This story was created for Scoot’s ‘Flash Fiction Friday’ event. It’s a fun way to worldbuild and expand this vast fiction landscape. This is the 500 words or less ‘North Star’ challenge.
Grindlewick Brasseye had washed his hands three times before leaving the lower lifts.
That was the mistake.
In the soot districts, grime was a badge. Proof you worked where the city breathed and burned. Proof you mattered.
But up here… up here the stone gleamed like it had never known a hammer.
Grindlewick hauled the small iron compressor cart himself. He could’ve waited for a lift team, but he wanted to arrive early. He wanted to be seen as dependable. Useful. Worthy.
The upper district smelled wrong.
Clean. No oil tang. No hot metal.
Just polished stone and perfumed steam vents shaped like flowers.
A gnome in a white coat glanced at him, then immediately looked away.
Another stepped aside, not to help, but to avoid brushing sleeves.
Grindlewick stopped at the intake desk. “Delivery for Infrastructure. Lower District fabrication. Sector Twenty Four.”
The clerk wrinkled her nose. “You’re dripping.”
Grindlewick looked down. A thin line of dark water trailed from his boot.
Soot residue, diluted.
Harmless.
“I cleaned,” he said quickly. “Best I could.”
She sighed. “That’s not what I meant.”
She waved him toward the wall.
Not the counter.
The wall.
“You’ll wait there.”
He waited.
Minutes passed.
Then longer.
Gnomes walked by without looking at him. Conversations flowed around him like he was a post, not a person. His cart sat untouched.
Finally, a supervisor arrived. Tall. Immaculate. Hands never calloused.
“This unit is late,” the supervisor said.
Grindlewick swallowed. “I came as fast as—”
“You people always do,” the supervisor interrupted. “But this area has standards.”
Grindlewick’s ears burned. “Sir… the compressors you use up here… we build those. The vents. The lifts. The boilers. None of this works without—”
The supervisor raised a finger.
Not angrily.
Casually.
“You’re not from here,” he said.
The words landed flat.
Final.
Grindlewick nodded once.
That was the truth. He was from below.
From the heat. From the noise.
From the work that kept the city alive.
He turned his cart around without another word.
As he headed back toward the lifts, he noticed something he hadn’t before.
The polished stone floors were cracked.
Hairline fractures.
Everywhere.
Hidden under the shine.
