Darklight: The New World

BOOK 3 - CHRONOLOGY Part 1: The Crater

She was walking through the streets of the megacity, the city which never slept. She’d heard it was viewable from space and was home to the highest and most wealthy of aristocrats, as well as being a haven of anonymity for the most notorious of criminals and murderers. It was safe to say that Utopia City was certainly a different place now to where it was six months ago. The terrorist explosion had claimed thousands of lives and the war effort against the Skry was stepped up into full gear-National Service was brought into effect for the young Utopian men and there were always at least three Lordships patrolling the skies above the city. Soldiers were on virtually every street corner and the civilians of the city were often seen buying weapons or private security. High Matriarch Rammachandra seemed to be able to keep the population calm somehow, her voice was soothing and took the edge out of every day life. Since her disappearance the new High Matriarch was more concerned with defeating the Skry than running the country. She was called Natasha Renton, but that’s all that was really known.

She wasn’t too fussed by politics, she wasn’t exactly the most patriotic citizen of Utopia- she was more interested in the human impact of world events. It was getting late and she was walking along the edge of the crevice created by the explosion, the explosion which blasted a hole in the ground. There were many rumors about what laid under the city-most people assumed Utopia was built on solid ground, but the explosion had proved them wrong. The military were quick to create an exclusion zone around the epicenter, some story of radiation, but a handful of survivors had witnessed the hole and caught a glimpse of the strange ruins that lay beneath their feet. She had been on a commuter rail transport which was close enough to the explosion to be derailed, but far enough away not to have been obliterated. As she climbed through the dead bodies and the ruins of the carriage she had a view of the crater-the strange city illuminated by the raging fires all around her. A forgotten world of ruined stone-like buildings of unusual architecture. Since that day she had vowed to find out more.

She’d cut through the fence around the crater, the soldiers patrolling the crater had become more relaxed since hardly anyone dared go near the place thanks to their spin story. She passed under the warning tape and walked past the plastic barriers warning of a deep drop and of radiation poisoning and began to climb down the scaffolding that had been strapped to the sides of the crater in an effort to rebuild the hole in the skin of Utopia City. Her black skin-tight leggins and sweatshirt ensured that she was difficult to see against the blackness of the night and her face was obscured by the back balaclava she wore-she could be a burglar in a children's cartoon if she’d wanted!

She descended around six flights of stairs on the scaffolding system which was suspended in the crater, taking off her balaclava now that she was far enough down not to be seen. Labour laws meant that no one in Utopia could work on a construction site after 2100 UCT-lucky for her. Her platinum blonde hair fell just above her shoulders and stood out starkly against her black attire. Her bright green eyes adjusted to the fading summer light as she looked over the edge of the scaffolding into the world below. It was too dark, she had to get closer. Ladders were strapped to the side of the crevice and she descended past the limit of the scaffolding system, ignoring the typical ‘health and safety’ signs about harness systems. She was descending into the darkness, it was pitch black and the air turned sweet and stale. She could have sworn that she could smell a musty perfume and sense the presence of someone nearby. She was drawn down further by the curious feeling, like she was being pulled down by some kind of irresistible force. She knew that she was looking for something but she didn’t know what. She reached the bottom of the ladder, below her was nothingness-pure black. Suddenly she saw it, glinting in the dim light left coming from above. It was a slither of a dark blue metal. She had to get it, but it was a good distance stuck into the wrecked and charred side of the metallic plate on which the city was built on. She tried reaching but was still too far away to even touch the mysterious object. She heard a voice whispering in her head.

“Take it. You need to take it. You must have it”. Nothing else mattered now, just getting the object. She moved to the edge of the ladder, wrapping herself around it with one arm and reaching out with the other. She could feel the cold of the metal on her hand but couldn’t quite get it. She took one foot off the ladder and wedged it between two charred pieces of metal in the side of the crevice, grabbing another outcropping with her right hand and pulling herself off the ladder completely. The ruined metal was loose but just about held her weight. It was there. She just had to reach a little further... The metal beneath her right foot gave way as she grabbed it. It was cold in her right hand and it slipped out of the charred metal as her body began to slip.

As Carmen Bolias fell into the abyss of the Undercity she didn’t scream, she only listened to the manic laughter in her head and held onto the Darklight Sai, which she had just pulled out of the ruined Continental Plate, with all her might.