The Wet Hum

The Insidious Chill

The cold crept in through the soles of Corey's worn boots. Not a sharp, biting cold, but a damp, insidious chill that seemed to seep into the bone marrow. He'd been sitting on the chipped concrete bench for what felt like hours, watching the slow, grey drift of the river. A single, bruised apple, forgotten by some passer-by, lay half-submerged in a puddle near his feet, its skin mottled brown where it had been bruised. He poked it with the toe of his boot, sending a ripple across the stagnant water.

A faint, metallic scent hung in the air, a mix of damp earth and something less identifiable—something akin to burnt sugar, but acrid. It made his nose wrinkle, a phantom taste of ash on his tongue. He pulled the collar of his threadbare jacket tighter, the coarse wool rasping against his chin. The sky overhead was a flat, dull pewter, the kind that promised nothing but more grey for days to come.

Orange Against Grey

He saw her then, Rachal, at the far end of the embankment. She wasn’t looking at him, not directly. Her gaze was fixed on the river, her silhouette sharp against the muted light. Her bright, orange parka was a violent splash of colour against the prevailing gloom, an almost insolent disregard for the muted palettes of the season. He watched her for a moment, the slight slump of her shoulders, the way she fiddled with the zipper of her jacket, pulling it up and down, up and down. A nervous tic, he knew. Or maybe just bored. He couldn't tell anymore. It was hard to tell anything with her these days.

He remembered her, once, a blur of motion, all quick smiles and even quicker decisions. Now, she moved like a boat cut adrift, bumped by unseen currents. He felt a strange sort of parallel to her, though he'd never admit it. A few months ago, he would have bounded over, shouted a greeting, maybe even thrown a small stone into the river to make her jump. Now, the thought felt like a monumental effort. His muscles felt heavy, loaded with something inert.

A lone gander, fat and irritable, waddled past him, eyeing the bruised apple with suspicion before deciding it wasn't worth the effort. It let out a low honk, a sound that seemed disproportionately loud in the quiet. Corey watched it go, then turned his gaze back to Rachal. She was closer now, not having moved, but the river’s bend had brought her into clearer view. He could make out the damp tendrils of hair escaping her hood, plastered to her forehead.

He coughed, a dry, rasping sound that caught in his throat. He thought about standing, about walking away, about just… vanishing into the dim streets behind him. But his legs felt rooted. A strange magnetism, perhaps, or just plain inertia.

She turned then, abruptly. Her eyes, usually so quick and assessing, seemed unfocused, distant. They slid over him, then registered. A flicker, something akin to surprise, then resignation. She didn’t smile. She just raised a hand, a small, tentative wave.

“Corey,” she said, her voice a little hoarse, as if she hadn’t spoken in a while. Or perhaps she’d been shouting at the river. Her voice used to be clear, a bell. Now it had a slight tremor, a fraying at the edges.

He nodded, a jerky movement that felt awkward. “Rachal.” His own voice was a little rougher than he’d intended. He cleared his throat. “You… out here for a while?”

She shrugged, pulling her hands into the voluminous sleeves of her parka. “Just… thinking. Or not thinking, maybe. Hard to tell the difference sometimes, right?”

He grunted, a noncommittal sound. She didn’t expect an answer. He knew that much. She was talking to the air, to the grey, to the invisible weight between them. He thought about the small, chipped mug in his kitchen, left unwashed for days, a film of dried tea clinging to the bottom. Small things. Irrelevant things. Why did his mind always latch onto those?

“Heard anything?” she asked, her gaze drifting back to the water, the surface rippling with tiny, almost imperceptible currents.

“About what?” He knew what she meant. He just didn’t want to say it. The name hung unspoken, a heavy, dark shape in the air between them.

She glanced at him, a quick, sharp look. “You know. The usual. The… situation.” She made a vague gesture with her hand, encompassing the river, the sky, the whole quiet, burdened world.

