Tonight, I considered myself very lucky. Instead of finding myself naked in a cave in the Arctica, I was sitting on a table with four entities surrounding me. Talking. No, arguing rather.
Looking to my right I could see a middle aged man dressed in what seemed to be a biker outfit, what distinguished him the most were his eyes which were a deep shade of crimson, his knuckles that looked scared bloody and worn out most likely due to him getting in fights on a regular basis and his scar that went all the way down from his side burns, through his lips, and to his chin.
Next to him sat a man dressed in a purple pinstripe suit, he looked like he and Hecate weren't on the best terms. As his bald head shone as the light reflected from it's dark brown color, his white beard looked as if it has been growing for a couple of years, his eyes as white as snow, his cheeks contained aging cracks, most likely from grimacing.
To my left I saw....something. A boy, then a girl, then a man, then a woman in army fatigues. Then a duck, then another animal I couldn't quite recognize. Whatever it was, it kept changing shape. Over and over and over. Never staying in one particular form for more than a few discernable seconds.
In front of me was what I assumed to be the leader of the group, but the thing is, I couldn't see him at all, not like I was blind but, I just saw a light blooming in front of me.
He spoke I was bewildered to say the least.
"We have to get rid of him"
His voice was a mix of voices, I heard a man and a woman, a child and a grown up, a scream and a whisper, all at the same time, squeaky and deep, but it had something soothing to it that I couldn't put my finger on, but I could understand what he was saying.
"I agree with (̵̡̬͖̬͋͑̐̇̍̊̾̓̚̚͝͝{̴̟̖̠̼̩͇͎͓͈̝̺̬̥͛̑̃̐̏̐͗̿͆͆̽̚}̷͉͓͖̱̭̀͌͛̂̉̑̀͊̂̕͝≯͎̖̲̼͕̤̟̈́͛̔̈́͂(̵̠͎̱͎̬̤̲̫͑̇̽͋͊̎̀̇̕̚͘}̷̛̲̪͙̜̇̀̅̀͗͗͝≮͉̪̜̮̇̌͗͛̍̆̃̍̏̋̾̈]̷̥͓̠̭̥̗̣͍̿̓̓̈̓͐̎̿́̅̃̚)̷̟̙̥̖͍͉̹̰̯̮̳͖̾̑͗̑͋́̒̈́̐́̍̎̇͠, . This child might end up doing more harm than good if he has more of your abilities,"
The boy said I couldn't hear the name as it came out as incomprehensible sounds.
"NOT A CHANCE!" the man with crimson eyes screamed as he slammed the table with the strength only common between gods, I'd assume. I felt the room shake and I was about to fall off of the chair I was seated on. My very being was rattled.
"Look, until we can find Lady Complexity, you have to be kept in check," he finished and I swear I just saw that there was something screaming to be let out in his eyes.
The boy snickered a little. I felt small shock waves coming from the guy or woman covered in light. "Now gentlemen, settle down we still haven't heard Kronos's opinion on the matter at hand. This model may just well be what we need," he said as he lifted what seemed to be his hand towards the bald man named Kronos.
But Kronos seemed lost, I don't know if it was for his pupiless eyes of his blank expression, but I felt like he was experiencing something completely different to what we were. He even cracked a small smile.
"Well I guess we won't hear from him for a while," the boy said with a smirk growing on his face. He clasped his hands together, leaned back and then put his feet up on the table. "It all comes down to this. I need an eternal opponent, you guys were supposed to give him to me. I'm still waiting,".
"What about this? I have a deal for you" the crimson eyed man stood up, and it peaked the interest of all who were in the room except Kronos.
"Speak" the 'light' said.
"You want someone who's powerful enough to fight you forever right? This boy is the perfect specimen. With power and help from all three of us, he is the only thing that can stand against you. My offspring have always been best at it," he explained.
"Hahaha, what makes you feel like this one will be any different Necros?, you already sent countless ones like him and they all ended the same way. Martyrs. Martyrs for a cause you left them in the dark about," the boy laughed which made Necros' eyes, like daggers, dart toward him. Fitting description since he pulled one out right before he spoke next.
"Oh dont worry, this time it'll be very different, I'll show you the true colors of my children. At their fullest potential," Necros said as a smirk crawled onto his face. It was the most terrifying thing I'd seen yet.
"Necros I dont think another one of your children is well equipped and trained to handle this. And on top of that you never tell us your plans. The Nexus is growing stronger by the century. If this child of yours can't stop him before it's too late, it'll be us who will die this time. Are you saying you want that?", Kronos questioned Necros. "Please, do not try us with another gamble".
"Oh trust me that's the last thing I would want to happen. But this time I got everything I need to finally put an end to you and your tricks Nexus" Necros said putting full trust in his words and his hands on the table.
Nexus smiled. "Well then, I look forward to torturing and tearing apart another one of those pitiful children of yours" he said as he disappeared into thin air.
