Salvation 2035

Chapter 33- Restart

『Tsuki』

     Luckily I still have Keisha's car-key emulator, or else this trip would be a real drag. To be honest, I don't really know where I am, but it's a little dangerous. I'm in some upper-middle-class type city, filled with lofty skyscrapers and silver-lined roads. Well, if you're a normal-looking person, it's one of the safest places to be, but if you're me it's a whole different story. Luckily, there's some big military parade going on and everybody's out in the streets, so I have full reign of the underground. I just need to get through this part of town to get to the slums where I can find a place to stay so I can think of a plan. Somehow, I need to keep heading north, but also let Cromwell's goons catch up enough so that I can hopefully get back to her without getting captured and sent to jail again. I don't care how much she hurt me— she hurt my friends, and that means I'm not backing down. What happened to me has nothing to do with them. I should have told them what I was doing though. Maybe they'll hate me for it, but... I guess I'll just have to deal with that.

     I really haven't had anyone that I'd consider my friend until I met Abel and Keisha. There was Lindy, but she was more like a mother figure than a friend. Actually, there was one kid who I was kind of close to back when I worked on the streets. For a short period of time when I was fourteen, right before I went to jail, I decided that rather than staying in the brothel and having to pay a percentage back to Cromwell, I went to the border between the low-class and the middle-class area and just solicited myself there. I just sent her a portion of that money saying it was the percentage I owed her, but in reality, it was a lot less. At the moment, it felt like I made the right decision, but it definitely wasn't worth the headache of her insisting that she should have that money I made. I guess getting evened out by those scumbag client's spouses wasn't really worth it either. Also, the harassment from random people on the street, because I was basically wearing what I'd normally wear to work on the side of the road, was less-than-ideal.

     I did make a friend, though. He was my age and initially thought I was a girl, but surprisingly, didn't throw a fit when he found out the opposite was true. He just talked to me like I was just another kid. Although I didn't want to talk to him at first, he kept pestering me, and I finally caved and decided to talk to him too. We just talked about regular kid stuff— video games, sports, movies... It was nice to have someone my age to give me some frame of reference as to what a normal childhood was like. But I got a little selfish and began to think that I was a normal kid too.

     There was one day that I found out this client of mine was married and had kids. Personally, I didn't feel right being with that kind of person, so I told him that I wasn't going to go with him. But, of course, him being a grown adult and me being a skinny kid, I didn't really have much choice in the matter. He dragged me over to his house and I serviced him, and he paid me extra. It became a whole issue, which resulted in me staying there much longer than I wanted to, arguing over this money. I ended up taking it, even though I didn't feel right about it. I was about to leave, and then his wife came home. I was right at the bottom of the driveway— if I was a few steps further this interaction probably never would have happened. She knew what I was, and was real pissed about it. Because I was scared, I denied everything she accused me of. But that was only an invitation for her to get violent. She yanked me into the garage and threatened to burn me with her cigarette if I didn't tell the truth. Surprise, she burnt me anyway. I still have the marks on my arm. The woman also beat me up on top of that. On a certain level, I understand why she was upset but damn, did she really have to do all that? The worst was when her husband, my client, went out to see me to tell me that he never wanted to see me again. Out of desperation, I cried out something along the lines of, 'I thought you loved me'. He told me plainly, 'I love my wife,' and that's when it dawned on me as to what exactly these people saw me as. Of course, they didn't love me, and could never love someone like me. You can't love an object like you love a person. I think the thing that made me continue to sell myself for all those years was the illusion that these people, on some level, needed me. They'd spend a whole bunch of cash just to be with me, and not any of the women at the brothel. The reason wasn't that they loved me, it was because they could do whatever they wanted to me and get away with it. Now that I'm older, I understand it more.