Wraiths at the Window

This is a flash fiction in response to a challenge from mindlovemisery’s menagerie.

Idonny is the protagonist in a novel I’m working on. I can’t quite tell yet if it’s going to be #clifi, dystopian YA, or solarpunk. <grin>

Idonny slumped on her sofa and gazed at the rain pouring down the window. Algae, green and black, encrusted the bottom of the frame. It crept up higher every month. Soon it would obscure her view to the outside. Not that there was much to see, just concrete, the side of the neighboring tower block. The windows over there looked filthy too. No-one bothered to clean them anymore. The maintenance ‘bots had broken and no-one knew how to fix them.

She heaved a sigh and tore open a bag of crunchy veggie snacks. No actual vegetables had been harmed in the production of said veggie snacks and there was no actual flavor beyond salt, Reggie had liked them and she’d stocked up for him. He was dead now, killed during the almost constant fighting between the block gangs.

Idonny squinted at the window. The algal blooms in the corner of the window looked a little like Reggie’s face.

“Funny, never noticed that before.”

She lumbered to her feet and shuffled across the un-wood floor. The algae definitely looked like his face. Then she noticed another face. Her dad. She bit her lip. He was dead too, gone in a flood that also took her mother. And there was Mum’s face, smiling as always. Idonny had never had a photo of her parents. Maybe it was a good thing that the maintenance ‘bots had stopped cleaning the windows.