FUNCTION DISORDER :: VOLUME ONE

7

This is the outside world. I'm finally fucking free. For once. If only Usko could see me right this very moment.

It was colourful, chaotic, busy. Even here on the outskirts, the lights stretched out to either side of himself, blazing yellow-white, glinting off the icy raindrops. The white Second Order main road continued for a while longer past the Second Gate somewhere off to his right, but the other streets were paved in black. Indeed, the Pale Bastion's mono-white became rare, replaced by attention-grabbing colours, and its precise geometry gave way to organic, pragmatic design.

A messy band of nature clung to the outside of the Wall, of short twisted eucalypts rising above messy tall grass. A thin black street ran parallel to the wall. On the other side: civilisation, activity, life. People of the Lower City walking briskly in both directions, far more varied in appearance than the people of the Pale Bastion, to their own purposes. Numerous businesses had set up, packed close to the Second Gate, storefronts glowing happily.

He crossed the street, where it was brightly lit and an awning partially sheltered him. Looking around himself awkwardly, he turned to the left and proceeded down the street, hood clinging to his head. I don't stand out here. I like that. He stretched his neck to look at the top of the Wall somewhere to his left. He couldn't make out the shapes of any black-robes atop. The world must look wild from up there haha.

He had planned with Rain that this would be the best route. Firstly, nobody would expect him to cross to the opposite side of the Pale Bastion to make his escape, so this wouldn't be the first place they'd look. Have they started to look for me already? Secondly, there was easy transport to the agreed meeting place from here. Kaleva stepped past a sketchy laundromat and ducked into the local railway station. Named Exmouth, it was unofficially the Pale Bastion station, according to Rain at least. It baffled Kaleva how the rest of the city had apparently been built irrespective of the Bastion, the monumental Wall of which still dominated the skyline. Wasn't it the centre of civilisation?

On Rain's recommendation, Kaleva jumped the ticket gate – "Everyone does it, and you don't have your money anyway, and the security people are always busy with worse shit, and won't care.", he had explained. He shivered with anxiety, tapping his foot by instinct as he stood on the platform, which was mercifully sheltered, and lit by long, cold, slightly flickering fluorescent bulbs rather than by magic. Have I made a terrible mistake? No, I've had no choice from the moment they signed me up for "therapy". It's either this or game over.

Kaleva stared further down the platform and was thrown into a different kind of fear entirely. A few of the people waiting alongside him didn't seem to be people. People don't have big pointy ears, or long snouts or bushy, athy tails. There are at least three Beastkind sitting just over there and nobody notices. Am I going crazy? The nearest demon, dark grey all over with feline features, peered in his direction with jewel-like eyes glinting toxic green. Kaleva looked away in response. I knew they lived here, but I thought they hid in the shadows. Do they just, like, live pretending to be people?

Soon enough, however, the train Kaleva was waiting for appeared and screeched to a halt, and he was on his way. While somewhat battered and unclean, Kaleva found it comfortable enough on board. And warm.

It was already dark outside, so he couldn't see much from the shadowed windows apart from the occasional lights rushing past, until the train stopped at a large, busy station with an unpronounceable name that looked like a jumble of letters, at which point the city centre came into view.

As the journey continued, the cold neon artificial glow that illuminated the low cloud cover glinted off Kaleva's wide shining eyes. Kaleva already knew that the Lower City had about ten times as many people as the Pale Bastion, and he thought he could get his head around that just fine. He shrunk away from the window a little and pulled his hoodie tightly over his head, to just above his eyes. I've spent my entire life in a six-kilometre-wide octagon and now I've gone way further than that in under half an hour.