Fiction: The Fall, a short story

The Fall

A short story, by Erik Engström, 2025-12-26

A light smog covered the top of the buildings as the red morning sun shone through the ghostlike mist. The rays barely reflected off of the grey concrete monoliths rising up from the urban jungle

From one of the buildings a long line of people stood waiting for something, trailing across the otherwise empty street like a slithering snake.

His hand clutched a small device, not much bigger than a vintage USB-drive. It was his authentication device that would grant him the daily rations of oxygen and water. He had fetched his monthly licence for seven hours of ad free sleep earlier that day from the ministry of dreams.

Behind him he could still hear the hushed but audibly concerned voices of people talking about how their productivity credits were running low. How things used to be different. How people had started going missing.

He himself glanced at his port-a-thenicator to see his balance, it would barely cover the caloric purchase later.

A robotic voice spoke up from the panel located on the wall as he finally got to the front of the line. He scanned his device and the voice spoke. “Greetings, Bastian Mynscel. In the delivery compartment to your right your oxygen and water is available for pickup by the grace of the Council. 17 productivity credits have been withdrawn”.

He picked up his goods and as he was leaving he could hear the next person in line being declined due to insufficient funds. A scuffle broke out as a nearby guardbot attempted to arrest the citizen. He had seen this before and was sure the rumors of disappearances had something to do with it. Hardship and cybernetic implants had made his senses dulled, cold to what was happening at the supply shop. He was already on his way to the protein factory to make his purchase and he was running late.

He counted the blocks he was passing as he was walking along the street, it was easier to count the buildings than trying to recognize them as individual buildings as they were essentially looking the same. After a couple of blocks he arrived at the factory, where chimneys worked tirelessly to contribute to the unnatural clouds covering the top floors of the neighboring office buildings.

The line of waiting people was shorter than ever before and he joined the end of it. A scrawny man stood by the side, twitching slightly and he spoke with a slurred voice. “Do you never ask why the line keeps growing shorter for every day? They say that the workers that no longer are productive goes here. To feed the other workers.”

Bastian had already looked away, and his initial reaction was to ignore the man and consider him a fool.

But there was something about these words that gnawed at the back of his mind. Sometimes truth only needs to be spoken once. It made sense. The one thing they never ran out of in the city was meat. This was indeed where the Council would send the least productive workers.

In the old days this would cause an outrage. But greed changes a system, hunger changes a person and desperation triumphs over morals.