For a moment, the room was almost entirely silent, other than for Necros's angry finger tapping.
"This won't work. Your son will die young, and you know that I do not want that," Kronos said as soon as Nexus started to walk away.
Obviously I tried speaking to protest this, but no sound was coming out of my mouth. I guess this wasn't one of those lucid dreams. I even tried putting my finger through my hand like in the movies but nothing happened. I couldnt even move my legs. But from what I could tell, my family tree needed serious discusion.
"Well sorry Kronos but failure isn't an option this time. I arranged all of the necessary outliers this time for success. Even the Nexus doesn't know about them. Hell, even I don't. I will make sure that his body will be ready, because if he's not..." He turned around and looked directly at me- "I don't think any of us will be ready for what will come next and I don't think anyone would be able to put a stop to it".
A chill ran down my spine as I woke up in a cold sweat, my eyes meet the comforting darkness of my room and was able to distinguish some parts of it in the dark, I looked at my alarm clock. It was midnight.
Since the Academy's Practical Exam was at the 10th ward it was a fair distance away from the 17th ward where I lived, so I needed to move a bit early. I sat up on my bed and made my way towards the bathroom, I turned on the lights and then looked at myself in the mirror, for some reason I was surprised to see my face, as my usual jet black hair was a complete, shaggy mess, I had bags underneath my eyes the size of Olde World elephants. My mouth was crusty from a lack of a liquid, and only the crusty mucus caked the corners of my mouth and eyes. I wiped off the drool that was on my cheek, my brown skin and black eyes looked worn out from sleeping so late last night. Guess I was just nervous about today.
As I was about to start cleaning myself up an old yet sly voice came from the inside of my head, "so your Necros's newest love child. Oh my, you look like a complete mess!"
"What the hell?!?" I said as I jumped back and frantically looked around me trying to find the source of the voice to realize that the sound came from inside of my head.
"Haha! don't worry child. I'm just inside your head" he chuckled as if it was the most normal thing in the world.
"You say that like its a good thing. You seem to be getting shuvos out of this," I said as I went back to washing up Well, at least he helped me in waking up properly.
"Oh dear. This time you're another one of those brown people aren't you? Father must surely have a type" he said with a judgemental tone.
"Man what the hell are you saying? The race wars were fought long before The Collision,". At this point I was already entering the shower.
"Ah yes. That little spell was fun to watch from the comfort of the Cosmos, but being in the thick of it has only seemed to serve to be an axe in my back," he complained in my head further as I was showering.
"Uhhh , what? What's the Cosmos? Space exploration isn't supposed to begin for another eight years, according PlaSma Tech." I asked getting out of the shower and in a bit of a shock. I left out the part about my dad actually owning Pla Sma Tech.
Probably because, most of the time I was just that: the son of the man who rebuilt the world. But it always helped whenever I needed something like a backstage pass, or I would promise someone a free prosthetic. Being dad's son was a card I only ever had to pull rarely.
...
"Jeez this has to be the most rubish place in the world." The voice said as I got out of the run down house finally. I ignored him and patted my pockets to make sure my pocket knife and a single quark containing 2,000 ducets were in my pockets. Just in case I ran into anyone.
The neighborhoods in New Midland's 17th Wards all had identical houses with numbers for street names. Each house was a white, L shaped, bungalow with a basement.
They were all arranged in a grid pattern for organization, but the streets themselves were lined with a metal and wax mixture and coated in fake stone-like substance. Oh and the trash. The excess trash in the streets really made it pop you know? It really brought out the taped up windows, cheap lead paint, and tacky shrubbery that seemed to leach out of the sidewalks.
Huge stains from unknown sources with weird smells really added to the fungswae of the poor neighborhood aesthetic. Home, sweet, fucking, home. As I walked down to the closest speeder train stop, multiple sights awaited me.
The smell of animal fats being heated to make soap for people to sell bombarded my senses. It always made my head hurt. On the sidewalk was a mother sitting on a plastic crate, rocking her baby as it cried, wrapped up on rags and stitched towels. As she rocked, the woman slurred and cursed at her luck. Just like almost everyone in the 17th Ward did.
"Why aren't they living in those houses lined up in the grid pattern? They seem habitable at least," Jack said in my head.
"Despite the fact that the house's were all arranged, you would only really ever find people living in every other house. They're really meant for families moving here from poorer sections of New Merica. New colony means lots of work and opportunities for making buisnesses. The colonization is becoming more and more direct by the day. Opportunities that native New Midlanders simply can't have. They lost the war, but Merica wasn't exactly happy with the suspected casualties being three times what they thought it would be," I replied quietly to myself. "So they shafted us. Kind of missed the days when they were just an occupying force,".
"Serves you brown skins right. But why?" He inquired again.
