New Tomorrow

Everything around me was black. As I climbed the hill, black gravel slid from under my feet. Looking up, I saw a sky that was also black, or rather, the clouds obscuring it were black, as red peeked through the horizon in places. It wasn't the red of a setting sun, though. It looked more like there was no sun at all, but the entire sky was the color of blood, almost entirely covered by clouds. The man I'd met at the very beginning, who'd given me some directions, was also all black—jet-black hair, a black beard, and a truly Plutonian flowing robe that reached the ground.

He told me to keep going until I reached a hill, at the top of which I'd see the ruins of a cathedral. So I climbed that hill, recalling his further advice—when I reached my destination, I'd likely meet a group of people there. I was to gather as many of them as possible, preferably all of them, and head in the direction to the left of the one I'd come from. We must continue until we reach the City; we must not stop or be tempted by anything along the way. I didn't know why I should be tempted, as I hadn't met a single person on the way to the cathedral. I also saw nothing of interest: no signposts, roads, buildings, not even ruins. As far as the eye could see, there were only these black plains covered with gravel and stones. It looked as if a fire had consumed everything long ago. I wished my guide in black were with me; perhaps he could answer my questions.

The climb over the gravel wasn't easy, so I crawled practically halfway to the top of the hill on all fours. It was quite warm. It would have been stifling and unbearable if not for the slight gusts of a cooler wind from my left, the direction I was supposed to head when I reached the top. The ground was also warm. The stones that made up the gravel covering everything were warm and very light, as if hollow inside.

When I reached the top, I stood up, brushed the small pebbles that had dug into my skin from my hands, and looked ahead.

I was standing before the cathedral gate. Or rather, what remained of the great double doors after some mysterious cataclysm that had struck these lands. One door, tilted, was barely held together by a single hinge. The other lay on the ground, inside the ruins of the building. A jagged section of the cathedral's front wall, five, in some places six meters high, remained. Above the entrance, gaped two round holes that had probably once housed stained glass windows. But now, through them, I could see the blackness of the clouds obscuring the sky.

I approached the entrance. I decided not to touch the left wing, which was precariously hanging on its hinge, and entered through the right. The floor inside—if one could be inside a building that no longer had a ceiling or walls, of which only remnants remained, in some places reaching over two meters—was strewn with small and large stones that had probably once been parts of the cathedral's walls or roof. The closer I got to the altar, the remnants of the walls grew lower, while around the altar itself they were practically leveled.

In the center of the raised platform, where services had once been held, a small bonfire burned. Around it, several people sat on stones. They didn't notice me until I approached them within a few steps. Looking around, I noticed that outside what had once been the church, a dozen or so people were wandering aimlessly among the scattered stones. However, they either hadn't noticed me yet or weren't paying attention. Those sitting by the fire, however, stared at me for a moment, then turned their faces back to the flames. Only one of them, a young man with short blond hair, glasses, and a gray sweatshirt, continued to watch me with interest. So I walked over to the fire, watched him and his companions, and, not quite knowing what to do, sat down on one of the rocks next to the blond boy. He continued to stare at me, and I avoided his gaze. I glanced at the others sitting by the fire – one an older, gray-haired man with a wrinkled face, another a black-haired, bearded man in a leather jacket and glasses, the third, quite obese, with short hair and a dark sweater. Then I looked into the fire itself – a small, feeble flame, devouring some broken boards, probably the remains of cathedral pews. I stared into the fire, feeling the young man's constant gaze on me. The prolonged, uncomfortable silence overwhelmed me more and more, the crackling of the fire growing louder, the fire in my eyes growing larger. After a while, only the fire existed—its image obscuring everything else, its crackling drowning out every sound.

I only realized how quiet the crackling of the fire truly was when the young man spoke.

“What did your guide look like?” he asked, and I described the appearance of the man who had told me where to go.

“I was led in by a young man with short hair. Blond,” he said. “He had an earring in his right ear.”

I looked at him. He seemed to turn to face me deliberately, so that I could see his right ear in the dim firelight. The firelight reflected off a small metal disc. I looked at his face, which was twisted into a smile. I conjured up the image of my guide once more. I glanced down at my clothes—a long, black robe that reached down to the ground. I reached out and touched my face. I felt the stubble of his beard beneath my fingers. The boy laughed softly.

"You understand," he said. "Our guides are a reflection of ourselves."

I glanced at the others, sitting by the fire. They might have been listening to the conversation, but they didn't seem particularly interested. Who knows, maybe they'd heard all this before, many times, whenever someone new showed up.

"He told you to gather those you meet here and go with them to the city, right?"

I nodded.

"I've been here a while now, and I still can't seem to go. Maybe we can convince a few more people to come along.

