BACKBITERS

oo. ace - part two

revamped — 11/18/2020

oo. ace
part two

THE SURFACE IS A GREAT CONTRAST to the place that lies beneath it. It's evident with the people lining up to the entrance of the city above and evident in the barren checkpoints back to the underground. There's an officer waiting at the end of the tunnel, black visor hiding their eyes and the black skintight armor they don serving to intimidate anyone like you.

The badge in your hands is shaped unusually, the geometric figure symmetrical, looking like a pair of rectangular wings in the middle of a diamond. The whole thing is gold, symbolic for wealth, but you know it's worth nothing and everything at the same time. You've tried to pawn of the damn thing once after all, only to be informed that it wasn't made with gold, but plated and colored that way to make it seem like it was. It meant nothing when sold, but to you and your sister, it meant everything.

Running your thumb along the jagged surface, you don't have to look to know the engravement. You've already memorized the set of numbers in them already:

000229.

"Permit granted to stay," the MRO tells you, seeing the badge. "You may proceed underground."

Continuing on, you exit the tunnel and into the city that lies beyond it. It's been the same scene ever since you were little: lots of people bustling about the streets, buildings with peeled of paint, posters about the greatness of the city and the defaced bronze statue of the founder of the city in the middle. The statue's color has faded into brown color that closely resembles the human stool, its luster — dulled. The face looks like it's been sandpapered a lot of times which renders it to a lump of unrecognizable metal, and various graffiti with foul words decorate the body.

None of the people living here knows who the statue is anyways. Why would they? Why would you? The person who founded the city made sure that the poor would always be poor, and those from Encimian regard those like you as animals.

They can buy you.

(Not that you'd let them, your fists clench at the thought. You aren't your sister.)

The walk to your home is only a few minutes with people bumping into you, but you don't recognize them and they don't recognize you. A few meters away lies a familiar house too small that it might as well be a shack, parts of the metal roof filled with little holes, and cracks in the concrete walls. To someone new, it looks like every other house in the underground. For you, you know the difference because it's your home. The dilapidated shack in front of you is where you spent most of your life in — and maybe it is where you'll spend your future in no matter how your sister might not want to, otherwise.

The sound of wind chimes catches your attention, and it dawns on you that the front door has been left open. No, not left open, but the front door is trashed open. Your feet moves before your brain can react, you step into the house without any thought, a scream trying to rip itself from your throat.

It doesn't come out.

"Aya," you call out. "Where are you?"

The house stays silent except for the soft tune from the wind chimes. You try to ignore how the pits of your stomach sink like it's been punched hard in the gut.