He shook his head. “Nothing. Just… the same.” He rubbed his hands together, feeling the rough skin of his knuckles. He needed gloves. He’d left them at home. Or lost them. Probably lost them. He was losing a lot of things these days.

A faint whirring sound started somewhere across the river, a low, mechanical thrum that vibrated through the damp earth. It was a familiar sound, one that had become woven into the fabric of daily life, like the distant cry of gulls or the rumble of the old freight trains. It usually didn’t bother him, but today it grated, a persistent burr under his skin.

Rachal flinched, almost imperceptibly. Her eyes darted towards the sound, a momentary flash of fear in their depths. Then it was gone, replaced by that same distant resignation. She bit her lip, a habit from when she was a child. He remembered her doing it before a maths test she hadn’t studied for. Or before she told her mother about the broken vase.

“I… I should go,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. She didn’t move, though. Her feet stayed planted.

“Yeah.” He didn’t push her. He wouldn’t. What was the point? They both carried it. Whatever ‘it’ was. The silent, heavy thing that had settled over everything like a fine, grey ash.

He looked at the river again. It was wide here, sluggish and deep. The surface was mottled with fallen leaves, mostly brown and ochre, but a few flashes of defiant, still-bright orange. Like Rachal’s parka. These few leaves, refusing to drown, clinging to the surface tension.

The Unspoken Weight

A flicker in his peripheral vision. He saw it again. A shadow. Not a real shadow, not from the low sun or the clouds. More like a ripple in the air itself, a momentary distortion. It was always there, at the very edge of sight, just beyond what the eye could properly focus on. A trick of the light, he told himself. Exhaustion. Too much time staring at blank walls. But it had started before the blank walls. Before everything.

He shivered, though not from the cold. He looked at Rachal. She was still standing there, arms wrapped around herself, looking at the river. As if she felt it too. The distortion. The ripple. The unidentifiable something.

“Did you… did you ever feel like… there’s something else?” he asked, the words tumbling out before he could stop them. They sounded stupid, childish.

She turned slowly, her head tilted slightly. Her eyes, those distant, unfocused eyes, met his. And for a brief, unsettling moment, he saw a glimmer of recognition there. Not understanding, not agreement. Just recognition. As if she’d heard the question before. Or asked it herself, countless times, to an empty room.

“All the time,” she said, her voice flat, devoid of inflection. “Since… everything. It’s always there. Just out of sight. Isn’t it?”

He didn't reply. He didn't know how to. The whirring from across the river intensified, a higher-pitched whine now, like something winding up. Or down. It was impossible to tell. The air felt thick, heavy with unspoken things, with the metallic scent and the damp cold. A single drop of rain splattered against his cheek, cold and sharp. Then another. And another. The grey sky had finally broken. He watched Rachal, her face impassive as the first fat drops began to darken the orange fabric of her parka. She didn't move to seek shelter. He wondered if she even noticed. He wondered if he should.

He watched the rain begin in earnest, each drop a tiny, dark blossom on the grey concrete. The river’s surface now seemed to boil with them, an endless, chaotic patter. Rachal still hadn’t moved, her back to him, a statue of orange against the darkening world. He felt a sudden, inexplicable urge to tell her something. Anything. About the dream he’d had last night, a jumble of familiar faces and impossible rooms. About the strange, faint ringing in his ears that sometimes accompanied the ‘ripple’ in his vision. But the words felt heavy, stuck.

His throat felt dry. He swallowed, a conscious effort. He could hear the distinct slosh of water gathering in the deeper divots of the pavement, a steady, rhythmic sound beneath the general hiss of the rain. The metallic, burnt-sugar scent seemed to intensify with the dampness, clinging to his clothes, his hair. He ran a hand through his already unruly hair, feeling the cold moisture on his scalp.

He remembered a day, weeks ago, maybe months, when the sun had still felt warm. A day when he and Rachal had chased each other through the overgrown park just behind this embankment, laughing, their breath misting in the cool air, but laughter nonetheless. Now, the park was a tangle of skeletal branches, the path half-obscured by sodden leaves. They hadn't gone there since. No one really did.

