Beacons in The Dark

Chapter 19 - Walking on Through

"The Stars are gone, but they will come back, the workings of Jhiva cannot be wholly understood" - Xarath of Krist

He was gone and Blue knew it, some sort of instinct; Nami Exeron...alive, but gone. He was whole and alive in the Glassover district of Star City, one of the megalopolis's seediest districts. But this haven of bloodshed and violence did not bother him, the crimson splash of a man robbing another man, the victim slashing at him with a laz knife, the assailant crumpling to the ground holding the spurting stump of his right wrist.

This was nothing new.

The neon lights of the city, the glowfly worms that hovered through the eye flashing advertisements for augmented eyes, titanium arms, and other such augmentations hurt his eyes, made him shy away from the bright light. The streets smelled like noodles, sauce, and if he were not mistaken, moongdog meat.

By sheer stubborness he passed telecaster again and again, though it would take months to walk across the entirey of Star City. He had died for sure, and had seen..something, what was it, something reptilian take Nami into its arms and pull him back into nothingness. 

It wasn't the invis-camo that some merc and armada members used, no dead body had dropped after he was wrapped with the arms, he had just...been pulled through something, like a telecaster, except without the technology.

Strange beyond strange, he though, running his fingers through his unruly black hair, roughly combing it back, still feeling a slight sting around his neck from where the slowburn gun had caught him.

But he still felt uneasy, and it wasn't because of the decap, either. It was like, something had entered him and dwelled there, inside of him somewhere; and he had no idea what it was or what its wishes were.

It was a frightening thought as his shoes thumped against the hardcrete pavement. 

Shampoo had to give him new clothes of course; his others were ripped and soaked in blood - roaming the streets would have made people wonder if the Z Plague had come back again, and he did not want that, a thousand people mobbing him, trying to incinerate before the carniverous virus spread to others.

The Z Plague was a thing of the past, however, and he didn't look like one of those ragged ghouls, thankfully. Ah, how the Imperium had panicked, a plague that turned regular men and woman of all races into flesh eating fiends.

The Medical Guild found a cure, thank all goodness, but it made him giggle to think that if the Outsider planets of hostile races had attacked then, how would they have fared against a trillions strong army of flesh eating painless monsters.

They were called the Outsiders because of their refusal to integrate with the migrating humans so long ago, and the ages since have only enhanced their animosity. They were not cruel by nature, but they played their ferocity out on Imperial subjects, even raiding into the Imperium itself to attack fringe planets. 

So turning to one of the next telecasters he saw, he stepped to it and inputted the information for his location - the Loreseeker's Guildhouse