One of those evenings, I was on my way home. I was walking through the labyrinth. In the whirl of my anxious thoughts, something resounded. Steps. I would clock out from work pretty late and usually there was not a living soul around.

  I turned around. I scanned every single inch with my gaze. There was no one. Sometimes the Towers Complex was deceptive. Sounds would reverberate and reach you even if not very close. Almost as if the complex, itself, was speaking.

  And yet.

  That time it seemed different, the steps sounded really near. I sped up my pace. But I could still hear them thundering in my head. So, in a panic, I decided to change course. I wouldn’t have taken the usual path, which required more concentration on my part. Following the everyday movements and turns was easy and it didn’t require any effort, since they had been imprinted in my brain by then. But to divert and put someone or something off the scent…

  Maybe I didn’t have the energy to do that. I tried to think quickly. Anxiety was blocking me and it was clouding my mind like a few glasses of Merlot. Turn. Run down. Turn. Turn again. Run down another flight of stairs.

  With immense relief I found myself out of the district and I couldn’t hear noises anymore. However, I felt I couldn’t let down my guard, therefore I tried not to follow a straight path while heading home. I lengthened the road, zigzagged, stopped by a bar, made a detour to buy dinner, and finally arrived home.

  I usually didn’t have the energy to do much after work. My hobbies, my passions. Each time I tried to carry them on, I would collapse. I would fall asleep. I couldn’t even stand television anymore with the same programs, the same old talentless hosts, the same speeches, the same statements. The puppet audience: amazed every time. And the newscast, the scoops of some celebrity or some royal family nobody cared about, crime news. I had started to distance myself from what was happening outside my horizon. I couldn’t carry even that weight on my shoulders. Now and then news would reach me anyway, they would manage to find a way in when I was going past kiosks or they would peek out when the supermarket cashier was chatting with her colleague.

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  That evening I ate quickly and I fell asleep with my earphones on. ‘All we ever wanted was everything’ woke me up around 3 am, and as I removed my earphones, I realized… The song’s obscure notes hadn’t been the reason I woke up. I had perceived something else that, from the dream realm, had brought me back to Earth.

  I had heard the alarm. The alarm of dark places.

  I had heard about it not long before. At work. Two colleagues, during a coffee break, were whispering.

  “Did you hear it too?”

  “Of course, I did!”

  “What is the purpose of that alarm?”

  “It appears that they had it installed for our safety. There are places, corners, in the Icarus Complex which are dark. Sometimes people use these hidden places to do… shady things. Or homeless people camp there, at night, not to be disturbed or sent away. In addition, those places are less exposed to the wind and more sheltered.”

  “So the alarm should serve as a deterrent?”

  “Exactly, it goes off from 8.30 pm because they know some workers get off late and they don’t want it to get triggered by mistake. It’s rather annoying.”

  “Why don’t they hire more security guards instead? Don’t they have the money?”

  “Oh, they do have the money, but they rather spend it elsewhere. Check that out…”

  “A new parking lot?”

  “Yeah, apparently the boss didn’t have enough space for his Jaguar.”

  I curled up in the bed, quivering. It was an atrocious sound. Horrible.

  What is happening in the shadows of the Icarus Complex?

  Is a street person looking for shelter from the bitter cold?

  Is it some drug dealer? Or… worse?

  Who is hiding in the shadows and doesn’t fear the alarm?

  Maybe I didn’t want to know. Or maybe knowing might have been better. My mind kept playing back horrible images, aberrant crimes committed under Icarus’s protecting wing.

  At around 5.30 am I managed to go back to sleep. With only 2 hours of sleep in the body, a miserable working day laid ahead.