"Have you ever been there?" I asked.

"I haven't, but Gray has." He glanced at one of the men sitting by the fire. I followed his gaze. The old, wrinkled man, sensing our gaze, said without taking his eyes off the fire,

"Yes. I have. There's nothing there. The gates of the New Tomorrow are closed.

" "New Tomorrow?" I asked.

"That's the name of this city. The New Tomorrow is closed to us and won't open anytime soon."

I didn't want to believe it. My guide hadn't told me to go to the city to be denied entry. It didn't make sense to me, and I couldn't believe it. The old man's words filled me with an even greater desire to go there and see the New Tomorrow with my own eyes.

I stood up and looked in the direction my guide had told me to go when I reached the cathedral. I saw nothing there—only a plain stretching to the horizon, where the red sky was peeking through the black clouds. I couldn't see any city there, but I still wanted to go there, even if only right now. I heard the young man beside me rise as well.

"I'll ask who else wants to go," he said, and walked away. I looked around the immediate area surrounding the cathedral. Behind the cathedral, there must once have been a garden, but now all that remained were the black stumps of dead trees, among which people wandered aimlessly. How many of them had been at the closed gates of the New Tomorrow? Who had been there but returned disappointed? Or perhaps none of them had ever reached it, all of them remaining here, afraid to embark on a journey they had heard was pointless?

Among the people walking here and there—men and women—I suddenly noticed a young girl looking at me. She had long, straight, dark hair, was dressed in a black dress, and an indefinable sadness lurked in her eyes. When I looked at her, she averted her gaze and walked away. I followed her. I weaved for a moment between the trees and people, trying to catch up with her. Finally, I saw her a dozen or so paces away. We were a good few dozen meters from the cathedral ruins, and she stood with her back to me in front of the stump of a tree. But this tree must have been larger than the others, older, more powerful. I approached it to take a closer look. The girl reached out and touched its bark.

"This is where it all began," she said, "a long time ago." She withdrew her hand and looked at me. I felt the sadness hidden in her eyes literally stab my heart. "We were banished from here, and when we finally manage to return, we find this..."

For a moment, I couldn't say a word. I stared into her dark brown eyes. The girl lowered her gaze and turned toward the cathedral.

"Wait," I said. She stopped, and I didn't know what to say. That single word escaped me. But now I didn't know what to say to her. Why had I told her to wait? Why hadn't I wanted her to leave? I looked around helplessly. The girl stood with her back to me, ready to continue at any moment. I looked in the direction of the city our guides had sent us.

"We're going to the New Tomorrow. Come with us," I said finally. The silence that followed these words stretched on forever.

"Okay," the girl finally replied, and the pain in my heart eased a little.

So the four of us set off – me, a young blond man, a girl, and a bearded man in a leather jacket, who had been sitting with the others around the campfire when I arrived. We set off in the direction our guides had all pointed us when they introduced us to this world. We didn't talk much during our journey. From the brief exchanges between us, I learned only that no one here had a name. At first, it surprised me, but when the blond-haired youth asked me my name, I had to admit he was right – I didn't know it. I couldn't tell him my name. That's why everyone here is given a name that characterizes them in some way. Most often, it's related to some physical feature, sometimes to an event, though less often, because – as I learned – not much happens here. They call this young boy Iskra, I learned. The girl I spoke to under the big tree is called Black-Eyed, and the bearded man with us earned the nickname Skóra, which probably comes from his leather jacket.

I don't know how much time passed before the hill and the cathedral disappeared from view behind us. We walked forward, careful not to stray from one direction. There was no road, no path, no signposts, so we didn't avoid any hills, conquering them all by climbing and descending the other side, in a straight line, trying to stay on course. Far ahead, on the horizon, we could see a broad hill, towering over the surroundings. It lay exactly in the direction we were heading, so we concluded that the city we were heading for must be on it.

We walked for a while in absolute silence, no one saying a word, when I realized that the sound of our uneven footsteps was accompanied by something else, a distant hum, like the roar of... an engine? I wasn't the only one hearing it. All four of us turned and looked in the direction we had come from, for we had no doubt the sound was coming from there. We waited, not looking at each other, just gazing expectantly at the hills we'd just conquered. The roar grew louder and louder. Finally, a streak of light flashed from behind one of the hills, followed by two headlights.

The vehicle slid down a hill, disappeared behind another, and a moment later reappeared. With an increasingly louder roar, it approached us, and we could already make out an off-road vehicle. The vehicle circled around us from the left, still following our gaze, circled in a semicircle, and stopped a few meters to the right. Behind the wheel sat a young, smiling man with a cigarette, wearing a vest and hat. In the backseat sat a young girl with straight white hair and large eyes. She watched us with amusement. The driver turned off the engine and shouted at us,

"Hello, travelers!"

