*HIATUS*Relapse

Relapse

Larradon, Mayurr district.

It was the most ironic death of the week.

**

Metalware clinked against each other and wooden boards.

Xander was restless. He had told himself that he had grown sick and tired of watching people engage in some sort of morally gray conflict, which served as his usual form of entertainment. But now he was sitting behind the kitchen counter watching his mum busy herself with handy work and realized that he was, in fact, not morally upright enough to combat his boredom. He sprung up, making his way to the door.

"Where to, Xander?"

Frail hands tried to unclog the rusted drain pipes under the kitchen sink. Xander's mother seemed dainty and meek but she had had enough time to be experienced with all the housework meant to be left to her husband who had stepped out for milk fifteen years ago.

"Stepping out for some fresh air," he replied. He brushed past the marble countertop and his mother, who was on her back, her body sandwiched between the wooden walls of the cream cupboards, in which she lay, busily rearranging the metal pipes.

"Try to stay out of trouble," her humble, feathery voice called out to him as he stood in the doorway, echoed and muffled by the plywood.

"I'll be back soon."

The red-haired boy shut the wooden door behind him as he stepped into broad daylight. His small house stood proudly behind his thin body. The mini terrace that stretched out onto the pitiful lichen lawn drew out the only sense of luxury from the aura of poverty that stuffed his home and poured out even through the front doors, snaking through the metal railings that besieged either side of the pathway. The teeth of the baked and bleached velvet ceramic-slated roof cast a shadow that spilled softly onto his face.

His freckles glistened like rhinestones in the flattering sun, his curls ran loose in the wind and he strolled phlegmatically along the streets, shrugging his feet against the pavement.

Other than the few splashes of greenery that had been littered randomly along some of the intersections as not to entirely submerge the world in skies of dawning gray, the streets held a glum and unenthusiastic vibe; within the overhead poleless traffic light that was suspended in the air, the neon red, yellow and green beaconing through the gloominess of the morning, within the magnetic rails that overlapped the smooth roads, the bullet train flying past, intriguingly suspended above the sleek tracks, and beneath the cyber futuristic sounds that hollowed through the streets- sounds which were contrary to the not-so-futuristic world which he inhabited.

The world around him, however, begged to differ.

Hands in pockets, chin down to avoid any head-on conflict, he paced down the streets in search of a cure for his unrelenting boredom. He stopped and looked up. The building he had stumbled across was massive.

It was a run-down apartment complex he had found himself frequenting. The hue figure was backed into a mischievous corner of town. The setting was a stage for entertainment. Just what he needed. Women dangled from their balconies as though entranced by the lust for excitement. Men sat smoking at one of the staircases, laughing wildly on booze and chatting like ravaging beasts, audibly loud. His imagination ran wild at the thought of what events could kill his boredom today as he advanced toward the staircase.

He found himself almost tripping over some random debris littered across the stairs. Expensive debris, specifically. Though the white paint on the walls was browning, the broken pieces of the hologram projector on the floor told him that this apartment building once housed rich people.