Echo Volume 1: Approaching Shatter

Chapter 2

Atriya walked into his apartment, tracking dirt. He was still wearing his ruck.

Various pieces of training equipment were scattered haphazardly throughout the flat, showing different stages of wear. Most of it was old and needed replacing.

His weights sported a solid coat of rust that had started as a light creep but had long since settled into a brown, unattractive layer of armor. His gloves and pads that he used to sharpen striking skills were frayed and uneven; protective stuffing was bursting out of their skin. Small piles of overused gear dotted the apartment and gave the housing unit a stale, stagnant air. It all smelled rank.

Atriya shucked his pack and threw it inattentively on one of the piles. Holy shit, that felt good. Wearing the ruck for extended periods made suffering an inescapable part of the background. It blotted everything with anger and aggression, which then transformed into his natural state.

Only after he was done, after that pervasive weight was off, did he feel relief. During training runs, he always forgot that an unrelenting press of pain and irritation wasn't the universal constant. When the pack dropped, the intensity of his reprieve never failed to surprise him.

Ironically, halfway through each training session, he forgot that he was even carrying it.

Fuck yeah. Time to fuel up, rest, get ready for more training. He marched over to the fridge and opened it, poking around.

The food inside was fruits and vegetables, meat, coarse grains, and some nutrient shakes. It was all basic and unrefined. Flavor wasn't a concern. The stuff didn't taste great, but he'd gotten used to it. Forgot to even notice after awhile.

He rooted through the bottom level, where he kept the fruit. On the same shelf was a mix of steroids and performance-enhancing injectables. He didn't like using them, but he recognized that they were needed in order to do the job.

Almost half the Enforcer Corps was on some kind of hormone enhancement, although being an Enforcer wasn't really strenuous enough to warrant it. By contrast, all members of the Crew were using, and they did need it. They had to juice up, to recover from the horrendous grind their bodies went through.

The vast majority of them went way overboard, obsessively seeking the next generation of strength or endurance enhancements. The cycle of injectables that Atriya used was comparatively mild next to his jacked up teammates. The bulk of them seemed to inhale a never-ending supply of uppers and juice. Crew doctors spent an inordinate amount of time making sure that team members' organs were still functioning. They joked that it had become their unofficial mandate.

He pushed the drugs aside, sorting through a pile of fruit and looking through his options.

As he shuffled through the food, he noticed a container of rotten pomegranates. They were spoiled in a big way. Large, whitish patches of mold almost completely engulfed them. He didn't know how long they'd been there.

Fucking disgusting, he thought, his face wrinkling. He picked the container up, intending to throw it away. As he turned from the fridge with plastic box in hand, his fingers slipped; the package tumbled from his grasp.

The lid was loosened for some reason and flew off in mid-air. Bloated globules of rotted fruit landed with a hideous splat. The flesh had decayed so much that the large berries couldn't hold themselves together; a sickening mess spread all across the kitchen floor. A horrible, nausea-inducing odor exploded outwards from the filthy wreckage, inundating the entire house.

He gagged hard, a maddening flush of heat rising up his neck; it was an instinctive sign of protest from his body. What the hell? He thought he had smelled the worst the world had to offer, but this took the cake. By far. His eyes watered it was so bad. A hand flew up to protect his face as he turned away without thinking. Goddammit.