Shadows of the Hidden City
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The car’s steering wheel was sticky—smelled faintly of cheap cologne, acrid sweat, and the ghost of gun oil. They hadn’t bothered to clean it before they’d left the wreckage behind, scattering the bandits in bloody confusion. Now the road blurred beneath her. Tires whispered on the rain-glossed city streets; a low night wind curled in through an open, cracked window. City lights stitched pale lines onto her retinas, sometimes overpowering, sometimes skipping right past her, blue and gold and sodium white.
Beside her, her friend—no, her brother—shifted uncomfortably in the passenger seat. The way he moved, the near-silent hiss of fabric and skin, tickled her sharpened ears. He smelled of stress and relief, anger barely banked, hunger lurking close to the surface. She could almost taste adrenaline on the air, thick like copper, and his voice vibrated through the car interior with a speed that pricked at her nerves.
She found herself counting the heartbeats between traffic lights. One-two-three-four-green. One-two—she braked fast, tire rubber squealing faintly; the stop light looked red, but she could see the faint trace of the blue from the police scanners strobing, far away. The city was awake, and danger twitched at the edges of her perception.
When they reached the coast, where the air’s salt sharpness twisted through the city’s grime, he asked her to pull over near a small storefront. She detected the faint trembling in his voice—not fear, perhaps, but uncertainty. The shop windows were veiled and dirty; the mannequins slumped in odd, lopsided ways. Still, they went inside. She picked through racks, choosing clothes by texture and sound, picturing how thin shadow would hide them better than bright colors. Her brother—awkward, cringing—chose a neutral hoodie and loose pants. He was trying to pass as someone who could slip through the night and stay unseen.
Leaving the shop, she let him carry the bags. Her hands ached from gripping the wheel—old wounds stitching themselves closed faster than most, but aches nonetheless, reminders of the fight three streets ago. The car felt like a liability now. It was loud in every sense: engine grumbling, bullet hole whistling in the rear window, attention magnet. She led her brother to a side street, dropped the keys into a garbage can, wiped the steering wheel, then ducked away fast. Soon, someone would find the abandoned car and wonder why the seats smelled like the fear of those bandits, like her own clipped anger.
They walked, her brother limping slightly. She adjusted her pace, scanning the streets, tuning out her own footsteps, focusing on the city’s muttered secrets: the skittering rat in a gutter, the scrape of a distant trash can, hurried giggles from a window overhead, the sudden metallic snap of a gun being loaded somewhere two blocks away. She kept her path jagged, doubling back, making sure no one followed. She couldn’t explain how she knew nobody was on their tail—she could just sense it, just as easily as she tracked her own rapid healing under bruised skin.
The herbalist’s shop looked closed at this hour. The painted sign above the door, chipped letters reading “Marcano’s Remedies,” swayed slightly in the ocean breeze. The smells here comforted her. Rosemary, marjoram, lavender, faintly buried under medicinal camphor. The herbalist waited inside, peering through his thick glasses, suspicion cherry-bright on his tongue. She tasted it before he even spoke. He was not pleased—his breathing sharpened, his pulse ticking up as she brought her brother through the door.
She tried to explain. The scent of family ran strong between herself and her brother. Not blood, not exactly—more the bond of escape and shared trauma, an animal thing, a pack thing. She let her gaze drift between them: her brother hunched, near collapse; the herbalist cold but mindful, weighing risks.
Eventually, the herbalist deemed her word enough. He pointed toward the basement, fingers stained with green and brown from a day’s labor. She guided her brother past racks of drying leaves, down creaky wooden stairs to the hideout that had always, since the fires two months back, been more hers than anyone else’s. Down here was the throb of the city seen from below: muted thumps from nightclub speakers overhead, shivers through pipes that ran with stormwater, the soft chitter of insects in a forgotten corner. This was safety, more or less.
The basement’s small lamp cast deep shadows. She dropped onto an upturned crate, letting her breathing slow, her senses range out to the world above. Her brother eased himself onto a cot: the springs groaned, the rust creaked, and she grimaced without meaning to. She felt the roiling discomfort behind his words; he wanted to pour out guilt and gratitude and fear, all tangled together. He needed absolution. She never liked words—they came out wrong, harsh and broken, and the city trusted silence better anyway.
