When the door slammed shut, a storm erupted inside Abel. His thoughts, tangled with the chemicals pulsing through his veins, twisted into a volatile mix of rage, despair, and icy detachment. Fragmented images flashed through his mind—a crimson haze of fury, then the numbing grip of apathy. His hands clenched into fists, knuckles whitening, as a single, primal urge throbbed in his temples—to tear apart anyone who dared come near.
At the exit, he collided with one of Silko's enforcers. The man loomed over him—a two-meter brute with a sneer dripping condescension. He eyed Abel's pitiful figure: a scrawny kid in a battered gas mask, clothes caked in grime and dried blood.
"Boys!" the thug bellowed, laughing to his crew. "Someone forget their pup? Told ya, if you wanna have fun, keep it at home!"
Silence. The other enforcers averted their eyes, faces tight with unease. But the newcomer, emboldened by their quiet, mistook it for approval. His meaty hand clamped down on Abel's head, heavy and possessive.
"Nobody wants this one? Guess I'll take the toy for myself—"
A wet, squelching sound cut through the air.
Something warm and sticky splattered across the man's face. His own hand—still twitching in its death throes—sailed past his eyes. He froze, his mind struggling to catch up. Blood? His blood, gushing from the stump where his hand had been, pooling in his boots.
"Gaaah!" Pain finally ripped a scream from his throat.
He glanced at his comrades, seeking help, but found only horror in their eyes. No laughter, no jeers—just silent disavowal, as if they'd already written him off.
He stumbled, desperate to flee, but his legs buckled. He collapsed before Abel, a fresh wave of agony exploding in his knee. And then he saw the boy's eyes.
Empty. Dead. Only a faint tremor in the pupils betrayed the chemical inferno raging within.
The last thing he registered was a patch of polluted sky hurtling toward him.
The thug's head rolled into the shadows, leaving a crimson trail.
Abel exhaled heavily, his gas mask hissing as it filtered the toxic air. One step. Then another. He moved forward, leaving only silence in his wake.
Silence clung to him like a shadow, an unshakable ghost of the past. The Undercity buzzed with its usual chaos—thieves haggling, the acrid stench of chemicals and sweat thick in the air. But Abel moved through it all detached, belonging neither to this place nor its people. His steps were heavy, mechanical, each one punctuated by the rhythmic hiss of his mask. The world around him blurred into a cacophony he refused to engage with.
He didn't know where he was going. There was no destination—only motion. To stop was to feel, and feeling was a luxury he couldn't afford. The chemicals in his blood dulled the edges of his pain but couldn't erase it entirely. They left him hollow, a vessel for instincts and impulses he barely understood.
Goals? They were as murky as the smog-choked skyline. Revenge smoldered somewhere deep, an ember he wasn't ready to stoke. It was always there, but it lacked focus—too vague to pursue. Ambitions? Maybe he'd had them once, before the chemicals, before the mask, before the blood. Now they were ghosts, fleeting and shapeless. What ambitions could a boy have when he didn't even know who he was?
He wandered through the Undercity's labyrinth, past markets where scavengers bartered stolen tech and vials of glowing concoctions. He skirted the glow of makeshift labs where self-taught alchemists brewed poisons no worse than the ones in his veins. No one bothered him. Some recognized the mask, the bloodstains, the dead-eyed stare. Others just sensed something off in his gait, something inhuman in the way he moved. To them, he was a specter—a walking warning to stay away.
The Undercity was alive, but Abel wasn't part of it. He was a stranger in its streets, an outsider even among outcasts. People were noise—weak, greedy, cowardly. They schemed and betrayed, their voices grating against his ears. He didn't speak to them. Didn't respond. When drunken thugs tried to provoke him, their bravado withered under his gaze. A single step forward, a tilt of his head, and they'd scatter, muttering excuses. They didn't know what he was capable of, but they felt it. Instinct warned them where words failed.
Sometimes, he paused. In the reflection of a stagnant puddle or a grimy shop window, he caught glimpses of himself. A stranger stared back—a gaunt figure in a gas mask, sunken eyes, tattered clothes. The sight stirred nothing in him. No recognition, no pity. Just a vague sense of disconnect, as if the boy in the reflection wasn't him at all.
Isolation was his armor. He'd built it brick by brick, shutting out the world to protect what little remained inside. The Undercity's inhabitants were obstacles, distractions, threats. He didn't need them. Didn't want them. His silence was his strength, a barrier no one could breach. Even when the chemicals surged, urging him to lash out, he held back, channeling the chaos into his steps—his endless march through the city's underbelly.
But the Undercity was relentless. It pressed in on him, its sights and sounds clawing at his senses. The clatter of rusted machinery, the shouts of vendors, the distant wail of sirens—all blended into a grating symphony he couldn't escape. He passed a street where chem-addicts slumped against walls, eyes glazed, bodies twitching. He didn't linger. Their faces were too close to the one he saw in his reflections.
He turned down a narrow alley, the air thick with smoke and chemical fumes. The walls were caked in grime, streaked with graffiti that told stories of gangs and betrayals. His mask filtered the worst of the stench, but the weight of the air still pressed against him, heavy and suffocating. He kept moving, driven by a need he couldn't name. To stop was to drown.
