was crying, “Save Me, Daddy.” The two men in front of them were carrying a woman who fainted because of smoke poisoning. There was no sign of life on the dark face of the woman lying still on the stretcher.

Now Puhepa began to cough because of the heavy weather, Sitta realized her mother's breath was running out, and hold her on his back. Now Sitta was running with all his strength; there must have been areas in the city where the smoke had not reached. When he saw that the street was closed with a massive piece of rock, he seemed to have poured boiling water from his head down. They were on the fourth floor of the seven-story city where the main settlement was located, and they could have used other stories to cross to the east side of the town. Fortunately, Sitta knew where the elevators were. He went to the street where the elevators were located, but as he was afraid; the elevators were not working. He was supposed to find a stairway or a vent, and he noticed that his mother hadn't had a voice in a while, and he said, “Mom, are you okay?”

“Let me go, you save yourself,” Puhepa said, and then she had a new wave of a cough.

“Don't worry, we'il be fine,” Sitta said.

While they were waiting for the elevator, a man was walking across the street. The man seemed to know exactly what he was doing, so Sitta made a twitch behind him. He dislodged the round lid, which had wrought iron maggots, and jumped into the hole. Sitta sat her mother on the side of the vent, then he went into the hole and pulled his mother over. The ventilation chimney was two shoulder-wide, so Sitta managed to take power from the walls of the chimney and slow itself down. Meanwhile, his mother was sitting on his shoulders like a child, and when they fell to the lower floor, Sitta lost balance, and they rolled the floor together.

“Are you okay?” Puhepa asked. She seemed a little relieved because the air was cleaner downstairs.

“Let's throw ourselves to the other side as soon as possible, and they can close this floor,” Sitta said.

They passed repair shops, one-bedroom houses and reached the main street. No one was seen, those on this floor should have already crossed east of the city. After walking a few hundred meters, they saw the same view in front of them: the end of the street was covered with clumps of rocks and soil filled between them.

”Let's go down," Sitta said. They found an elevator after wandering between the streets for a while. The elevator's indicator light was on, so it should be working. They got on two floors this time.

Only the most impoverished families had houses on this floor. Since they were not affected by smoke and did not hear the sounds of conflict, daily life on the second floor continued in the usual flow. The children were wrestling with each other in the dust and women with patched clothes gathered in front of the doors were chatting in joy.

“What if this floor is also closed?" Puhepa asked.

“We'il find a way, don't worry,” Sitta said. Puhepa looked at his son with compassion, and she realized that he was grown up.

They went to the main tunnel and started walking east. After a long walk, they were convinced that they had crossed over to the other side of the city and then found an elevator and went back to the fourth floor. On the fourth floor, everything seemed calm.

Sitta turned the person he saw on the road and said, “what's going on in our city?”

“Three-legged demons attacked,” he answered, after taking a few steps, he turned his head again and said, "the president did the wrong thing, we were not going to pull the Gods' wrath on us."

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