Food Chain Chronicles: Cataclysm and Nightmares

The Word of a Tainted Purveyor

                                       CHAPTER 1: The Nesting Catalyst

          Blood stained her clothes, soaking the fabrics all the way through, the warm liquid pressing the shirt to her torso. She couldn't care less though, not about the shirt, her clothes, or anything else. The world around her had gone to shit. Absolute fucking shit! Bodies strewn across the once bustling city, amputated, dissolved, and worse. Screaming bounced about the area, the blacktop pavement splattered with all manners of fluids and entrails. The buildings were sliced clean in a manner that seemed impossible, and yet, it was a reality. An emerald energy smoldered at the wounds, both on the buildings, and the victims. It was that which was ravaging her city; a green glow, followed by destruction and carnage, all of it stemming from one source; one person. And as she rocked back and forth, the woman on her knees and clutching a brave casualty in her arms, screaming and yelling surrounded her, panic gripping at the once semi-civilized society.

          "It wasn't supposed to be you." She whimpered quietly, her forehead pushed against the corpse', her raven hair, chopped short and caked with dirt and dust, tickled at the lifeless face of the other.

          "Captain Ormika!" A tired, gruff voice attempted to cut in to her bubble, "Captain! We need you! We need you, come on!"

          "You can't go." Ormika whispered to the woman in her arms, hugging her to her chest. Tears stained the captain's cheeks, her usually pale complexion red with anguish, "Mom is gonna be so pissed at me..."

          "CAPTAIN!"

                                                                                      ~

                                                                                Earlier.....

          The city seemed dilapidated on the outside, with broken buildings, cracked streets and sidewalks, and awash with a subtle crimson hue from the red clouded skies overhead, the sun constantly fighting to push through the smog. The smell of smoke was a constant assault on ones nostrils, but the people of this realm have more than grown used to it; they've grown to love it. The scents, the hot air, the rough environment, and even rougher denizens brought the realm to life in a way no other world could imagine. It was home.

          Ormika landed clean, her feet pressing firm against the roof of the housing complex as she planted her hand on the ground to dissipate her force. Her gaze fell over the edge of the building and spied a man making a mad dash down the road. He was so much faster than she could ever hope to be.

          Of course he was. He was what the masses began calling a Risen, though there are a few other, more derogatory terms for them. Many years ago, the animals of the land suddenly began to take on human traits. They were taller with human proportions and all of the intricacies that come with a human mind, and advantages that come with a beast's body. And this man was a fox Risen. He was fast and tricky with a ravenous appetite and an iron belly; and it was his iron belly that led him to commit a string of murders throughout the town. They were going to bring him to justice.

          He was being chased by a group called The Four's Collective, an intense and dedicated collection whose sole purpose is to make life in this sector of Adam's Four tolerable for those who live in it; to rid it of those who seek to exploit its people and drive it further down than it already is.