Rainbow

In Levi's dream the storm raged on. The blinding rain bit into his face until he could barely see the outline of a green cloak in the distance. He'd pulled his hood up but the fabric had become drenched within minutes of the heavy clouds opening over them.

A flash of lightning surged across the sky, illuminating a path through the rain. His horse faltered in the second flicker, reared in the third. He swore and whipped his head around, fighting for control with the reigns. The horse screamed. Then gaping jaws, grotesque bulging eyes, lips stretched into a sickening grin, loomed over him. He swore again and assumed a jumping position, every muscle in his body tensing as adrenalin flooded his veins and he readied his gear. This was normally the part where people prayed but he was too scared to be scared.

Shit, what was he frightened for? Where was he going? Why was it so urgent? The memory hovered like one of the dream clouds, dense and impenetrable in the shadows of his mind. His dream self used the next flash of lightning to aim and then he was flying. He twisted and dived and his blades cut through flesh. Under the murky sky, he could barely see his next move and he flew on instinct alone. With every turn of his blade he danced on the knife edge between life and death, his anger and terror throbbing like a pulse. Exhilaration swept through him, lifting him higher, as he swerved sharply out of the way to avoid a flailing hand. Then his stomach dropped and his throat clenched. Another clean cut. Was that…? It was too dark. He couldn't make out the shape as he passed by. Another boom like thunder as a titan hit the ground. There it was again. On the grass. He launched into a somersault in midair to evade death once more. There. Blood that didn't steam. Lying broken in the mud.

Levi gasped for air like a drowning man. His eyes flew open and he thrashed in the tangle of bed sheets, his heart pounding as he struggled to wrench himself free. Cold sweat trickled through the dirt on his back. Everything was grey. His neck drooped under the pain in his head and his forearms trembled as they struggled to take his weight.

Shit, that dream had been too damn realistic… Panting, he pushed the nightmare to the back of his mind to deal with later. Now that his breathing was beginning to even out, the tiny details of his surroundings flooded his mind, the alien environment pushing his senses into high alert. The walls were white, not yellow-white. The bed sheets smelled like washing powder, not damp. He was alone. Also, he noted with a frown and a sigh, someone had stripped him out of his coat and boots but he was still wearing his shirt and pants. They were stiff as cardboard with mud and fuck knows what else but somehow he was stillsticky.

He pulled himself up with a groan and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Weak morning light was filtering in through a gap in linen blinds and cut a bright beam through the dusty air. Levi ran a hand over the back of his head and his fingers tangled in damp matted hair. He withdrew them in disgust. Then he pushed himself off the edge of the bed and stood.

He couldn't help but brush his fingers against the edge of the wall reassuringly as he padded over to the window. As much as he cringed under the admission, he was still shaken in the aftermath of the dream. He pulled up the blind and flung the window open, leaning on the sill as he looked out. The room he was in was sandwiched in a grey and faceless cluster of other identical tower blocks. A maze of footpaths threaded between the buildings and cut out sterilized patches of grass and squared off hedges. A moat of barbed wire, guarded by security cameras standing like watchful sentries, gave the place a suspiciously military feel to it.

Out beyond that though, high above the stagnant urban prison, it was a beautiful summer dawn. The sky was a fresh flawless blue, speckled with a few lingering stars and tainted only by the amber promise of a sunrise. Dew clung to the cool morning air. Levi inhaled deeply. His lungs filled with a sharp rush of energy and his head cleared a little.

Turning away from the window, he stared over to where his coat hung from a hook on the door. There was no sound from the other side. Even outside, the only noise that filtered in through the open window was the distant hum of the waking city and snatches of fleeting birdsong. He allowed himself a second, just a second, to feel peaceful, untouchable, tasting the difference in the wind away from the polluted slum quarter he'd spent most of his life in.

He sighed, his eyes flickering open, and strode over to the bedroom door. He tested the handle. Unlocked. His boots had been thrown carelessly onto the floor and he slipped into them, bending to tie the laces, and shrugged on his coat. It was still soggy and laden with dirt and made him wish he could crawl out of his own skin. He checked the pockets for his knife. Cold metal. He opened the door.

He edged out onto a small landing. It was deserted and a dusty light bulb swung from the ceiling, causing shadows to rise and fall erratically on the bare plasterboard walls. In front of him it formed a corridor with a closed door on the left and a sharp turn to the right where it spiralled down a set of stairs and out of sight. To his right it curved into an 'L' shape and lead to another, slightly ajar, door.

His boots moved softly on the tastelessly carpeted floor as he crept across the landing. The sound of a voice singing tunelessly followed by the clang of a pan on a stove drifted through the door on his right. He stepped forwards, braced himself, reached out for the handle…and the door swung open in his face.

"Aaah, you're awake!"

His eyes were immediately assaulted by a flurry of offensively bright colours as a firm hand grabbed his shoulder and pulled him forcefully into the kitchen. He knocked it away irritably and was met with a face full of the dreadlocks as the person in front of him spun round and raced to the stove with a cry of 'no, the bacon!'

Levi watched, slightly off balance, as they scraped charred bacon from a frying pan onto a cracked saucer. He wasn't entirely sure if they were a man or woman, features of both genders present in their dress and figure, and decided to go with something neutral. They were hurrying around the cramped sunshine yellow kitchen without any particular grace but their movements were tempered by a strange balanced surety which caught his attention. Although they weren't particularly attractive, their quirkiness, from their bare feet to the felt woven into their hair, complemented the vibrancy of the sharp excitement which flashed behind their crooked glasses and square jaw.

