Stephen and Sam walked through the darkened city streets and city alleyways, the rain cool to the touch, pitter-pattered their rhythmless songs off of the dirty streets and run down and condemned buildings which loomed the shadowed streets like specters, watching those that passed by with unlife-like interest as they passed by on their way.
The streets bore a depressing aura as the boys thought of how this very area was once alive and bustling with people, one of the many and few enclaves of humans in the world. The buildings, once live able and full of life, were nothing more than husks, shells now hollow as time leads the hosts to their inevitable ends of their short and tragic lives.
However the two boys walked through the city streets without the sense of something sinister and ominous looming over them, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike and cut the last breaths from them, because they had walked these streets before. Before the bacterial Armageddon that decimated the human population across the world, and after, once the cries of laughter and life had faded to nothing more than dust and echoes.
The two boys payed little attention to the booming skyscrapers drenched in bright light in shades of all the prismatic colors, in the distance, bound to be filled with Generation 2 humans who would go about their carefree lives nonchalantly, and not a care in the world could or would bring them down. They were superior, the master race, and the aspect of defeat was below them, with the rest of the original human race.
Stephen was on a mission, and a rather dangerous one at that, as they trudged through the seemingly endless maze of the ghettos of Dusklund, one of the six outlying districts surrounding the metropolis simply called "The Highlands"; in a determined search for the destination of interest.
After several long minutes, Stephen and Sam arrived at a bar, little more than a large shack with 19th century style western saloon doors. The scent of unwashed bodies and stale piss radiated from the pathetic structure like heat from a wood stove.
The two 16 year old boys stared for a brief moment at the decrepit building before Stephen turned to Sam, pivoting on his hydraulic right leg. Stephen gave him a determined look and then nodded to a staircase, which would undoubtedly lead into the black market; one of many illegal zones for trading nested deep within the clutches of the underdark of Dusklund.
Stephen took a deep, anxious, sigh and returned his gaze to Sam, giving him a reluctant look. "Ready?" He whispered, and under the pounding of the rain and primal echoes of the thunder, it was virtually unheard. However, Sam read his lips and nodded with strained cooperation.
Stephen nodded, and walked towards the stairs 10 feet away. He walked stiffly, and with a slight limp because of the nature of his robotic leg. Sam, after a slight hesitation, sighed in defeat and rebelliously followed his friend.
Stephen waited at the top of the stairs for Sam, and when he reached them Stephen nodded with false enthusiasm and took his pace down the abyssal passage way and knocked on the ebony black, steel door. They waited for a rough estimate of 4 minutes before a small slot slid across with an ugly scrape of metal on metal and a pair of eyes glared at the two boys suspiciously.
"Are ya kids lost?" He sneered, "This is no place for children." He chided and Stephen turned his gaze to the bouncer behind the door, and pierced him with a vicious and cold gaze. "I have business here, and was told to meet my seller here." The rat like man titled his head and seemed to scratch his head. "Drugs?" He inquired, but Stephen immediately shook his head. "No, I had other things in mind." He spoke with venom.
The bouncer nodded. "Fair enough." He said, and promptly closed the eye slot with that same pained noise of unoiled metal on metal. The two boys heard him go about unlocking the various locks and dead bolts.
In the time he was doing so, Stephen turned to his friend and gave him a reassuring look.
Then, the door opened.
