Footsteps Out Of Place

20250627

Prompt from PrideOnThePage

It looked like a normal concrete underpass. A bit twisty, you had to make five turns while walking through, but that could easily be explained away.
What couldn’t be explained was why, from either end, once you’d made the second turn and the entrance was out of sight, you couldn’t hear anything except your own echoes.
Nor why after the third turn you’d start hearing echoes which might have been yours, and some might even be familiar, but they certainly weren’t caused by anything you were doing right now.
There didn’t seem to be any difference after the fourth turn, but persistent rumours swore if you loitered in that stretch for a while the echoes would begin to make sense. And, if you were lucky, you could figure out when in your life they came from. Which might not even be the past.
Once you made that fifth turn and could see the exit it would all go back to normal.
Most people chose to take the above-ground crossing and simply deal with waiting for lights. Some people walked through the underpass regularly. Generally with headphones on.
George hadn’t been back here since he was sixteen. It’d been after school. He’d spent three hours in the fourth stretch, sitting on his lumpy bag, straining his ears.
Praying for a whisper, a murmur, a hint. Just a snippet of what might come after saying “Mum, dad, I’m gay”.
He’d gotten sore knees, an anxiety tummy ache, and no hints at all. Maybe the rumours were wrong. Maybe he’d done it wrong. Maybe the susurrations warbling back and forth in that tunnel had carried what he craved and he simply hadn’t made it out.
Now, seven years later, here he was again. Turning off his maps app and pocketing his phone. Gazing into that innocuous fluorescent-lit maw.
Anywhere else his worn sneakers were barely audible, but here the sound of his footsteps surrounded him like pigeons flocking to a discarded loaf.
As he took the first turn the sounds of traffic suddenly felt a million miles away.
After the second turn they faded as if someone had flipped off speakers.
He stopped after the third turn to take a slow, deep breath.
Around him bounced countless footsteps. Different tempos. Different sounds. But something about the cadence was… his.
No idea that this would work. In fact, it probably wouldn’t. If it did it would cause one of those paradoxes, right? Still. Just in case.
He started walking again. Slow. Deliberate. With each step murmuring “They won’t get it at first, but they’ll figure it out, and they’ll still love you.”
“They won’t get it at first, but they’ll figure it out, and they’ll still love you.”
“They won’t get it at first, but…”
He counted nine steps to the fourth turn. Eleven to the fifth, as his steps shrank.
At the final turn he paused and looked back. To where there wasn’t a scared sixteen-year-old praying for a sign.
“…You’ll make it.”

Prompt was “Echo”.