He spoke anyway—toneless at first, then with desperate rhythm. He bared the scars left by the bandits, the failures, the things he’d seen and done. She watched his hands curl into his lap, fingernails biting skin. Her own healing factor buzzed beneath her battered skin; old wounds closed, but she carried memory sharp as ever. Sometimes, listening hurt more than helping.
She let her face answer: a flicker of the eyes when he admitted terror, a tightening jaw at mention of former allies who had betrayed him, a small, involuntary smile at the memory of their first escape as children. Words built pictures in her mind, ugly and vital and impossible to banish. The city was always louder in her head than elsewhere—sirens and footsteps, car horns and shattered glass, the bite of wind through cracks in the foundation. She could filter all that out, but not the ache in her brother’s voice.
He ended, finally, with the sound of brittle resolve broken in half. She did not respond. She didn’t need to. Her presence here, the stolen car, the new clothes, the risk taken—these were her answers.
She leaned back, shutting her eyes, listening to the city breathe, her brother’s heartbeat beginning to slow, the footsteps of the herbalist upstairs, the rain starting to tap-dance on the battered pipes above. She thought: Safe, for now. Safe, together. She could heal from wounds, but the scars of old silence and lost family would take longer, even for her kind.
And as her brother’s story faded into the hum of the hidden city, she let herself drift, senses sharpening and stretching—mapping every exit, every threat, every faint glimmer of hope beyond these four walls. Quiet, always. Listening. Watching. Ready.
This story was generated by user vereena93 with assistance by one of OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model; prompts used to help generate the story are shown below.
Images were generated with OpenAI's AI system, DALL·E 2, or uploaded by the user.
AI Prompts
Prompt: Write a very long story about how a mutant with heightened senses and a healing factor was driving in a car stolen from bandits with her friend, whom she had freed. When they reached the coast of the city, her friend told her to stop at a clothing store and they bought some clothes. Then the woman abandoned the car and they went on foot to the hideout. When they went inside, the owner of the herbalist's didn't seem happy that the mutant had brought a man, but explained to her that he was her brother and needed help and needed to rest. Finally, the herbalist agreed and let the mutant's friend stay. They went down to the basement, which was their hideout. When her friend started talking, the mutant just listened and sometimes reacted to his words with grimaces. She was known for being quiet and didn't like to talk much. Describe it in the form of a mutant's thoughts without any dialogues.
Response: The car’s steering wheel was sticky—smelled faintly of cheap cologne, acrid sweat, and the ghost of gun oil. They hadn’t bothered to clean it before they’d left the wreckage behind, scattering the bandits in bloody confusion. Now the road blurred beneath her. Tires whispered on the rain-glossed city streets; a low night wind curled in through an open, cracked window. City lights stitched pale lines onto her retinas, sometimes overpowering, sometimes skipping right past her, blue and gold and sodium white. Beside her, her friend—no, her brother—shifted uncomfortably in the passenger seat. The way he moved, the near-silent hiss of fabric and skin, tickled her sharpened ears. He smelled of stress and relief, anger barely banked, hunger lurking close to the surface. She could almost taste adrenaline on the air, thick like copper, and his voice vibrated through the car interior with a speed that pricked at her nerves. She found herself counting the heartbeats between traffic lights. One-two-three-four-green. One-two—she braked fast, tire rubber squealing faintly; the stop light looked red, but she could see the faint trace of the blue from the police scanners strobing, far away. The city was awake, and danger twitched at the edges of her perception. When they reached the coast, where the air’s salt sharpness twisted through the city’s grime, he asked her to pull over near a small storefront. She detected the faint trembling in his voice—not fear, perhaps, but uncertainty. The shop windows were veiled and dirty; the mannequins slumped in odd, lopsided ways. Still, they went inside. She picked through racks, choosing clothes by texture and sound, picturing how thin shadow would hide them better than bright colors. Her brother—awkward, cringing—chose a neutral hoodie and loose pants. He was trying to pass as someone who could slip through the night and stay unseen. Leaving the