Like A Fairytale

Chapter 4

Samuel

The gears that moved the elevator squeaked devastatingly. They urgently needed to be oiled. The deeper the iron cage got, the mustier it smelled. When Samuel arrived at his destination, the usual chaos of the pitiful lower class awaited him.

Many of the inhabitants of Level 3 wore old rags, from which they made new clothes and decorated them with rusty chains and other garbage. He saw many mutations. A man without a nose, a child with ears almost on her chin, an old woman with four arms. Two of the arms were small and crippled. Only a few of the residents looked 'normal'.

He spotted a pretty girl, maybe 17 years old, and smiled. Would this girl take part in the beauty contest? The girl was looking at one of the flickering posters advertising it.

Level 3 was a single garbage dump.

It smelled unpleasant. Even though the narrow streets were kept as clean as possible, the smell of the actual garbage dump and waste incineration plant flowed into your nostrils.

The buildings here were often made of sheet metal and looked extremely crooked and in danger of collapsing. Light bulbs lit up the streets with faint yellow light. There was little holographic advertising, but all the more posters. Some of these posters advertised milk powder or bath additives. Things that hardly existed in the city. The colors had faded. Pure decoration. Old fairy lights hung on some houses, some only flickered. In the windows, colorful shards of glass glittered as decoration. They showed burn marks.

"Minnie?"

"Yes?" The hologram looked at him bored.

"Is there currently any unrest near the store?" Samuel didn't feel like having to work spontaneously on his day off. "Robberies? Theft?"

"Negative."

"Good." Relieved, he walked along the streets and alleys. Here, too, the false sky showed rain clouds, but the image flickered and glitched. There were no rain sounds or anything like that. Here you could hear very loudly the machine works of Burgstadt with all its steam engines and gears. This was accompanied by the droning music of a gramophone, in front of which an elderly gentleman was sitting. A couple danced to the music on crooked legs.

Somewhere an old record player played orchestral music of bygone times. The music mixed with that of the gramophone. It smelled of alcohol and the sweet scent of the popular drug 'sunshine'. An ingestible powder made from old rubber and one of the many mutated plants. Illegal but tempting for many who needed a little more sunshine in their lives.

Samuel had heard that the drug made you see everything in a wondrous, happy light. Consumers walked through the streets with ecstatic faces. They seemed dazed and swayed. When they spoke, it was only confused and weird stuff. The drug was immediately addictive and quickly led to death. They didn't want anything else. Only the drug.

And it robbed its ecstatic victims of sleep.

Just a week ago, Samuel and his comrades had stormed a prohibited drug laboratory. But now he saw some people wandering dazed through the streets again. Among them were young children. Sighing, he shook his head. No one could help these people anymore. Either they starved and died of thirst, or they died of organ failure. Soon.

Something meowed. Surprised, Samuel looked around. Next to his feet sat a holographic cat purring. The projection flickered. Smiling, he knelt down to the animal. "Hello, you!"

"That's Miezie!" A little girl with six eyes looked out of one of the many windows. She carried a laser pointer in her hand, which made the cat appear. The device was outdated, the metal tarnished and rusty. Maybe the little one had found it in the trash? The children often searched the city's garbage dump for treasures before all of it was melted down. A dangerous game, as they had to climb into the garbage pit for it.