The whirring across the river had tapered off, replaced by a low, persistent hum, like a distant generator. It settled into the background, another layer of white noise in a world increasingly filled with it. It was the sound of things working, things running, but without purpose he could decipher. Without a visible end product. Just the hum.

He shifted on the bench, his hip aching from the cold concrete. He wished he had a cigarette. He didn’t smoke, had never really understood the appeal, but the thought of holding something warm, seeing the plume of smoke curl into the damp air, felt oddly comforting. A small, self-destructive ritual.

The Fading Spark

Rachal turned again, slowly, as if she were made of gears grinding against each other. Her eyes found his, and this time, there was something else there. A question. A plea. A mirror of his own unarticulated fears.

“They’re… looking for things, aren’t they?” she asked, her voice barely audible over the rain.

He didn't pretend not to understand. “Always. They always are.” He thought of the patrols, the quiet, efficient figures in dark clothing who sometimes moved through the streets, their faces obscured by hoods, their movements precise, almost mechanical. They rarely spoke, rarely interacted. Just observed. Collected. The details of what they collected, or why, were never clear.

He imagined them, even now, perhaps lurking just beyond the sparse line of dying elms along the riverbank, their eyes fixed on Rachal’s bright parka, on his hunched form. Or perhaps they were just shadows in his mind, reflections of an anxiety that had burrowed deep.

Rachal took a step towards him, then another, until she was standing a few feet away, rain dripping steadily from her hood onto the already soaked ground. Her gaze was still fixed somewhere beyond him, at the river or what lay on the other side.

“It’s getting… worse, isn’t it?” Her voice was still quiet, but there was an edge to it now, a brittle quality. “The hum. The way people just… stop looking. Stop caring.”

He didn't have to answer. He felt it too. The slow, creeping numbness that infected everyone, a gradual fading of engagement. People walked with their heads down, their eyes averted. Small talk had become an art of avoiding any real topic. He’d seen it in his neighbours, in the few shopkeepers still left in his quadrant. A quiet erosion of the vital spark.

“I saw someone, last week,” she continued, her words rushing out a little faster now, as if the dam had finally cracked. “An old woman, near the old market square. She was just… standing there. In the rain. Like this. And she had a bird, a small wren, clutched in her hand. Dead. And she was just… humming. A tune I didn’t know.” Rachal shivered, a full-body tremor. “Like she didn’t even know it was dead. Or didn’t care.”

He felt a cold knot in his stomach. The image was stark, unsettling. It spoke to the quiet horror that seemed to infect the edges of their lives. He thought of the bruised apple by his feet. How long had it been there? How long before it dissolved completely into the earth?

“What did you do?” he asked, the question barely a whisper.

Rachal shook her head, a fine spray of water flying from her hood. “Nothing. What could I do? I just… walked past. Pretended not to see. Everyone did.” She pressed her lips together, a thin, colourless line. “That’s what you do now, isn’t it? Pretend not to see.”

He felt the truth of her words settle heavily in his chest. It was a coping mechanism, an unspoken pact. Look away. Don't engage. Don't draw attention. It was how they survived, or at least how they continued to exist.

A sudden gust of wind whipped across the river, cold and cutting, rattling the bare branches of the elms. A few more leaves tore free, swirling like mad things before plunging into the churning grey water. The rain intensified again, blurring the distant buildings into indistinct shapes.

The Persistent Distortion

He found himself looking at the space behind Rachal, the empty air. The ripple. It was there again. Fainter now, almost transparent, but definitely there. A shimmering distortion, like heat haze over tarmac on a summer day, except it was winter-cold. It seemed to follow her, a silent, persistent companion. Or maybe it just followed *them*. Everyone.

He blinked, rubbing his eyes. When he opened them, the ripple was gone. Or was it? Was it just too subtle to perceive now? His vision felt grainy, like an old film.

“I wonder what it’s like,” Rachal mused, her voice so soft it was almost lost in the rain, “to not see it. To just… live. Like before.”

