━━Calamity¹

one.

chapter one
story of a man

Around these parts they called him Lieutenant.

But his true name was unknown, his past a veil of darkness, his entire identity shrouded in mystery, for all many knew of him was that he presented as Lieutenat, a figure draped in black, and the work he did for the Crusaders groupation.

Lieutenant flicked brown blood off his long sword onto the patch of rock nearby, and sidestepping a monster he had just felled, sheathed the blade with a soundly clang. He slid through the gap in the huge metal door ahead and stepped into the darkness as a scent of burning plastic and damp earth invaded his senses.

He walked to the edge of the metal platform hedged by the massive walls on each side, surveying the cameras that zeroed in on him through the darkness. They were active, those cameras, but played a prerecorded video file meant to distract the guards from the danger of his arrival. Finally, at the end of the platform stood an emptiness - long and dark shade leading downward into the settlement - and at its end an elevator that could take him there.

But taking an elevator would alert everyone to his presence, so Lieutenant grasped onto the wires holding the elevator to begin his descent. The air grew staler and warmer as he descended, the stench of wet dirt spreading through the silence.

Finally, he dropped onto the surface of the elevator and opened a shaft, clambering down into the metal box scarcely lit by little lights and flashing signs of two arrows, red for down and green for up. There a masked figure waited, holding onto the door, and Lieutenant nodded to them as he stepped through the gap, walking past a group of individuals all masked in black.

A long hallway spread in front of him, barred and shielded by walls and checkpoints for health examination, and Lieutenant looked back toward the group, one member rising two fingers to tell him how much time he had before the cameras would come alive again. He nodded and hurried down the white hall on whose walls nothing else rested but long blue arrows describing which way to go, as if that wasn't obvious, thought Lieutenant.

Once he finally reached its end, he found a massive grey sliding door and produced a card from his pocket. He slid it through the scanner on the right, the device flashing a green code on its screen as Lieutenant ran past the door and into the settlement known as Dawn Zero.

A massive city spread in front of him - roads sneaking through the grey streets of colourful houses and apartment buildings built to resamble the world of the past, tiled red roofs and blue, yellow and white of the walls. Streetlights glimmered on the dusty windows, fences were hedged with greenery and the cement of the street reflected the lights across the shelter.

Lieutenant hurried through the winding passages, avoiding patrol guards flashing their lights in the darkness, and ran past the main square shrouded in plain blue and grey, surrounded by office buildings and shops. In its middle a dried up fountain rested and there a guard robot patrolled the perimeter of the square.

Sighing, Lieutenant took a sudden right into a narrow street and ran past a restuarant whose neon lights flashed blue and red before he broke onto a wider street and snuck along the shadows toward a towering construction in the distance, right behind the main square he was forced to abandon.

He evaded the patrol sights and entered the shadow of a reddish building with blue roof upon whose walls countless golden leaf and flower designs were drawn. All the doors and windows were hedged in dark blue with golden doorknobs and curtains.

He looked ahead, a balcony sprouting from the left side of the house, and lifted himself onto the roof of a nearby house before jumping ahead and using the window ledges to hoist himself onward. Finally, he reached the balcony and slipped into a scarcely lit room behind those golden curtains, instantly welcomed by the scent of jasmine and lillies, and richness such as was rarely seen outside.

A massive golden mirror hung on the left wall, in front of it a blue couch whose edges were painted gold and a coffee table of mohagony upon a reddish carpet. On the distant wall a few portraits hung and beneath them an evergreen plant with rosy flowers.

"Well, then, have you decided?" A voice drew Lieutenant's gaze toward the couch's edge, where a woman dressed in a sequinned red cocktail dress sat with her legs on a fluffy blue ottoman. Pearls, memories of old world, hung on her neck, ears and wrist. She sipped champagne with a smile never leaving her face.

"We want no part it in." Lieuetenant answered, sliding into the shadow of the wall to stay away from the balcony. "You're playing with fire."

The woman snorted. "I like fire." She looked at him, her green gaze settling on his masked features.

"Why, Diana? Why the uprising? Why the stories? Outside world is no freer than your settlements."

"That's where you're wrong."

"Wrong? You're rich, you sit in your home, drink champagne, eat pastries and you want to change that?!"

"I'm rich because I submit to the rule. The poor have no other choice. I have no other choice. Dawn Zero is a dictatorship. And I want out." She finished her champagne and stood, leaving the glass on the table as she tiptoed toward Lieutenant, head to the side as if attempting to decipher who hid beneath the mask. "Don't you see it? Even talking to you is dangerous. What if someone sees me? Or you? I'll be dead and you'll be...well tortured and killed."

Lieutenant sighed. He checked his watch, hour and a half left, and concluded he had enough time to leave before the cameras turned on again. He looked at Diana. "Fine. Tell me what to do."

"How fast can you reach other settlements?"

"Depends. Might take years to get to all of them."

"The closest then? Haven One and Haven Two."

"Give me half a year."

"Here. Payment for our deal." She unclasped her bracelet and dangled it in front of him, pulling it away as Lieutenant reached for it. "Don't sell it just yet though."

Lieutenant nodded, pocketed the bracelet and giving one last glance to Diana, hurried out of the room the same way he had taken on his way in. Through the city of Dawn Zero, past the patrols and the blaring cameras, robots that hunted his every step, Liuetenant returned to the group outside of the barred passage.

As he approached, the group slowly gathered around him, following him toward the elevator. "What's the deal?" One of the members asked, stopping Lieutenant with a hand on his shoulder.

Lieutenant gave each member a separate glance. "We're heading to Haven One."

---

a/n:

i know i write a lot of characters who sound like they don't have a goddamn name, but all i can say is that this isn't for nothing.

anyway, nothing makes sense now but i promise it will as this story starts progressing.

till next time, thanks for reading!!