"Do you remember any of last night?" They rambled on. "You probably don't, you did pass out, after all…"

"Where am I and who the fuck are you?" Levi cut in, folding his arms across his chest.

"Hi, I'm Hanji," they announced, wheeling round and presenting a hand to him. "This is where I live. I picked you up last night because I was worried you were going to drown in your own vomit."

"Nice."

Levi glared at the bacon grease on their fingers until they retracted their hand, completely unperturbed, and bounced back over to the worktop.

"Breakfast?" They asked, holding a plate in the air.

Levi groaned internally as his hangover called out for shitty food.

"I'm covered in mud, turd-brain." He bit back. His damp collar was really beginning to bother him now.

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Hang on, I'll chuck this in the oven, should keep it fairly warm. Alright you shower and I'll lend you some clothes. Then food."

Levi winced at Hanji's grin. Walls, he was rude as fuck, does nothing faze them?

"Um… no offence, shitty glasses, but are those clothes going to be men's or women's?" He asked a little awkwardly, feeling a rare prod from his conscience at it gently reminded him that he was a dick.

Hanji sighed and held the door open for him.

"You people and your genders. Some I buy from the men's, some from the women's. I'm neither. Or maybe both. I prefer just: person."

Levi nodded and stepped through, deciding he didn't really care what gender identity they chose, they were still a nutter. He frowned and wondered tentatively about whatever multicoloured monstrosity Hanji was going to produce.

"Okay, whatever, I don't give a fuck. You're a 'they' then? Just don't dress me in something shitty…or yellow," he asked and Hanji grinned.

"Yep. And also no. I wouldn't bring you something abnormal!"

"I'm not sure you even know what abnormal is," Levi shot back, only half serious. When he said it though, something rippled across Hanji's expression and they ducked behind the door that presumably lead to their bedroom. Levi's eyes narrowed and he pressed his lips together.

After a moment of rustling, a few muttered curses and a soft thump which Levi suspected was a stubbed toe, there was a bang and a triumphant cry. He nudged open the door and looked through the gap to see Hanji throwing numerous items of (completely unacceptable) clothing back into a wooden chest and lifting up a deep blue shirt and black jeans. They held the shirt up to their chest for size and cocked their head to one side, holding up their hand as though measuring it to about his height. The corner of his mouth turned upwards almost imperceptibly and he flattened his back against the wall.

"Here," they announced, striding back through the door. "Are these acceptably boring for you?"

Levi took the clothes which were thrust into his arms and lifted them up to the light. They were almost exactly what he would have chosen.

"They'll do," he said and paused, struggling over the words. "Thank you."

Levi groaned and cursed, fiddling with the temperature of the shower. The dial was marked with a range of numbers and arrows and shit but he could only get three settings out of it at a push: deep friend lobster, dick icicle, or (the worst) a weird mixture of both. At last he managed to find a temperature which fell just outside of acceptable and he stepped under the spray, dirt swirling around the shower basin.

As the remainder of his hangover followed the mud down the drain, he let his mind drift back over the events of the morning and he frowned. He knew, theoretically, that nice people existed, but no fucker in their right mind would bring an unconscious stranger back to their flat for no fucking reason. That left two possibilities: Hanji truly was batshit crazy or they had an ulterior motive.

A single phrase kept spiralling round and round in his mind. 'This is where I live". Not 'this is my home' or 'you're in the south east district'… and the barbed wire… the cameras. Not flashy enough for rich slavers. It could just be a gated community but something just felt wrong. For all of Hanji's eccentricities, something about them, maybe just a warning from his own instincts, spoke of a deep intelligence. They wouldn't bring a stranger back unless they knew they could defend themself and…and… fuck, he couldn't think. There was something else, a thought, a concept, that lay just out of his grasp but close enough for him to sense that it existed. There was a logic behind this. He'd been seen, brought in, given clothes to keep him here longer, delay his leaving…for…for…

He shut off the shower, stepped out, and began to dry off. He felt cleaner than he'd ever done in his life before. His skin was slightly raw where he'd scrubbed at it to fight away the phantom crawling sensation of the dirt on the skin. He shivered slightly. The desire to be clean was like an itch he could never scratch, constantly whispering away at the back of his mind…

He froze. Just faintly, under the whir of fan and the hiss of the water tank refilling, he could hear the murmur of voices. He crouched down slowly and slipped on the borrowed jeans and shirt as quickly as he could, barely breathing with the effort to stay quiet. Suddenly he was acutely aware of the buzz of the light flickering overhead, the drip of the sink, the crack of light under the bathroom door, and pressed the side of his head against door, listening.

"…said she heard…last night…voices…this morning. If this…have to report…last warning."

The low tones were definitely belonged to a man but he couldn't make out much of what was being said.

"Look I've not done anything wrong, sir." Hanji's voice cut like a knife. Levi clenched his hand on the doorframe, his knuckles white. "You know I wouldn't compromise the security…"

"I don't…you get this sorted…I don't want to be tangled up…or any more of you petty catfights, woman."

Levi flinched. There was a rustling of paper and a couple more sharp remarks and then a bang as a door slammed. Levi was left standing there, the fan still rattling overhead, the world he'd woken up in suddenly more dangerous than the one he'd left behind only hours before.

He breathed deeply, trying to calm his pounding heart, his fingers grazing uselessly against the doorframe and catching on splinters. Water trickled from his hair, down his bowed forehead and dropped with a rhythmic tapping onto the tiled floor. Then he bore up his resolve with a hardened perseverance and opened the door with a fire in his eyes and a demand on his lips.

"What the fuck is going on?"