He shifted on the bench again, his joints stiff. He didn't answer. The 'before' felt like another life, a forgotten story. Fragments of it surfaced sometimes: the taste of his mother’s baking, the rough texture of his father’s work jacket, the shrill laughter of a friend. But they were just that. Fragments. Disconnected. Meaningless now.

He realised he was gripping the edge of the bench, his knuckles white. The rough concrete dug into his palm. He loosened his grip, then clenched it again. A small, pointless gesture.

“We shouldn’t be out here,” he said, the words feeling forced, inadequate.

Rachal let out a short, hollow laugh that held no humour. “Where should we be? Inside? Watching the news streams tell us everything is fine? Listening to the hum from the apartment above?” She shook her head, a slow, deliberate movement. “At least out here… at least it feels real. In a broken way.”

He couldn't argue. Inside, the walls felt thin, the air stagnant. The silence, when it came, was oppressive, heavy with what wasn’t being said. Out here, amidst the rain and the cold and the subtle, unsettling distortions, there was a raw honesty to the discomfort.

A small bird, perhaps the mate of the gander he’d seen earlier, landed on the bench beside him, cocking its head. Its feathers were ruffled, wet. It eyed him with a surprising directness, an unnerving intelligence in its tiny, black bead eyes. Then, with a sudden hop, it pecked at the bruised apple, managing to dislodge a tiny, dark fleck of pulp before taking flight with a flutter of indignant wings.

It left behind a faint, earthy smell, a brief impression of wildness in the otherwise muted landscape. Corey watched it go, then looked back at Rachal. She was still there, a splash of orange in the pervasive grey. Her face was turned up slightly, letting the rain fall on it. His eyes were closed.

He felt a strange sort of kinship with her, standing there in the downpour, letting the elements wash over her. A shared defiance, perhaps, or a shared exhaustion. It was hard to tell the difference sometimes, right? Just like thinking or not thinking.

He pushed himself up from the bench, his muscles protesting. He could feel the stiffness in his back, the chill in his knees. His boots squelched slightly in the accumulating puddles. He walked over to her, stopping a respectful distance away. He could hear her breathing, shallow and uneven.

He looked at her wet face, the pale skin, the faint blue tint to her lips. She looked younger in that moment, more vulnerable, stripped bare by the elements. And then, he saw it again. The ripple. Clearer this time. Directly behind her, almost emanating from her. A shimmering, silent crack in the air, distorting the river and the distant buildings behind it. It pulsed faintly, like a bruised heartbeat.

He stared, his own breath catching in his throat. It wasn't a trick of the light. It wasn't exhaustion. It was real. And it was connected to her. To Rachal. Or to whatever she was feeling.

Rachal opened her eyes, slowly. They were dull, heavy. She looked at him, then past him, at the empty bench, at the bruised apple still bobbing in its puddle.

“It never really goes away, does it?” she murmured, not asking a question, but stating a fact.

He didn't reply. He couldn't. The ripple behind her seemed to hum, a silent vibration that resonated deep in his bones. He knew, with a sudden, chilling certainty, that the hum he’d heard from across the river, the hum that permeated their world, was not just mechanical. It was something else. Something vast and indifferent, and utterly unknowable. And Rachal, standing there in the rain, seemed to be its quiet, unwilling conduit. He wanted to reach out, to touch her, to pull her away from whatever invisible force clung to her. But his hands felt leaden. And what if touching her just meant touching the ripple? What if it spread?

His gaze dropped to her hands, clasped loosely in front of her. He noticed a small, silver ring on her index finger, one he’d never seen before. It was simple, unadorned, but it seemed to shimmer with its own cold light, catching the dull gleam of the rain. A tiny, perfect circle in a fragmented world. He wondered where it came from. What it meant. But he knew better than to ask.

The rain kept falling, relentless. The river kept flowing, indifferent. And the ripple behind Rachal held steady, an unspoken promise of something vast and strange waiting just beyond the edges of their perception. He couldn’t look away from it.