HEINA IV
The crackle came again.
It was a sound that was barely audible, not loud enough to surprise me, but also not clear enough to make out what it was. It seemed to come from beneath the surface, weaving in and out of the quiet, before fading away into nothingness. If I hadn’t been paying attention, I might have written it off as the old station creaking under the weight of years of neglect. But since I was already tuned in, I stood frozen, every muscle in my body refusing to budge, as I waited for the sound to come back. The silence was almost palpable, and I was completely still, my senses on high alert, straining to hear the sound again, to figure out what it was and where it was coming from. It was as if time itself was standing still, and all that existed was the quiet, and my anticipation of the sound’s return.
It did. Fainter this time. Further away.
As I turned to look back at the staircase that led to the surface, I could see a faint glow of daylight peeking through the entrance. It was a pale rectangle that seemed to be calling me back to the world above. For a moment, I hesitated, wondering if I should just leave and forget about the whole thing. I could easily climb back up, return to my apartment, and convince myself that the station was just old and worn out, that the words “EARTH TRANSIT” didn’t mean anything. Tomorrow would probably be just like any other day – my neighbors would smile and say hello in the hallway, the Argus bots would float lazily above the streets, and the mortality index would just keep on hovering above us, a constant reminder of our existence. But something was holding me back, making me want to stay and explore this place further. Maybe it was curiosity, or maybe it was something more. Whatever it was, I knew I had to make a decision, and fast. The darkness of the station seemed to be closing in around me, and I could feel the weight of the unknown pressing down on me. I took a deep breath, trying to shake off the feeling of unease that had settled in the pit of my stomach. I knew I had to keep moving forward, no matter what lay ahead. The question was, what would I find when I finally reached the bottom of the staircase?
—
Perhaps ignorance was never ‘weakness’.
Perhaps it was the kinder option.
My feet carried me forward anyway.
—
As I walked, the tunnel got smaller and smaller, until I couldn’t see the platform behind me anymore. The ceiling was covered in thick, black cables that looked like roots, and they seemed to disappear into the darkness. The walls were stained with rust, and it looked like they were bleeding. Every now and then, a light would flicker on, filling the corridor with a warm, yellow glow, but it would only last for a second. The air was really cold, and it smelled like old, damp concrete and machines that hadn’t been used in a long time. It was like the people who built this place had been gone for years, and everything was just left to rot. The darkness seemed to be closing in around me, and I could feel the weight of the tunnel’s history bearing down on me.
Oddly, the deeper I walked, the less abandoned the station felt. Not occupied. Waiting.
That was somehow worse.
The sound of crackling filled the air again, and then a loud burst of static noise followed. A voice attempted to come through, but it was quickly drowned out by the interference, making it nearly impossible to hear what was being said.
“…attention…”
Silence.
“…platform…”
Static.
The announcement died before it could finish.
As I swept my flashlight across the wall, it landed on an old sign that had been bolted there, its paint chipped and faded with time. The letters were peeling off, but I was curious, so I used my sleeve to wipe away the dust and dirt that had built up on it. Slowly, the words began to appear, revealing a message that had been hidden beneath the grime for who knows how long.
TRANSFER ACCESS — EARTH TERMINAL
Terminal. The word settled uneasily in my chest. Transit suggested movement. Terminal suggested an ending.
I didn’t know why the distinction mattered.
I only knew that it did.
As I made my way down the corridor, it finally led me to a heavy steel door that was slightly ajar. I pushed it open, and it let out a low creak in protest. The room behind the door was like a time capsule, untouched for years. A thick layer of dust covered every surface, but everything was still in its place. The filing cabinets stood neatly against the walls, their drawers closed, and the shelves were still organised, with nothing out of order. On a nearby desk, a moldy coffee mug sat next to a stack of folders, as if its owner had just gotten up to grab something and never returned. It was a bit eerie, like I had stumbled into someone’s abandoned life. The air was stale, and the silence was deafening. I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the person who used to work here, and why they had never come back.
The stillness felt almost sacred.
I could barely believe this place had existed beneath Heina all this time.
As I gently picked up the nearest folder, I made sure not to touch the fragile papers too much. The pages had turned yellow with time, and they were filled with handwritten notes, not typed text like we’re used to seeing today. It was weird, because I’d only seen old records like this in school, and even those were just copies. But these were the real deal, with all their imperfections and everything.
To be honest, most of what I was reading didn’t make sense – it was all about population numbers, maintenance plans, and areas where people lived. There were a lot of mentions of systems that were completely foreign to me. The more I read, the weirder the language got. It was like they were speaking a different language or something. I just couldn’t understand what they were trying to say.
Whoever had written these documents spoke about the city as though it were temporary—as though Heina had never been intended to become the entire world.
As I was reading, something suddenly slipped out from between the pages of my book and floated softly down to the floor, catching my attention.
A photograph.
A real picture, not something that’s just being projected like a hologram, but an actual physical photograph that’s been printed out.
I crouched to pick it up.
The picture showed a group of five people standing together under some overarching trees. Their clothes were quite different from what you’d normally see in Heina–they were loose, colourful, and really stood out compared to the dull greys that were everywhere in the city. But what really caught my attention was that they were all smiling, and it wasn’t one of those fake smiles that people put on when they know they’re being watched. No, this was a genuine, happy smile, the kind that you see when people are completely carefree and unconcerned about what others think. And you know what was even more unusual? There weren’t any crimson lenses floating above them, or any numbers hovering over their heads. No Argus bots, and no index. Just the warm sunlight filtering through the bright green leaves of the trees, casting dappled shadows on the ground. It was very serene-looking, and it made me feel like I was looking at something from another world entirely.