We didn't respond. We stood still, staring wordlessly from the man to his passenger.

"How about a ride into town? Why bother walking?"

After a moment of silence, Iskra asked,

"Will you take us to the New Tomorrow?"

The car driver grimaced.

"Where, to the New Tomorrow..." Despite its name, the New Tomorrow is the past. This city won't accept you. It's sealed, closed to everyone. It's dying. Its glory days are long gone. I swear, they should change the name to Old Yesterday.

"Where do you want to take us then?" Skóra said.

"Where I come from, that's where life is. No worries, pure fun. The Palace of Pleasure, a constant carnival in the streets, women, wine, song... A true, modern paradise! THIS is the real Tomorrow!"

I felt the touch of another hand in my left hand. I looked and realized with surprise that it was Black Eyes who had grabbed my hand. She grabbed it and held it tightly, her eyes, deep as wells, staring at the car the strangers had arrived in with terror in her eyes. I looked at Spark, then turned to the driver,

"No, thank you. We'll continue on our way, on foot. "

The driver was just opening his mouth to reply when Skin's voice rang out beside me.

"What, are you crazy?" he said, looking at us. I stared at him, speechless. He headed toward the car. "Take me with you," he said.

"Sure, hop in the back," the driver said, and when Skin settled himself next to the white-haired girl, he asked, "Maybe you'll be tempted too?

You will be tempted. That's what he said." At that moment, I remembered my guide's warning. Apparently Spark and Black Eyes had remembered it from the very beginning. But I only remembered her now.

“Skin, don’t do that,” I said, but our traveling companion probably didn’t even hear me, engrossed in his conversation with the white-haired girl. “Skin!” I shouted louder, but it was drowned out by the sound of the engine starting.

“Well, if you’re going, go,” said the driver, waving goodbye, and driving off, taking Skin to an unknown city of pleasures and all sorts of entertainment. The three of

us stood like that for a while longer. Long after the car’s headlights disappeared behind the hills, we stared back at the point where they had disappeared, then in the opposite direction, at the black hill rising above the horizon, where—perhaps—New Tomorrow lay. Finally, we resumed our journey.

The black-eyed woman didn’t let go of my hand, and I didn’t want to let go of hers at all. The three of us walked toward our destination, wondering what we would find there.

“I’ve heard of this city.” "Iskra said, "About the one Skóra went to. It's located exactly in the opposite direction from the cathedral to New Tomorrow. If we'd gone right from there, instead of left, we would have reached it.

" "So why didn't you ever go there?" I asked. He didn't answer. He was just staring at the hill, which was getting closer.

Only when we got closer did we notice that what we were looking at was indeed a hill, but lower than we thought. The hill itself didn't loom large above the surroundings. What was rising, however, was the city, New Tomorrow, to which we were heading.

Huge, gray walls, several meters high, and beyond them, buildings jutting out slightly, also gray, and the taller they were the farther they were from the walls, the deeper into the city they were. With each step, the gray, concrete colossus grew larger, becoming even more overwhelming. We also saw—from a distance—searchlights, wandering along the ground at distances of up to several dozen meters from the city walls. The searchlights were positioned on turrets on the wall, placed at regular intervals.

However, as we approached, within range of the searchlights, we couldn't see a soul on the turrets or on the walls. There was no one operating the haphazardly directed searchlights. Even when the light from one fell on us, it simply passed on, as if we had remained unnoticed.

We did, however, see the city gate. It was situated on a short section of wall between two turrets, slightly higher than anywhere else. From a distance, we couldn't make it out, as the stone gray of the city fortifications blended with the steel gray of the monumental gates that closed the city entrance.

We approached the plane of cold steel. No sound reached us from the other side. We stood outside the gate for a moment, motionless. Finally, Iskra approached it and knocked loudly three times. Dead silence answered him. After a moment, he slammed his fist on the door. So nothing happened. He looked at us – at me and at Black Eyes, who was always there, still holding my hand. I saw tiny sparks in the boy's eyes. Was that searchlight reflected in... tears? With a scream, Iskra threw himself at the steel gates, kicking and pounding on them with his fists. After a moment, he stopped and fell to his knees, still leaning against the cool metal. His body shook rhythmically, and I heard a soft cry. I looked at him and at the enormous gates, and tears welled up in my own eyes.

"And we've been waiting for this our whole lives," said Black Eyes.

I didn't answer. I sat down on the ground, still holding her hand.

"You were right," she said. "The sky is black."

I looked at her, thinking that as she spoke those words, she was looking up at the black clouds obscuring the sky. But she was looking around, looking at her feet, at the black gravel that littered the ground.