The city’s power grid collapsed in 2047, leaving
only the old gas lamps flickering in the ruins.
The last functioning pub, The Long Hall, sits on
the edge of a derelict estate where the walls
still hum with the ghosts of precrash life.
The landlord, Seán, tends to a regular crowd of
scavengers, former engineers, and exiles who
trade stories over pints of murky ale. He keeps
his head down, avoids questions about his past,
and refuses to let anyone stay long.
A woman arrives in winter, wrapped in a woolen
shawl and carrying a satchel of old newspapers.
She calls herself Eibhlin, but no one knows her
real name. She asks for a room, then begins
copying pages from the pub’s archives—old maps,
land deeds, and newspaper clippings about the
1916 Rising.
Seán watches her, wary. She speaks in a way that
lingers, as if each word is a secret. She leaves
behind a single page: a sketch of a girl in a
green dress, standing at the edge of a field,
her face blurred.
The pub’s boiler fails. Seán must leave the
building to find fuel, but the streets are
crawling with rogue drones and feral animals. He
returns to find Eibhlin gone, but the archive
room ransacked. A single line remains scrawled
on the wall in charcoal: “They’re not dead.
They’re waiting.”
A week later, a man from the east side comes to
the pub, demanding to see Seán. He says he’s a
historian, but his eyes are too sharp. He shows
Seán a photo of a boy in a school uniform, taken
in 1983. The boy’s face is identical to the one
in Eibhlin’s sketch.
Seán refuses to speak. The man leaves, but the
next night, the pub’s back door is forced open.
A group of men in dark coats drag Eibhlin out
into the street. She doesn’t scream. She just
looks at Seán, then at the sky.
He steps forward. The leader raises a knife, but
Seán grabs it. A fight breaks out. When it ends,
the men are gone, and Eibhlin is unconscious.
Seán carries her to the cellar, where the old
pipes still run. He finds a hidden room behind a
rusted valve, filled with books and journals
written in a hand he recognizes.
The rules bite here: no one enters the cellar
without permission. No one talks about the war.
No one keeps old papers.
Eibhlin wakes. She says she’s been looking for
him. She shows him a photograph of a man with
the same scar on his cheek. Seán doesn’t
remember the man, but the scar is fresh.
They don’t speak. They don’t need to.
At dawn, the pub’s lights flicker. The power
returns. The city stirs.
Seán leaves Eibhlin in the cellar. He walks out
into the light, past the broken statues and the
silent streets, and disappears into the fog.