Green.
I stared at the colour for several seconds. The trees I’d grown up with carried silver leaves all year round. I had never questioned why.
As I flipped the photo over, a small sentence caught my eye, written in neat handwriting across the back.
The Mercer family – Auckland, New Zealand. Earth, summer of 2089.
Earth.
Again.
The same word.
Not hidden. Not erased. Simply remembered.
I felt a lump form in my throat as I realized the room had fallen silent. The stillness was no longer just a lack of noise, it had become a heavy presence that surrounded me, making me feel like the walls were closing in, watching my every move, waiting for my next step.
I reached out to grab a drawer. The old mechanism was stuck for a moment, but eventually it gave in with an echoing crack. When I looked inside, there were only three things in there: a notebook made of leather, a badge, and a small recorder that fit in my hand.
The badge was owned by a person called Dr Elian Mercer.
Occupation: Systems Engineer.
There was nothing on it that indicated a mortality index. No numbers or ratings were printed. Just a face was visible.
I picked up the recorder and pressed the power button.
I was taken aback when a small, green light suddenly flickered on.
Static filled the room.
Then breathing. Slow. Measured. Human.
“If you can hear me,” the voice said softly, “then the backup power has lasted a lot longer than I thought it would.”
Several seconds passed before they spoke again.
“I don’t know whether that’s comforting.” The recording crackled violently. “I’ve rewritten this message countless times.”
Another pause.
“Every version sounds like a confession.”
The voice carried an exhaustion unlike anything I’d heard before. Not physical exhaustion. The kind that settled into someone after years of making impossible decisions.
“We thought the system would only be around until people recovered fully.”
‘Recovered from what?’, I wondered–but the person in the recording didn’t give a response.
“We wanted things to make sense and be predictable. We thought that remembering the past was a bad thing because it brought up sad feelings, and those feelings could make people do crazy things.” The person speaking let out a quiet laugh. “It’s kind of funny, isn’t it?”
“I’ve spent so long trying to erase the past that it’s become the only thing I remember.”
Unconsciously, I sank into the chair next to the desk. Meanwhile, the recording just kept going.
“If you’ve stumbled upon this room, it’s likely because you’re already curious and looking for answers. That probably means the system is aware of your presence now.”
“The index wasn’t meant to show how good something is, it just shows how sure we are about it.”
My breath caught.
“The more someone questions the reality around them, the less predictable they become. The less predictable they become…”
“…the more unstable the system believes they are.”
There was a long silence, so long that I started to think the recording had stopped playing.
Then the voice returned, quieter than before.
“I have a lot of regrets. I regret thinking that people can just get by without knowing the truth. I regret telling myself that forgetting something is the same as getting over it. But the thing I regret most is…”
The speaker inhaled shakily.
“…discovering that some truths cannot be shared. They can only be carried.”
The recorder clicked once before continuing.
“You’ll want answers. You deserve them. But every answer will take something from you.”
“I know because it took everything from me.”
The recording ended.
No dramatic farewell. No final warning.
Just silence.
I stared at the recorder for what felt like hours.
Regret.
The word echoed through my thoughts.
Up until then, I thought regret was only about making ordinary mistakes, like saying something you shouldn’t have, taking the wrong path, or missing out on chances that would never come back. I had never thought that you could regret knowing something. However, as I sat there under the city, surrounded by pieces of a world that had been forgotten, and started to understand it.
If the engineer had spoken the truth, then discovering it hadn’t freed them. It had isolated them. They had become the only person in a room who knew the floor was collapsing beneath everyone else’s feet.
What kind of life was that?
I took another glance at the picture that was sitting on the desk. The family was smiling, just like they had been before. They had no idea what was going to happen next.
And all of a sudden, I felt a pang of jealousy towards strangers.
Another burst of static echoed somewhere beyond the archive. Not from the recorder. From deeper within the tunnels.
As I walked through the doorway, the sound led me to a spacious round room with windows stretching all around. Most of them were blocked by thick metal covers, except for one that was still ajar.. The glass was so covered in grime that I could see my own face staring back at me, instead of what was outside.
My mortality index flickered faintly above my reflection. Just once. I wiped away the dust with the sleeve of my hoodie.
I thought the glass was painted black at first.
Then tiny points of light emerged from the darkness.
Stars.
Not many. Only a handful. Perfectly still.
The sky was completely dark. Not a single cloud was floating around. There wasn’t even a hint of blue to be seen.
There was just this vast, dark emptiness that seemed to go on forever, way beyond what my eyes could even see.
I instinctively stepped backwards.
The room suddenly seemed too small. My heartbeat thundered in my ears as a single thought settled over me with terrifying clarity.
The sky that I had seen every day since I was a kid–maybe it wasn’t real.
I couldn’t prove it.
I could barely understand it.
I was aware, with a certainty that scared me more than any Argus bot could, that the universe was way bigger than Heina had led me to think.
I stood there for a while, just looking into the dark on the other side of the window.
It wasn’t fear I felt, nor wonder.
It was grief.
Grieving the person I used to be, the one who walked into this station with a sense of confidence and trust in the world. Struggling to accept that I’ll never get back to that place of certainty, that things will never make sense again.
As I turned to face the tunnel again, it hit me–something Dr Mercer hadn’t needed to say out loud.
The greatest punishment was never learning the truth.
It was realising that when I wake up tomorrow, everyone I love will just keep going, living in a world that isn’t real. And for a second, I couldn’t help but wish I could go back to not knowing, to be able to live in that fake world again with them.
Writer – Mayah Clements
Editor – Alvin Cheng
Artist – Janace Wang
–August 2026–
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