Memories flickered unbidden. A face—blurred, familiar, gone. A voice, soft but distant, swallowed by static. He shook his head, forcing them down. The chemicals helped, dulling the edges of the past, but they couldn't erase it completely. It lingered, a wound that refused to heal. He didn't want to remember. Remembering meant pain, and pain meant weakness.
He emerged into a crowded square where merchants hawked their wares under flickering neon signs. The air buzzed with voices—bargaining, cursing, laughing. Abel kept to the edges, his presence barely noticed. A group of chem-runners darted past, their bags clinking with vials. He didn't flinch. They were part of the city's pulse, its lifeblood, but they meant nothing to him.
He stopped at a stall piled with scrap metal and broken tech. The vendor, a wiry man with a nervous tic, glanced at him and quickly looked away. Abel's gaze lingered on a cracked mirror propped against a crate. His reflection stared back, distorted by the fractures. He tilted his head, studying the stranger in the glass. The mask hid his face, but his eyes—those cold, trembling eyes—betrayed the storm within.
Who was he? The question gnawed at him, persistent and unanswerable. The chemicals had taken his past, leaving only jagged fragments too broken to piece together. He was Abel, but what did that mean? A name. A shell. A weapon. Nothing more.
He turned away, the mirror's image fading from his mind. The square's noise swallowed him as he pressed forward, weaving through the crowd. His steps were steady, purposeful, even if he had no purpose. Movement was survival. To pause was to invite the memories, the feelings, the weakness.
Hours bled together. The Undercity's districts blurred—markets, slums, industrial zones. He passed a factory spewing green vapor, its workers coughing behind makeshift masks. He crossed a bridge over a canal of sludge, its surface shimmering with oil and toxins. Everywhere, the city pulsed with desperation—a machine devouring itself.
Night fell, though the Undercity never truly darkened. Neon and firelight cast long shadows, painting the streets in sickly hues. Abel's mask glowed faintly, its filters humming as they fought the worsening air. He felt the chemicals in his blood stir, a restless energy making his fingers twitch. He clenched his fists, forcing it down. Control was all he had.
He found himself in a quieter district, where the streets were narrower, the crowds thinner. The buildings here were older, their facades crumbling under decades of neglect. The air was heavy with rust and decay. He slowed, his footsteps echoing in the stillness. For a moment, he felt the weight of his solitude—a crushing presence threatening to swallow him whole.
He stopped at a derelict warehouse, its windows boarded, its walls scarred by fire. Something about it felt familiar, though he couldn't place why. He stared at the rusted door, half-expecting a memory to surface. None came. Just the same hollow ache, the same unanswered questions.
He moved on, the warehouse fading into the smog. The city's rhythm pulled him back, its chaos a strange comfort. He didn't belong here, but he didn't belong anywhere else. The Undercity was all he knew—its ugliness a mirror of his own.
As he wandered, his thoughts drifted to the future. Revenge was a constant, a low hum in the back of his mind. Silko's name surfaced, sharp and bitter. The man's shadow loomed over the Undercity, his enforcers a plague on its streets. Abel's hands twitched at the thought, the chemicals urging action. But revenge required clarity, a plan—and he had neither. Not yet.
Ambitions, though—he could almost grasp them. Power, perhaps. Not the kind Silko wielded, built on fear and betrayal, but something else. Control. Over himself. Over the chaos threatening to consume him. He wanted to be more than a weapon, more than a ghost. But how? The path was hidden, lost in the smog of his mind.
He pushed the thoughts aside. They were distractions, and distractions were dangerous. For now, he would keep moving, keep surviving. The rest would come in time. Or it wouldn't. Either way, he'd face it alone.
The hours stretched on, the city's pulse his only companion. Abel's legs ached, but he ignored the pain. Pain was just another signal—like hunger or fear—to be silenced. He passed a gang of scavengers picking through debris, their voices low and tense. They didn't notice him. Or if they did, they knew better than to engage.
He turned into a narrow alley, the air thick with the stench of burning chemicals. The walls closed in, slick with condensation. His mask's filters whined, struggling against the toxic haze. He pressed forward, driven by the same nameless need that had carried him this far.
And then he heard it—footsteps, light and rapid. Laughter followed, high and unrestrained. Children. They spilled into the alley, a chaotic swarm of motion and noise. They chased each other, shouting, their voices cutting through the Undercity's gloom. Abel froze, his instincts flaring. He didn't like surprises, didn't like unpredictability. His hand twitched toward the blade at his hip, but he stopped himself. They were just kids.
He watched them pass, their figures blurred by the smog. They didn't notice him, too caught up in their game. He should've moved on, should've ignored them. But something held him in place—a flicker of curiosity he couldn't explain.
And then he saw them—two girls, standing out in the crowd. One had hair the color of a clear sky, a vivid blue that seemed impossible in the Undercity's filth. The other's hair was a bright, defiant pink, glowing like a neon sign. They ran together, laughing, their voices mingling with the others. For a moment, the world narrowed to those colors, those sounds.
Abel's breath caught, his mask hissing softly. He didn't know why they mattered, why they tugged at something deep inside. But as they disappeared into the crowd, their laughter fading, he felt a shift. A spark—faint but undeniable.
He stood there, alone in the alley, the city's weight pressing down once more. The girls were gone, but their colors lingered in his mind—a crack in his armor. For the first time in hours, he felt something other than emptiness.
And then he walked on.