Subject 15

CHAPTER 4 - Seth

The day I entered the city, Dalcon, was June 17, 2109. I'll never forget that day. Who am I kidding? I couldn't even if I tried.

The city was so unlike the wilderness – all this technology everywhere. Underground garages that looked like it came out of a science-fiction film, cars that appeared as if they had departed from far-off planets, huge new skyscrapers that moved, twisting and turning like giant puzzles.

The whole city had built around the ruins of what they called the Old Faction, the part of the city that existed before the nd of the world, at the very center. It was run down and generally unattended to; the only people who lived there were the outcasts and drug addicts who couldn't find anywhere else to go.

A sparkling city on the outside, I thought to myself, With skyscrapers that must have been over two hundred floors, and cars that were slick with polish...

And yet, at the heart of the city, it id dead and decaying, a voice hissed in my mind, falling apart as the rest of the world built a pretty little wall around it, as if it were an infection... does it remind you of something? Maybe a mirror...

I gritted my teeth and focused on observing my surroundings.

The city itself was dazzling. A world of concrete, glass, and steel, the city not only sprawled outward, but also upward as well. Dalcon was one of the last super-cities on this side of the world, hosting almost three million people in its limits. Vast roads weaved through the outskirts of the city, the tallest skyscrapers being farthest away from the core of the city, as if the buildings were a staircase for some divine being towards the center of the hellish mass. As I got closer towards the core of the city, the streets became narrower, overgrown with weeds and teeming with shadows, most of which were filled with those would could not make it on the Outside, as they called it. It was filthy, but I could call it home – fewer security systems and law enforcement here.

But the worst was yet to come. I saw humans that were more metal than flesh – I saw a man whose hair was the only organic matter left on his body; even his eyes were robotic. But the most startling, terrifying thing were the Masks. Everyone on the Outside wore them, and a few in the Old Faction did too, but they were all different. Some looked like the person under the Mask, but without their blemishes, while others looked like T.V. characters, and still others just had pictures, colors, and words flying across them. Some were used to model magazines; others were used to instill anarchy in the Old Faction.

I was so startled and confused my first day. I couldn't help but stare at everything, and everyone. While I was looking up at the ruins of the Old Faction, it having its own run-down skyscrapers, someone bumped into me. Turn. I whirled around out of instinct, out of habit, and backed away from the woman in a black suit hurriedly moving away. I slammed into something behind me, and I was thrust to the ground with a shove as a man hissed in an electronic voice, "Karitan!"

Everyone was looking at me, their Masks going crazy while some jeered and others looked away. A blast of noise hit me from behind. Run. I rolled into a forgotten alley as one of those slick black cars came screaming across the raod. I slammed into a green dumpster, denting the metal slightly, curling myself into a ball. I couldn't breathe, and everything felt too close, too loud, as if a thousand voices were trying to strangle me with their cries. I covered my ear with my hands and tried to pull myself into the farthest corner I could find. Three I spent the lonely night, and there the only voice that comforted me was the Demon's.