Samples.

13. City of Magic.

For as long as she could remember, Sarah had been in love with magic. It was fascinating, the idea of a supernatural force that could do the impossible. Her friends and family had expected her wonder to cease as she grew older, but it did not. Even as she grew into a mature young adult, she was still captivated by the romantic ideas and thrilling tales. 
Each and every story originated from The City. Word travelled quickly through the masses, reaching her waiting ears. Reports of terminal illnesses being cured, disease banished from bodies by the hands of a god. One day, both of her parents had gone to The City to visit a wizard, and had been caught in the web of admiration, never to return. Or so Sarah thought.
She had never actually seen magic, but that didn't matter to her. It was real, and she wanted to know more. She wanted to experience it first hand. 
Sarah knew, deep down, that she would never get the opportunity. After all, she was a middle class citizen. She would not live to see past the towering walls which hid The City and protected the upper-class men. There was another place where people were rumoured to dwell, but it was only a myth. According to few, the old subway lines were home to swarms of people, that were so disgusting, that they were no longer deemed human. The polite term for them was 'Lower-class', but Sarah didn't think they actually existed anyway, so naming them wasn't something that bothered her. She had heard horror stories of horrific disfigurement, disease of the mind, plague, and mutation that were beyond her worst nightmares. Her common sense told her that it was all fiction, but a meagre scrap of curiosity resided within her heart. 

Sarah awoke from a pleasant night of dreams and began her dreary morning routine. She was unable to focus on anything aside from what she'd been told by one of the neighbours the day before. According to the old woman next door, a lower-class woman had been spotted on their street. Sarah was awestruck. A thing of urban-legends had been sighted. It was like spotting a unicorn, or finding bigfoot. She had to know if it was true. 
On her way to the college campus, she had walked into several strangers due to her disconnection from the present. She was preoccupied with her own theories and had no time for the people around her. 
"What if they're real... Could I meet one?" She thought aloud, causing a couple of other students to glance with concern. Her child-like wonder got the best of her, and she turned quickly on her heel, heading straight for the campus library. Sarah reasoned that it was worth missing a day of class if it meant getting a step closer to satisfying her insatiable hunger for the truth. 

Her finger traced along the page, following old subway tracks on a map of the town. All of the entrances had been closed off or removed completely. She let out a sigh of disappointment, but wasn't going to give up that easily. Another day of class was skipped, which then led to a full week of absences. The fire in her heart never once dulled. 
Sarah figured out which entrances were still intact, although blocked up. There had to be a way to get in somehow. If a woman could get out, then she could get in. 

***

Gunshots echoed throughout the tunnel, bullets ricocheting off the walls. Guttural growls and piercing shrieks mingled with the sound, a symphony of destruction. Some of the people were too weak or too injured to escape the crossfire, and so their lives fled their bodies like migrating swallows. Crimson rain stained the rusted rails and old walkways.
Levi was too smart to be caught by jacketed lead. 
His face was covered by his battered gas-mask, letting him weave through falling bodies without recognition. He was one of thousands of rejected specimens, left to rot below the surface where nobody could hear his screams, but he refused to let them take him. Not before he got his revenge on the people that put him down there. 
A hail of bullets erupted from the left, and Levi barely had time to shelter himself from the storm. The corpse that took the bullets for him was still warm. He wondered for a brief second what the woman's life had been like before she got sick. What it was like before she came down to the sub zone. It wasn't long before a bullet almost buried itself in his leg. He didn't have time to speculate like that, not during a shooting. 

Levi had escaped the area in danger, leaving nothing behind. It wasn't as if he'd taken things with him when he fled, but rather he had nothing there to begin with. No family, no friends, no hope, dignity or freedom. Nothing. 
He could vaguely remember what life was like in The City, before one of their brilliant wizards uncovered a tumour hiding deep within his brain tissue. Soon after, stage three cancer revealed itself, and in a desperate attempt to save his life, his parents threw him into one of those magical treatment centres. The day they dropped him off at the centre was the last day he ever saw them. Levi couldn't even remember their faces. All he saw was blurry figures with no features. He was intelligent enough to figure that perhaps it was better than having a clear view, for if he were to be able to see them clearly, it might upset him. The treatments at the centre cured his cancer, but caused the skin on the left side of his face to melt. All the nerves and muscle tissue had been destroyed, leaving only minimal movement of the right side. They couldn't possibly leave somebody like him running around The City. 

A woman with no legs reached out desperately, trying to grab his ankles as he passed by. In her other arm, she clutched the corpse of a baby. He shed a single mental tear for her. He wasn't a cold person by nature, but had been forced to desensitise himself to survive. He would cry for the unfortunate later. At that moment, he was focused on finding a way out of there. 
The whispers of the deranged informed anybody that would listen, that a woman had escaped to the surface. Levi paid attention to them. The insane were the most coherent voices to him. If that woman could leave, so could he.

***

Amelia huffed as she saw the grade on her recent assignment. Sixty eight percent wasn't enough. Her parents were dissatisfied with her results but she didn't work to please them. Under the watchful eye of the public, she put on a pretty display of affection and obedience, but it was all false. She lay in a sickeningly beautiful bed of roses. Thorns of distrust, doubt, and disgust pierced her skin, but nobody ever saw past the delicate petals of alabaster and ruby. 

Her father was one of the most credited wizards of The City, yet she didn't know the full truth of his work. She never saw past closed doors and fleeting glances. The flashing of the cameras as her father received praise blinded her to the harsh reality of the situation. 
Amelia was no genius, but she could tell that something was extremely wrong with magic. She used to have a younger brother. Years ago, he was diagnosed with Asperger's, and shortly after that, he disappeared. The blame for his disappearance rested on the shoulders of her parents. Amelia had no physical proof, but she knew. 

Amelia was revolted by the luxury she was surrounded with, aware that it was at the expense of others. Her family survived on others' misfortune, climbing their way up to the top of the social ladder of The City. She was appalled by how these 'wizards' were poisoning the minds of the desperate, leading them like sheep. There were bodies in the teeth of the combine of magic, gone without a trace. She was determined to put an end to the cycle of deceit.
First of all, she'd have to figure out what magic really was, and where all the missing people were going. 

***

A/N: I've been sitting on this one for a long time now. Mainly because I couldn't put an appropriate opening into words. I hope this sums up the idea of the story, leaving enough mystery and anticipation to cause the reader (you) to want more. 
I haven't yet made a definite decision on the title either, so I'm open to any sort of suggestions.