Sprat Paint

The silence had come to life. They could not only hear it, but feel it too. It was outside with them, prowling around, observing. Waiting to pounce, and tear anyone apart who dared to break it. Robin, spray paint can in hand, had become a statue, frozen in place. The nozzle of her can still hovering above the line she had just made. Each muscle in her body had tensed up, and she could physically feel the adrenalin coursing through her body. She struggled to keep her breathing shallow and quiet, her racing heart making that difficult.

Out of her peripheral vision she could see the other three, each motionless, stuck in place. Jack and Ryder had both walked back to the bags filled with spray paint, and were crouching there. Ryder, not the best at balancing, looked like he was about to fall over. Ace was frozen in the middle of a spray, standing on her toes, arm as high as she could reach. Robin turned her head and locked eyes with Ace; fear starkly etched on the other girl’s face.

As soon as they heard the sound, they had instantaneously frozen in place. None of them had even considered the possibility that someone else would ever come out here. Not really. They had planned for it, but they didn’t think they would ever have to deal with anyone else. The old city was restricted. Everyone else was too terrified of the rumors and the Compound’s rules to brake one and come out here. Or so they had thought.

“Maybe it was a fox,” Ryder whispered, His voice ripping apart the silence.

Robin considered the possibility for a moment, she had seen foxes the last few times she had been here. But no, foxes were quiet. Whatever had moved through the fence had to be bigger than a fox to make a sound like that. Much bigger. With a small motion she shook her head. 

“We need to leave now; if it’s a patrol, they will be able to spot us easily if they know what to look for. And we might be silhouetted by the paint,” she said, her own whisper sounding like sandpaper in her ears - as she moved towards the bags. 

Despite being in shock, they moved quickly and efficiently. They had planned for this day, even though none of them thought it would ever come. They thought they had been careful enough. Nevertheless, they had drilled, practicing rapidly packing everything away, as silently as they could. After only a few seconds they had wrapped all the metal cylinders in thick cloth and packed them into each bag. They didn’t make much noise, but with each small sound Robin winced.

Each taking a bag, they slung it over their shoulders and the four friends began to run. After a few seconds they could hear more movement behind them, the fear injecting speed into them. Soon they passed through the boundary fence, slipping through a whole on the North Eastern side of the old city. Robin hoped that the sounds coming from behind them, which were progressively growing louder, would be enough to cover the sound of them passing through the fence.

It was difficult to run both quietly and fast in the dark. And it only got darker as they moved away from the glowing city that they had systematically painted over the months. Nevertheless, they managed to make good distance in a few minutes. The city was a part of the old world, a time that most people wanted to forget. And those who didn’t want to forget were silenced. It was forbidden to go there.

One day, only looking at the forgotten city there on the eastern horizon, with it strange shapes, had no longer been enough for Robin. In the first truly spontaneous thing she had ever done, Robin feigned sickness and was sent to her room. No one doubted her, because no one ever lied in the Compound. It was simply not done.

She had managed to sneak past the guards by sheer luck. She crossed the expanse that lay between the Compound and the old city, which was covered in thick foliage and plant life. She wore one of the few sets of brown clothes in the whole Compound. She was lucky, because she worked in the gardens, she was allowed a set, so she wouldn’t stain the generic whites that everyone else wore. Her camouflage seemed to fool the lookouts. It was early in the morning, and they were probably still half asleep, and not paying much attention to anything outside of their coffee cups.

Robin spent that whole day drenched in a sence of wonder, looking through an alien world. It was filled with things she could never have imagined were real. Poking through square houses, a strange concept for her to understand, she found books. Not books like the ones they had at the Compound. Books with words she didn’t understand, and ideas she couldn’t comprehend.

In one of these buildings, she found the spray paint; rows and rows of pretty upright cans. She wouldn’t know until much later, when she returned at night, that it glowed in the dark. Curious as to what the cans would do, she pressed down on the nozzle, nearly shooting herself in the face. Her second attempt, aiming at a wall, was much more successful. Shocked and utterly amazed, she began to create art for the first time in her life. She might have been the first in her generation to create something new. The first to create anything from her own imagination.

