The year was 2270. The capital of the world once formerly called New York City; was now the City of Bones. Known as the largest city in the world, it's been expanding for decades. The city is so massive it almost took up the entire state. However, due to the poles melting most of the worlds land masses have been either covered by water or shrunk. Mass extinction was inevitable, and many of the worlds species were exploited.

A lot of what used to be New York State was submerged and new waterways were formed; the land now is currently a peninsula and surrounded by water on three sides but still connected to the mainland. Originally once disaster struck people from all over the world fled to the city but it only backfired on them.

It was called The City Of Bones and branded such a morbid title because there were never-ending power grabs for the metropolis city; it was the core of organized crime.

These violent acts frequently concluded in blood baths throughout the city, causing the pavement to be permanently discolored red from blood. Whoever had control over the city; ran the entire world and the underworld.

All this chaos, anarchy, never-ending tragedies, and for what?

It was all for one thing...

Power.

Above all else the singular thing you could always count on was people's greed and selfishness. There was no God to salvage you in your times of impecuniousness and you were a fool to assume anyone else would take up for you.

Places of worship, government architecture, and historic monuments were all burnt to the ground and obliterated long ago in turmoil that induced millions to be massacred as laws and authority of any kind became nonexistent. Where was their God or government then? When the people were wailing in anguish from losing their loved ones and everything they knew.

Evidently, this was the present reality ever since the government failed two hundred years ago and everything had been seized by the mafias and gangs. Now, there was no one to safeguard humanity and evil was permitted to run rampant destroying everything in its wake.

It was everyone for themselves.

Survival of the fittest; if you will. That's if the acid rain didn't get you first.

Unsurprisingly out of this chaos the city was split; literally and figuratively between the poor and the rich. The lower and upper ring were created decades ago; separated by cement walls that were thicker than steel and so high they reached the clouds. The entire city was surrounded by the outermost wall, and the inner wall was in the center of the city.

The great walls are one of the most iconic structures built in human history. But it was also one of the most extensive and arduous construction projects in human history. The project caused untold suffering for millions of people across the newly unified city. Families were torn apart, and children died hundreds of miles away from their loved ones.

Originally thought of as a defensive structure it stands as one of the most impressive structures on the face of the planet, but it took a great deal of hardship to accomplish its completion.  Because the labor required to build the walls was legendarily backbreaking, there emerged a longstanding rumor that workers who died in the building of the walls had their bodies ground up to make the mortar that would keep it together. Others say that dead workers were simply buried inside the wall.

The upper ring was city land claimed and governed by the most powerful and wealthy from the underworld to develop contemporary civilizations out of the rubble. Giving the residents no option but to follow the regulations and laws contrived by them.

This always seemed so mundane to a certain black haired beauty. The overly polluted city lights were blinding her unnaturally blue eyes as everything flashed, showing advertisement for drugs and prostitution. The bright neon glow shining into the green smog above the city. People got brutally murdered and robbed but no one seemed to mind. Some even paid to see such horrific acts. Silla never really knew why she was here, but this was it. This was home.

This was hell.

And soon the young girl would turn eleven in a months' time.

As most could assume from the circumstances life was already arduous for the young budding girl, as she was much too young to remain unaccompanied in this callous and unrelenting world.

The lower ring where Silla was born and had grown up was predominantly dreadful. The gangs that ruled were so stringent that it was virtually impossible to bear. They demanded more than half of your earnings and food.

It was dirty in the lower ring and most of the tech they got ahold of was from the junkyards provided by the wealthy upper ring along with spare scrape metals. You used whatever you could find; in other words lower ring civilians were scavengers.

The rich would feast and throw out their scraps to the unfed.

The young girl dreamed of traveling to the upper ring, where it was nicer and people led rich lifestyles. Still a very dangerous lifestyle, but better than the alternative. Everyone knew that the powerful in the upper ring pulled all the strings that controlled the city.

