The Sunken Rim

World  ·  Aika  ·  Dec 4, 2025

Fifty years under, and the city still keeps its shape:
towers, cooling towers, pipework folded into a maze the water has learned by heart.
Lamplight catches on metal and slides away again,
and the shadows never quite settle.

At the center there is a hole the sonar won't answer.
Thin lines of light drift in and out of it, unhurried,
passing through walls as though walls were only a rumor.
Down here, even sound arrives a little late, and no one minds.

Rui keeps her own tide in the dark,
a half-step behind the world, and the deep doesn't seem to mind.