Hunted

Chapter I

Earth. Once the pride of humanities existence, now cast away by the wealthy and left for the poor to inhabit. To fester upon this decaying planet where the ice caps have melted and the oceans have risen. Where illness and ignorance both live in symbiosis. Its once white clouds now stained with the abysmal grey of industrial progress. The cities - once filled with culturally iconic buildings - now only used for factories and housing the remaining population.

In the remains of New York, the Empire State Building lay on its side, the once mighty behemoth laid to rest by the growing boldness of the rebellion. The ocean now covered much of the ground, leaving very little land for people to inhabit. The only building that still had electricity glittered like the only light source in a cave... Its blinking yellow lights attracting the unemployed and homeless like moths to a flame. The last echo of a civilised world was slowly being drowned out by the endless riff raff of the working class.

The city was also under the ever constant siege of the rain. It poured down from the heavens and entered anything that wasn't properly sealed. Wood rotted, buildings wore away... And people died. The deaths were nothing to these hardened people. All they were focused on was earning money and providing for their family. They no longer noticed the bloated carcasses of their neighbours that lined the streets.

Around the glowing building, the streets were littered with old remnants of the previous governments - old newspapers, old cans and the soggy remains of ancient takeaways. Branching from the streets were dark, grimy alleyways. Filled with the poisonous smog, infested with rats and other rodents, there were many hazards to be braved by those who lived in these.

In one such alley, two people, one a man and the other a woman, hastily walked out of the smog, hunched over the meagre belongings they clutched in their ever tightening hands. One of them, the man, stopped walking and threw his head back, the long hair that the entire population possessed falling back with it. He knelt down and rested his hands on his knees.

The woman placed her hands on his shoulders and led him under the relatively sheltered stairwell that crawled up one side of the alley. The man sat against the wet concrete wall, his navy blue jumpsuit sticking to his thin, stick-like body. The woman walked back into the rain, looked down both sides of the alley, and stepped back under the metallic stairwell.

He looked up at her and grimaced. "Do you think they're still following us?" he spoke in a voice that could only have originated in the smog rich inner city.

She shrugged and kept turned to face the rain. Her emerald green eyes glittered in the otherwise dead and decaying city... Her torn and frayed jumpsuit clung to her body like an uncomfortable second skin. Her skin was even paler than the other inhabitants. She was thinner, her cheek bones were more exaggerated than other peoples.

Not that it caused turning heads.

The man shrugged and closed his frail eyes. "Do you think we might be able to rest here today??" he asked quietly. When she nodded, he rested his head against the uncomfortable concrete and shut his eyes, the endless torrent of water creating a rhythm that slowly faded into a white noise... Which inevitably turned to nothing.

After around ten minutes of him sleeping and her guarding, a loud noise echoed down the alley, causing the man to suddenly awake. The woman continued to stare into the rain, almost as if she hadn't heard the noise. The man hastily stood and walked over to her rigid figure.

He stood behind her, rigid furrows of worry etched into his brow. "Idrick?" he asked with an undertone of worry. When she didn't acknowledge him, he shook her shoulder until she turned to face him.

"What?" she asked. Her eyes showed the anger someone might feel after being derailed from their train of thought.

Another noise, this time a clatter, rang out from the smog. They both turned to face it. Idrick drew her fists whereas the man pulled a small pistol from his pocket and pointed it towards the unknown 'attacker'. There was a bright blue flash as lightning struck the dying city somewhere in the distance. The loud rumble of thunder rolled through around three seconds later, Idrick wincing as it did so.

A large rat scrambled to escape the now flooding passage. It ran into the smog, its squeals shooting through the humid air as it began to drown.

Idrick and the man pressed themselves against the wall, straining to hide themselves from whatever was following them. A figure holding a large gun appeared from the smog, its head swivelling from side to side... As he got closer and closer, Idrick felt his eyes pressing into them as they pressed their bodies closer and closer into the unseeing and unfeeling wall as the warm but slightly corrosive rain streamed down the back of their clothing.

As the man drew closer, his eyes fixated on them. His gun was immediately shifted in their direction. The man with Idrick pointed his pistol in his pistol at him and stepped from the wall. The water steamed down his face and across his chest. It dripped from the gun, it fell from his hair and from each foot as they stepped out into the pouring rain.

The lightning struck again, sending a swarm of rats streaming in their direction. As the thunder fell upon them, yet again.

"I have a friend on the building opposite with a sniper rifle trained on your head." he indicated to Idrick. Upon hearing this, Idrick froze. "I suggest you drop your gun." he said firmly.

Idricks friend complied and dropped the gun to the floor with a clatter that could clearly be heard through the white noise of the rain. Idrick glanced down at the discarded pistol, the greenish grey surface slowly being submerged in the dark liquid. "Livik," she whispered "get ready..."

He nodded at her as the man walked up to them and handed Livik a pair of handcuffs whilst keeping the gun trained on him. "Put these on her." he ordered. His eyes flickered nervously between them both.

As Livik turned to face her, she nodded at him. When he had completed his task, the man put the gun to his head and was about to pull the trigger when Idrick launched herself forward, knocking the man off balance and onto the watery ground.

He started to struggle as Idrick pinned his head under the slowly rising water and stuck her fingers in his eyes. His hands clawed at her neck as she slammed one of her fists into his kidneys, causing him to stop struggling. After about half a minute, she released him and dragged Livik down the alley and into the smog.

Another man was climbing down one of the ladders that clung to the side of the intimidating buildings. As he reached the bottom, the sniper rifle he had slung on his shoulder fell into the murky water. He gave an inaudible curse as he reached down and pulled it out even though the light body armour he wore severely restricted his movement.

After he had done that, he raced over to his companion and pulled his limp form from the water. After spending about a minute dragging him up the stairwell, he checked his pulse. Upon finding that it was normal, the second man pulled him up and yelled at him. "Yotunb!" he yelled as a furious wind whipped up, biting him directly in the face. "Yotunb! Wake up!"

When this failed, he simply smacked him in the face, leaving a red mark on his otherwise pale and gaunt face. He suddenly sat up, panic plastered onto his face. "What happened?" he asked breathlessly.

Ruetnh grimaced before replying. "Well..." he began. The lightning struck yet again, bathing the whole area with its signature blue glow for a split second. He waited another three seconds for the thunder to roll in. "The bitch tried to drown you man." he spoke clearly and with a sense of urgency "We need to move now if we're going to keep up with them."

Yotunb immediately sat up and began to check his pockets. "Where's my two hundred credits?" he asked frantically. Once he had searched the first pockets, he moved on to his breast pocket and a look of relief fell across his face as he clutched a small object. "Got it."

Ruetnh nodded and stood up. "We must hurry." he looked into the distance. The beacon of light that was King House stood out like a sore on an otherwise beautiful thing. But the other way round. In the distance, two figures could be seen running down a slowly flooding alley.

Ruetnh pointed at them. "There." He stood up and slung his sniper rifle. "Let's go!"

They both stood up and jogged down the slippery fire escape. Once they had reached the bottom, they sprinted through the small river the alley had become.

Once they had escaped the alley, they walked along the ancient high street, glancing at the ancient shops, the old mall...

...Watching the two struggling figures hold onto each other as they climbed into a manhole. Yotunb and Ruetnh smiled... The credits were within their grasp.