Tearing At The Seams - Book 2

Prologue Part 1 - Welcome to Los Valburn

Los Valburn was not very quiet at the deepest hour of the night.

"..."

In fact, it was quite the opposite, echoes of sound lingering even if the residents had long retired to their homes. The faint rumble of the cars whizzing by and the low buzzing of various neon signs and lights created a muted white static that sheltered the city, and the wind that often filtered through the island city created a whirling streak of sound.

"..Sound."

The masses of people that filled the streets and city muttering their grievances and sharing their lives lowly intermingling into a collective hum that never faltered.

"Muted sound. Deafening in its activity. Thrilling in its sleeplessness."

(The city was intoxicatingly sweet in its dull nightly glory. Like a poisoned apple, they say. Sugary with opportunities and red with neon. Until the neon fades into shiny blood and the sugar tastes like absinthe. And then you know it is cursed, and that your death would be in Los Valburn, and nowhere else.)

Crime gangs followed up by more criminal- albeit less powerful- gangs. The bustling island city that never slept was divided into sectors, controlled by the highest of the highest gangs.(A nearly forgotten legend claims that the moment when you steal yourself a top gang spot, you never die. Yes, you can perish, but your mind and soul would live on and eventually form a new body- a new containment centre for the combined forces. But it isn't infinite, for how much it seems. Fate would cut it short abruptly. 

(No one really acknowledged it.)

"Laughter. Fire."

There were always 4 top gangs controlling each of the sectors, smaller rings of crime mingling in each one of them. Sometimes, the gangs were bitter enemies, sharp threats and poisoned voices. The scent of arson and decaying matter would fill up the city when that happened. Sometimes, the gangs would become tentative allies, gaining relations with each other and backing each other up.

"Polaroid pictures and cut off faces. Bullet wounds and gunpowder."

And perhaps those civilians that managed their day to day lives would see them, generations passing and the same faces. Perhaps the smell of gunpowder would linger after their presence would disappear. And perhaps the final death would be able to claim them, leaving behind a special way to remember the ways of the old and new.

"Death. Dust. Crumbling dust and bloody lips."

(But in the story that I will be telling, I won't be talking about those historical gangs. You'll- yes you, reader- follow through the whims and whirls of fate that was held in store for our dear Tigers. Because the golden strings that bind them to their lives would fray and repair themselves endlessly, unable to know when they would snap for eternity.)

"It's hauntin."