Beneath the gloomy, Billy walked home with fast steps and soon reached his neighborhood. Tall crumbling buildings rose from the ground like jagged teeth.
The structures were packed so tightly that sunlight barely reached the narrow, winding alleyways below. Each building seemed to have been cobbled together, floor by floor, apartment by apartment, a haphazard stack of concrete and rusted metal. Layers of laundry hung from every possible space—clotheslines stretched between windows, across balconies, and even above the narrow street below, casting fluttering shadows on the cracked pavement.
Billy jogged up the stairs, the elevators had long gone out of power, but thankfully, he lived on the fifth floor with his grandmother, the people who lived on the twelfth floor had it worse.
The apartments themselves were barely larger than closets, their windows fogged with grime, their walls thin enough to hear the arguments and laughter of neighbors on all sides. Corrugated metal rooftops overlapped like patchwork, some leaking into the crowded homes beneath.
Living in the main slums of the Seventh Wall City, Billy walked to his own apartment.
The smell of fried oil, spices, and decay hung thick in the air, mingling with the noise from the neighbouring apartments.
Billy hummed a song as he inserted the key into the doorknob, ignoring the yells from the opposite room as his neighbor beat his wife like always.
"Hey, kid! Where are you coming from by this time of the day?"
His grandmother weak but stern voice greeted him as soon as he entered into the house.
She sat on her bed on the cramped apartment, watching the non-holographic television that she had managed to purchase.
"Out, nana, it's barely past three pm. Do I have to tell you everything?" He grumbled the last part underneath his breath, heading to his room that he managed to get after begging her for two years.
"What did you say, you rude child? Come back here!"
He locked the door of his room - a room that consisted of a pile of both clean and dirty clothes, a thin mattress, a small standing-fan, and a dirty blue mosquito net.
Billy jambed the door again, ignoring his grandmother's scolding as he sat on his compressed bed that consisted of a flat mattress and a blanket. Taking out the glass tube that he had carefully wrapped in a handkerchief from his pocket, he uncorked it.
His heart thumped with fear, and excitement as he imagined standing in front of Jack with an ability that excelled theirs.
"This is the real one. This will work." He closed his eyes, reassuring himself.
He closed his eyes even tighter and with one gulp, emptying the content in his mouth, the cold purple liquid flowed down his throat and he closed his eyes, waiting for a reaction of any kind-
"Argh!" The scream was muffled when he turned his head to the bed, shoving his white-turned-brown blanket into his mouth.
Pain shot up from his abdomen to the top of his head, spreading to every inch of his body. His limbs twitched, cracking and twisting as they twisted to the opposite side.
Now, the sound from the TV was loud enough to drown his screams as his grandmother had probably fallen asleep, and as usual, the quack television which worked on its own must have increased its own volume by itself.
Billy grabbed his flesh in an attempt to tear it off as it now felt like a suffocating hot blanket wrapped tightly around him.
For another forty seconds of unbearable pain, Billy sprawled on his bed, he had chopped his blanket into pieces and some part remained his mouth. He opened his eyes, his throat felt dry as hunger seared through his stomach.
Picking himself up, he found his doorknob and twisted it despite his foggy eyesight. The doorknob crumbled in his hand but the door opened, hence, he let the pieces of the broken knob fall off his hand and onto the rough carpeted floor.
His stomach grumbled as his sight turned even foggier, darkness enclosed him as he fell to the ground...or so, he thought.
Billy woke up soon, the hunger and thirst he felt was gone and his body was filled with a strange but warm energy. He glanced down at his hands and jerked up when he saw that they were dyed red, covered in blood.
"Nana." He turned to see the disfigured corpse, lying on the floor, her face was disfigured as more than half of her body was mauled, her blood soaked the carpeted floor.
"Nana?" He called again and dropped down close to her body, tears streamed down his eyes as he held her bloodied body close, "Nana, why...why do you smell so nice?"
A sick smile formed on his lips as he swayed with the dead body in his arms, he raised his head up. The power that he felt was satisfying, but it was not near enough. He didn't want mere strength, he needed an ability - one that would cause people to cower in fear.
He licked the blood off her cold cheek, the memory of him tearing her old flesh apart flooded back into his head.
He caressed her hair slowly, but an idea flashed in his mind, causing him to stand up abruptly, and the body fell to the ground with a hopeless thud.
He entered the bathroom to wash the blood off him, but caught his reflection in the mirror; his eyes were completely grey and his skin was no different.
"Ah, dammit." He cursed in a low voice before putting on a black hoodie, "What did those darn geezers do to me?"
It was already evening, so he jogged back to the illegal shop where he bought the serum.
"What do you want again?" The woman frowned when she saw the familiar face, entering her store.
"More."
"More of what?" Her frowned deepened.
"More of the serum." He scratched the back of his head and his head twitched like a drug addict in need of drugs.
"Do you have more money?"
"Money? No." Billy shook his head.
"Then, I don't have more, please leave." The woman turned her back to leave, but Billy grabbed her by the shoulder. He pulled her towards him with unadulterating speed and bit into her neck, pulling out a large chunk of her trachea as he threw his head back.
She fell to the ground, blood spluttering out of her neck as she gasped.
Billy walked past her, moving to the shelf where the man had rolled the crate from, and he really was there with the crate, he had his hand pressed against his mouth to stop him from screaming.
"Hello." Billy stuck his head from behind the shelf.
"Ah! N-no, please don't kill me."
"Hmm." He scratched his neck, "I just need those."
"T-take them, take them all."
Billy picked up one of the tubes and emptied the content in his mouth after uncorking it, however, it just tasted blank, he didn't feel the same surge of power as he did earlier.
"It's not from the serum." He mumbled to himself, his eyes darting to the man who was trying to escape, "It's from them." A sick smile made its way to his lips.