shop, she let him carry the bags. Her hands ached from gripping the wheel—old wounds stitching themselves closed faster than most, but aches nonetheless, reminders of the fight three streets ago. The car felt like a liability now. It was loud in every sense: engine grumbling, bullet hole whistling in the rear window, attention magnet. She led her brother to a side street, dropped the keys into a garbage can, wiped the steering wheel, then ducked away fast. Soon, someone would find the abandoned car and wonder why the seats smelled like the fear of those bandits, like her own clipped anger. They walked, her brother limping slightly. She adjusted her pace, scanning the streets, tuning out her own footsteps, focusing on the city’s muttered secrets: the skittering rat in a gutter, the scrape of a distant trash can, hurried giggles from a window overhead, the sudden metallic snap of a gun being loaded somewhere two blocks away. She kept her path jagged, doubling back, making sure no one followed. She couldn’t explain how she knew nobody was on their tail—she could just sense it, just as easily as she tracked her own rapid healing under bruised skin. The herbalist’s shop looked closed at this hour. The painted sign above the door, chipped letters reading “Marcano’s Remedies,” swayed slightly in the ocean breeze. The smells here comforted her. Rosemary, marjoram, lavender, faintly buried under medicinal camphor. The herbalist waited inside, peering through his thick glasses, suspicion cherry-bright on his tongue. She tasted it before he even spoke. He was not pleased—his breathing sharpened, his pulse ticking up as she brought her brother through the door. She tried to explain. The scent of family ran strong between herself and her brother. Not blood, not exactly—more the bond of escape and shared trauma, an animal thing, a pack thing. She let her gaze drift between them: her brother hunched, near collapse; the herbalist cold but mindful, weighing risks. Eventually, the herbalist deemed her word enough. He pointed toward the basement, fingers stained with green and brown from a day’s labor. She guided her brother past racks of drying leaves, down creaky wooden stairs to the hideout that had always, since the fires two months back, been more hers than anyone else’s. Down here was the throb of the city seen from below: muted thumps from nightclub speakers overhead, shivers through pipes that ran with stormwater, the soft chitter of insects in a forgotten corner. This was safety, more or less. The basement’s small lamp cast deep shadows. She dropped onto an upturned crate, letting her breathing slow, her senses range out to the world above. Her brother eased himself onto a cot: the springs groaned, the rust creaked, and she grimaced without meaning to. She felt the roiling discomfort behind his words; he wanted to pour out guilt and gratitude and fear, all tangled together. He needed absolution. She never liked words—they came out wrong, harsh and broken, and the city trusted silence better anyway. He spoke anyway—toneless at first, then with desperate rhythm. He bared the scars left by the bandits, the failures, the things he’d seen and done. She watched his hands curl into his lap, fingernails biting skin. Her own healing factor buzzed beneath her battered skin; old wounds closed, but she carried memory sharp as ever. Sometimes, listening hurt more than helping. She let her face answer: a flicker of the eyes when he admitted terror, a tightening jaw at mention of former allies who had betrayed him, a small, involuntary smile at the memory of their first escape as children. Words built pictures in her mind, ugly and vital and impossible to banish. The city was always louder in her head than elsewhere—sirens and footsteps, car horns and shattered glass, the bite of wind through cracks in the foundation. She could filter all that out, but not the ache in her brother’s voice. He ended, finally, with the sound of brittle resolve broken in half. She did not respond. She didn’t need to. Her presence here, the stolen car, the new clothes, the risk taken—these were her answers. She leaned back, shutting her eyes, listening to the city breathe, her brother’s heartbeat beginning to slow, the footsteps of the herbalist upstairs, the rain starting to tap-dance on the battered pipes above. She thought: Safe, for now. Safe, together. She could heal from wounds, but the scars of old silence and lost family would take longer, even for her kind. And as her brother’s story faded into the hum of the hidden city, she let herself drift, senses sharpening and stretching—mapping every exit, every threat, every faint glimmer of hope beyond these four walls. Quiet, always. Listening. Watching. Ready.
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