They Who Slaughtered Hope 🌈| Slow Updates/Editing

Chapter 22

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𝙻𝚎𝚗𝚗𝚘𝚡

┗━━━༻✿༺━━━┛

𝘕𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 18𝘵𝘩, 𝘍𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘺

Lennox trailed after the elderly guide through the dark and narrow alleys of the Warehouse District. He clutched his beige trench coat around him as the frigid wind whipped past his face and slid through the metal pipes suspended above his head.

The most he had heard of this part of the city was in Chase's stories. The florist had never been there personally. He felt a combination of curiosity and fear rise as he passed by the graffiti-covered walls, the rusted doors and ventilation, and the smothering piles of trash and debris.

He was curious about the people who inhabited this place, and what they wanted from him. The note had referred to a certain Sarlyn... the name seemed familiar, but he had no idea why.

His escort, aided by metallic joints, halted in front of a large dumpster and, shielding himself from the florist's view, tapped a code on a hidden keypad. The dumpster lid flipped open, revealing a slide-like tube that disappeared into the ground. Lennox's cyborg guide, after gesturing for Lennox to follow him, leapt—seemingly like a rabbit—into the hole. He chuckled as his form faded away into the abyss.

The florist, reluctant, took a deep breath and followed suit.

On the way down, flickering neon lights offered a dim light. As he reached the end, where the tunnel opened up to the outside, Lennox could hear the hum of machinery and the chatter of amicable voices. When the slide ended its course, he was led through a series of twists and turns, until the pair reached an arch crafted of copper pipage.

His escort stopped. "This is where I leave you, like-minded friend."

Before Lennox had a chance to reply, the other residents of the Warehouse District spilt out of the alleys, streets, and balconies. At first, it was the scrap flowers as well as the miscellaneous gifts that caught his attention, but then it was the people themselves.

Lennox was halfway through a gasp before he shoved it down.

There were dozens of them, of all shapes, sizes, and extremities. Some of them, like the guide, had metal limbs, eyes, and the like. Others had the occasional scale, fur, or feather. A few on the far end of the spectrum had a horn or two, and Lennox spotted some with tails or animalistic appendages. They were the gathering of the cyborg rejects from the Crimson Syndicate and the victims of bioengineering experiments from the Verita Aser.

There was a smattering of non-modified individuals as well, those with disdain and hatred towards the war and those spearheading it. All at once, they were the outcasts, the rebels, the misfits.

They were the Fringe.

Lennox experienced a conflicting mix of awe, pity, and, to his eternal disgust, fear. His gaze met the group's. They stared back at him, with their own combination of suspicion, curiosity, and blind acceptance.

He felt ashamed of his fear, even though it lasted only seconds. Most of them were children. They had been nothing but kind to him, but all he could do in return was gasp.

The florist knelt on one knee, and a child rushed up to him. A young girl with the ears and fur—patchy, but there nonetheless—of a fox handed him a flower, painstakingly made with bits of bent plastic and trash with a silver stem.