"Look, that's just life! I'm trying to get to school. It's because the New Midlanders are just New Mericans that moved too early because life already sucked there anyway. Due to an overpopulation crisis caused by the intense strides technology was making as a result of PlaSma Tech's success, people moved in droves while the colony was still being set up. Now shut up, there will be people around soon," I said as I turned onto the main road where several students were making their daily commutes down the main street. Or rather Street 091, as it was called. But we all called it Main Street because it was the widest one and had the most branch offs.
"Hey! PALOFF!" a familiar, light-hearted voice insulted me from behind. I could hear the smile in the calling. I turned to see one of my old friends.
"Hey Bo," I said in mock annoyance as he shoved me and I laughed. Bo was a girl I knew back when I was a kid and went to school in the 17th Ward before transferring to a school in the 10th Ward when mom got a better job and I moved to tertiary school. And you heard me right, I said he. Bo became a guy at around 14 with the help of some doctor or something like that. They never went into details, but Bo always put me in a good mood.
"What does the 17th Ward's biggest Schiesse got going on this early in the day?" they asked as I continued to walk.
"Nothing much. Just some voices in my head is all," I chuckled. I looked over at them, but their face only read as concerned.
"Is it like the voices of your dad from when you were a kid?" They asked, their eyes shifting down toward the large scar on the side of my face covered by some bandages. I looked down at the ground for a while before responding.
"Haha, yeah, no they're nothing like that. Much more sassy, I would say," I replied, while laughing and walking forward and rubbing the scar I always kept under a bandage. She only looked more worried. "Look, when I'm a rich, famous, Kolstenlo level Voyager, I'll pay you a visit to let you know the voices are gone. Until then, worry about yourself Bo. I'll be fine," I assured them, as my stomach began to turn.
"If you say so," they said, as they shrugged their shoulders and opened up their own bag to pull out some papers. "Check this out! I've been reading up on some Dickens and it turns out, that making screenwrites on his books is really good practice," they said as they handed me some of their work.
"Wow. This is actually really good," I said happily after ten to twelve seconds of skimming it. I smiled over at them for a second before going back in and pretending to read more. If I was being honest, I couldn't be less interested. Drawing was more my speed. I never liked watching television. "With stuff like this, I'm sure you'll make it to the 1st Ward in no time!" I said before handing him back his practice sheets.
"Didn't seem like the smartest idea to not eat this morning," the voice said , his voice filled with disgust.
"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the grey matter today huh?" I sighed when I finally branched off from Bo at their own school and continued down the street into the urban area to get to the train stop. I didn't really get why I wasn't phased by what's happening to me. But I guess it just wouldn't be the weirdest thing to happen to me today. If I got to the testing for the Voyager Program, I would get filled with nanobots that would alter my body forever. Maybe this is like pre-gaming. Besides, living in a world where the clouds don't move and the smog from the factories New Mericans put here ages ago would be enough to make any person hallucinate.
I walked past tardinal stores, with drunks and junkies either leaving or entering it and sitting outside.
The 17th ward was filled to the brim with people like them. I live in one of the poorest of the 23 Wards in the New Midland colony. The last 3 wards were less living areas and more like wilderness. Across the street, in an alley way, I could see a group of people wearing red clothing and beating on two people. Two guys, I think it was. Maybe a couple, maybe not. Who knew? Who cared? If you're not walking around New Midland with some kind of protection, legal or otherwise, you're gonna get thrown for a loop. And I learned that the hardway.
As I walked past the 187 Street Liquor Store I saw the result of one of these fights, a group was taking a man who owed protection money and arranging his head to be biting down in the edge of the sidewalk as wide as he could. Another gang member was wearing the same red jacket and had what seemed to be the man's son, with his hands tied behind his back. Then, right as I looked away one of the guys in the group lifted his leg as high as he could before slamming it down into the back of the man on the ground's head. He would do it again until it reached a total of 17 times
Shanking? I could stomach that. Beatings with weapons and fists? I could stomach that. Slow and painful torture? Maybe on a good day. But the "17 Sided Curb Stomp" was something I could never bear to see.
"Hey quick question. Why in the H E double hockey sticks are you living in a place like this when your father is one of the richest men in the world?" The voice said.
"Well, my mom isn't a big fan of luxurious living. Plus she and my dad had a fight. A seriously bad one when they found out I wasn't his son. Now there is a whole divorce thing going on and I don't much care for the details so I try not to pry my mom about it," I said bluntly. I finally made it to the train stop right on time and sat down. Around me was a middle-aged man, smoking Seafoam.
A drug that was sold for a very low price by peddlers in the 13th Ward and down. Appearantly it boosts your cognitive abilities, but made you hallucinate as a result. Next to me was a little girl, looking very sad. She must be waiting for someone.
Just then the train pulled up to the stop and the robotic woman's voice said "Thank you for riding PlaSma Tech's Speeder Train System. Please enjoy your ride,". And suddenly the voice in my head had gone silent.