Plans and thoughts aside though first she was going to have to find shelter for the night and fast. Climate change and pollution from previous factories had made the land colder than ever, even with the new technological advancements.

Especially since this years' winter was the coldest and brutalist yet...

The streets glistened with a sheet of ice over the pavement, and the wind was bitter and stinging against her soft baby skin. When her breath hit the cold air, she could see it float and disperse in the moonlit sky. Even at this inhospitable time of year, there were prostitutes, vagrants, and street-crawlers, along with the occasional drunk dwelling in the dead of night, hidden from the lives of the rich and elite in the upper ring. Who thrived like an infection from how corrupt the city had become.

Sudden drunken laughter from the bars echoed loudly in the streets, snapping her out of her thoughts as the sidewalk lamps flickered their yellow glow onto the frost and ice below. A man, arm slung over the shoulder of his friend, stepped out of his regular pub hobbling, barely able to stand up without his friend's ever-present support. His words were slurred, barely distinguishable from a toddlers babbling. Although there was a mention of having some fun with a local prostitute.

Silla was in one of the alleys, watching the drunkards stumble past. Her small body wrapped up in a tattered black coat, hems fraying and sleeves torn. The wind violently tugged at her threadbare clothes and worn shoes. Under the shadow of the young girls' ratty beanie, her dark blue eyes were framed by long black eyelashes. Glancing around to make sure no one was looking her way. So she could hurry to find shelter for the night.

The black-haired girl's gloves had multiple holes and didn't keep her small hands very warm. So she desperately started to blow warm air into her shaky hands. "Let's hope I can find a warm place for the night." Tugging the coat closer to her body, she reached one hand up to her beanie and pulled it over her slim face.

Just enough to slightly conceal her features. Dashing out of the alley Silla was in, and she ran down off an empty street. Her shadow racing through the lights like a dancer behind her.

Looking up at the night sky above she saw the protective dome over the city. It was clear like a bubble but it protected everyone below it. It kind of looked like water and yet not. The lights reflected off it and onto the sky in a rainbow. Even further ahead in the center of the city was the upper ring with its own dome inside the city like a bunch of Matryoshka dolls.

Soon she was wandering around abandoned junk yards on the outskirts of the territory. It wasn't long until she finally found a place for the night; an abandoned building, crumbling around the edges with broken windows and piles of debris scattered around. A rotting smell lingered in the air. Making her wrinkle her nose in disgust. Taking action, the fragile girl tugged her coat collar over her nose and mouth.

The first thing that needed to be done was to find an open window. Or at least one that didn't have any glass in it. Spotting one instantly. It stood high against the structure of the warehouse, going up into the rafters of the roof and standing high over everything below. The height didn't make it easy to climb, so it looked like she was going to have to use the debris as a latter. It was disgusting, but it had to be done.

Shrugging her shoulders, she climbed up, slipping every so often. Silla never was much of a climber, anyway. But somehow she managed to reach the window.

Jagged pieces of glass stuck out of the frame, but the gap seemed just big enough. She was very slender and could use that to her advantage. As she was halfway through the window, she suddenly let out a small gasp. Looking down, she and saw a shard of jagged glass ripping into her side. It was right above her rib cage. "Ouch," She silently whispered, hissing in pain while blood leaked from the wound.

Once she was through, Silla found herself on the rotten wooden beams of the rafters. Crawling along the beam until she reached the support beam at the center. She curled up against the wood, using her coat as a blanket, and prepared to get to sleep for the night.

Her goal in running away was making it to the unmarked territory; where no one lived. Why it wasn't claimed land no one is quite sure.

She just wanted to make it the the Inner Ring...

A large zone in the center of the city, surrounded by a wall that held the city's most elite inside. Though the trip would take months for her to just get there. That is, if she was still in one piece by the time she got there.

Organ traffickers would make one's blood run cold. Literally.

To be continued...