As the sun began to set, Robin returned to the Compound. She passed through the small gate on the side, as the lookouts changed shifts, her heart pounding with the risk she took. After that she tried to go back to the life she used to live. But it was like a virus had entered her system, and it had corrupted everything. The old city was all she could think about; the books with their wonderful, mysterious words; and the feeling she got when she used the spray paint for the first time.

She had never known feelings like those that consumed her. She simply could not focus on her work in the gardens. She started to lose her appetite. The Leaders were starting to take notice of her increasingly erratic behavior, which worried her. Seeing no other option, Robin told her three best friends. She needed someone else to understand. Someone else to share the burden.

They had taken it rather well under the circumstances. After a few days of persuading and cajoling, she managed to convince them to go with her. Before leaving, Robin had made sure to cover a set of clothes for each of her friends with mud from the garden. They snuck out in the middle of the night. Robin’s passion and excitement for creation and reading about the fantastic worlds in the yellowed pages, rubbed off on the others. Soon they had the same burning need as she did to go back time after time. Soon all four of them took every opportunity to return to the old city.

Now, here, their worst nightmare was coming true. Someone had taken notice of the glowing paint, or maybe they had slipped up when sneaking out of the Compound. They had taken care to only paint on the eastern sides of buildings, the side facing away from the Compound. Or else they would paint inside the buildings themselves, far away from where the patrols could see the glow. And they never spoke louder than a whisper, even though the roads were far enough away that none of them thought they could be heard. But clearly, those precautions were not enough.

“Where are we going?” Jack asked, his breath coming in gasps.

“I don’t know. Away from patrols and the Compound,” Robin said.

“Umff,” came a sound from Ace, along with the sound of a body hitting the ground.

They all stopped running and turned back, trying to find Ace in the darkness. It seemed as if she had tripped over something. In the dim light from the moon Robin could vaguely make out Ace’s shape on the ground next to something that was reflecting the moon in two pale strips. Gingerly stepping closer Robin saw that it was something that must be railway tracks; she had read about them in the books she had found in the old city.

There was a sudden flash of light coming from a part of the old city, which blinded them all for a second. A bright beam eliminated a portion of the city nearest to the Compound. It was near to where they had been. Robin looked at the light, trying to understand how it was being created. Her heart sunk to her feet as she understood.

The sounds that they had heard earlier must have been a stealth team, trying to catch them unawares. She knew that the light was coming from a patrol truck. They were each equipped with a flood light. They must have given up on the stealth approach and were trying to intimidate them into turning themselves in.

Robin could see little black dots running around in front of the light, the patrolmen. A breeze drifted towards them, and she could vaguely hear someone saying something over a megaphone, unable to make out the words. But she didn’t need to. She knew that they were commanding anyone inside the old city to come out or face the consequences of the Compound.

As she stood there, no one emerging from the city, she saw glowing orange balls of light fly in from the patrol truck. There were to many to count. As each landed, it exploded. Finally, the full weight of what was happening hit her. The Compound was burning down the old city, so that anyone hiding inside would perish along with the relics from the forgotten world. The four of them could never go back to the Compound, back to the unfulfilling, but comfortable lives they used to live.

Now that the Compound knew someone had gone to the old city, they would crank up security. Robin knew they wouldn’t be able to sneak back in that night. And when the four of them didn’t go to breakfast in the morning, someone would go looking for them. Unable to find them, it would be reported. Then The Leaders would immediately know who was in the old city the night before. Robin was not willing to find out what they would do to her and her friends if they turned themselves in. She knew there was only one option. Run. She didn’t know where to. But they had no other choice.

She quickly looked around. She saw the black-whole of the railway tunnel entrance a couple of hundred meters to their left. Making a split second decision, Robin helped Ace to her feet, and ordered them all toward the tunnel. Just before they entered she could see her friends faces, lit by the light of the moon and the burning city. Understanding of what had just happened was written into the worry lines on each face, that had not been there before.

The menacing silence was back, accompanied by the oppressive darkness. They walked and walked, eventually coming out the other end of the tunnel, and leaving it far behind. No one said a word. Hours later, when they could not walk anymore, they collapsed on the ground. Their limbs felt like they were made of steel. Unable to sleep, they each lay there, trapped in their own mind.

They had almost become a part of the silence before Ace echoed the question they were all internally, frantically asking themselves, “what are we going to do?”