everyday drug vendors he got on
with. Sheikoh sympathized with them; he knew about what kind of
concessions you made with yourself. Surviving the heartless west
left you with stains and impurities, accumulated along with each
week of pay.
However, when it came to dealing Four,
there were no words with any hope at exoneration. That crime
amounted to a knife that’d been stabbed straight through Sheikoh’s
and Dorothi’s hearts. Through their lives. Every happy moment came
with an undercurrent of regret, with the reminder that Emili wasn’t
there to share it with them.
Emili, the girl that’d saved his life.
That’d rescued him from the gutter soaked in his blood. The friend
Sheikoh had grown to love and cherish - the angel that recreated
him, bound his life into a half of something worth living
for.
Then he had been forced to watch her
descent into the depths of self-mutilation and denial. He’d held
her hand, as she fucked everything up, again and again and again.
His street name, Silence, was a testament to the silent tears
that’d marched down his face like conscripted soldiers to their
deaths. All because of Four.
There were too many stories like
there’s. Nobody wanted to be connected to another epidemic of the
lethal Four, the most addictive and dangerous compound in all of
the entire Intrasentient Empire.
He couldn’t keep doing this to
himself. He had to stop torturing himself. His chest felt hollow
and rotted out. It wasn’t empty though, he had Dorothi. He’d take
care of her for as long as he could hold on to that ever-darkening
sense of right and wrong that’d guided him to his point. For her,
he would never join the ranks of the depraved, bloodthirsty demons
that had ripped so many lives apart, literally in his
case.
And not just regarding
Emili.
His hand rose to caress the right side
of his chest as he walked. He snorted with cynical laughter. It
seemed that no matter what train of thought he boarded, its last
station was always Emili…
The wall dominated his right side of the concrete sidewalk.
Sheikoh slunk alongside it for a while, and then finally he made
out the silversteel gate, the only passageway between the west and
east. He glanced uneasily over the two Century standing silent
vigil beside its silversteel. They were the only ones you could
ever reliably expect to find in the west side.
Other than here, the west was
undeniably under Legacy’s rule. Rumor had it that something had
been brokered between Ghost, Legacy’s mysterious leader, and
Centaurai Cylium Vest. What could the gang possibly have to offer
worth half of Interium though? Did they have some kind of blackmail
on Centaurai? And if not, why would the Centaurai quarantine the
area behind a wall and then just leave it to fester?
Something didn’t add up.
As Sheikoh drew nearer, The
Centurys’ reflective, black visors turned his way. He shivered at
their bland featurelessness. The Centurys’
uniform hid any proof of humanity. Their faceless faces were
outlined by a hood that flowed into a bone-white cloak. The
pitch-black underlay beneath was only broken by the white of their
chest guards, boots and gloves, all lined in skeletal black. The
uniform hid every stray inch of skin.
Uncomfortable, Sheikoh held up his new
deputy badge to the gate’s scanner. The metal door flicked upwards
with a deafening clang, moving so fast that it was as if it’d
disappeared. With the Centurys’ visors on his back, Sheikoh stepped
onto the cobblestones of the east side, officially crossing the
gate’s threshold for the first time in his life.
The east had a quaint, little
cobblestone-village theme that ended at the sharp boundaries of
egregiously modern buildings. The advertising was wholly silent,
peering from behind stores’ perfectly invisible glass. Sheikoh took
in the fountain in the center of the street, the two statues off to
the sides, the hoovesback people wearing suits in varying shades of
grey, black and blue and
with. Sheikoh sympathized with them; he knew about what kind of
concessions you made with yourself. Surviving the heartless west
left you with stains and impurities, accumulated along with each
week of pay.
However, when it came to dealing Four,
there were no words with any hope at exoneration. That crime
amounted to a knife that’d been stabbed straight through Sheikoh’s
and Dorothi’s hearts. Through their lives. Every happy moment came
with an undercurrent of regret, with the reminder that Emili wasn’t
there to share it with them.
Emili, the girl that’d saved his life.
That’d rescued him from the gutter soaked in his blood. The friend
Sheikoh had grown to love and cherish - the angel that recreated
him, bound his life into a half of something worth living
for.
Then he had been forced to watch her
descent into the depths of self-mutilation and denial. He’d held
her hand, as she fucked everything up, again and again and again.
His street name, Silence, was a testament to the silent tears
that’d marched down his face like conscripted soldiers to their
deaths. All because of Four.
There were too many stories like
there’s. Nobody wanted to be connected to another epidemic of the
lethal Four, the most addictive and dangerous compound in all of
the entire Intrasentient Empire.
He couldn’t keep doing this to
himself. He had to stop torturing himself. His chest felt hollow
and rotted out. It wasn’t empty though, he had Dorothi. He’d take
care of her for as long as he could hold on to that ever-darkening
sense of right and wrong that’d guided him to his point. For her,
he would never join the ranks of the depraved, bloodthirsty demons
that had ripped so many lives apart, literally in his
case.
And not just regarding
Emili.
His hand rose to caress the right side
of his chest as he walked. He snorted with cynical laughter. It
seemed that no matter what train of thought he boarded, its last
station was always Emili…
The wall dominated his right side of the concrete sidewalk.
Sheikoh slunk alongside it for a while, and then finally he made
out the silversteel gate, the only passageway between the west and
east. He glanced uneasily over the two Century standing silent
vigil beside its silversteel. They were the only ones you could
ever reliably expect to find in the west side.
Other than here, the west was
undeniably under Legacy’s rule. Rumor had it that something had
been brokered between Ghost, Legacy’s mysterious leader, and
Centaurai Cylium Vest. What could the gang possibly have to offer
worth half of Interium though? Did they have some kind of blackmail
on Centaurai? And if not, why would the Centaurai quarantine the
area behind a wall and then just leave it to fester?
Something didn’t add up.
As Sheikoh drew nearer, The
Centurys’ reflective, black visors turned his way. He shivered at
their bland featurelessness. The Centurys’
uniform hid any proof of humanity. Their faceless faces were
outlined by a hood that flowed into a bone-white cloak. The
pitch-black underlay beneath was only broken by the white of their
chest guards, boots and gloves, all lined in skeletal black. The
uniform hid every stray inch of skin.
Uncomfortable, Sheikoh held up his new
deputy badge to the gate’s scanner. The metal door flicked upwards
with a deafening clang, moving so fast that it was as if it’d
disappeared. With the Centurys’ visors on his back, Sheikoh stepped
onto the cobblestones of the east side, officially crossing the
gate’s threshold for the first time in his life.
The east had a quaint, little
cobblestone-village theme that ended at the sharp boundaries of
egregiously modern buildings. The advertising was wholly silent,
peering from behind stores’ perfectly invisible glass. Sheikoh took
in the fountain in the center of the street, the two statues off to
the sides, the hoovesback people wearing suits in varying shades of
grey, black and blue and
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