The City pulsed with neon lights, as bright and loud at midnight as it was at midday. Street vendors were still hawking their dubious wares.
The current crowd lurking in the streets was not the kind a model citizen would like to be associated with.
A few flies buzzed around in the stale air of a back alley. The walls making it up must have once been red, now faded with time and covered in all sorts of filth.
Humanity had advanced beyond the darkness of the galaxy, yet couldn't deal with its own dark side.
A gruff looking man stumbled over someone who had been lying down, cursing as his cheap brown T-shirt got stained by the dirty walls of the alley.
"Bloody addicts," he mumbled a few more choice words, kicking the corpse-like body before leaving.
There, on the floor of the alleyway, lay a young boy, somewhere in his late teens, mindlessly gazing up into the sky as a hint of drool trickled down his lips.
His white school shirt and green pants were completely muddied from the less than savoury surroundings he was in, but he didn't pay any attention to it as he wiped smidges of a shimmering cyan powder from his nose.
'Boring.'
Even as his vision swam slightly, neurons firing due to the illicit drug's effects, he felt empty within.
Alexithymia was what the psychiatrist had told his parents when he was a child.
[Difficulty identifying, understanding, and expressing emotions.]
But after sixteen years, he knew better. He didn't have difficulty finding or explaining his emotions.
He lacked them entirely.
Joy, sorrow, guilt, fear, regret- things he never knew or experienced.
'This one was a failure too.'
His entire life, he only did as was told to him by his father and mother.
But with them gone, he had no direction in life.
Before their tragic ends, they had done their best to instill a proper moral code into him, or at least teach him how to imitate one.
He pushed himself off the dirty floor, stretching a bit as he dusted off his clothing, a vain attempt to clean it of the grime marking it.
Despite his elevated temperature, dilated pupils, and the bright colours swimming across his vision, the characteristic 'high' of the drug never made its way to his emotional spectrum.
No joy, only discomfort, and the rising sensation of bile creeping up his oesophagus.
He grabbed the corner of the faded red wall, and hurled the half-digested contents of his stomach onto the floor, adding to the ages of filth accumulated there.
'I feel like shit. Really need to find something stronger. Ecstasy isn't cutting it.'
He stumbled out of the alley, his limbs trembling slightly as his vision blurred, telltale signs that the drug was running its course.
Like they always did.
No matter what drug it was. It never managed to provoke much of a reaction from his awry self.
The people walking in the streets either ignored him, or just scrunched their noses as they avoided his general vicinity.
He kept walking, out of the poor and crime infested part of the city, towards a better area, covered in sprawling apartment complexes that towered above the clouds.
In this 'clean' part of town, he himself seemed out of place, a stain marring the pristine streets.
It stood as a stark contrast to the darkened and filth ridden area he had stepped out of.
He approached a large metallic gate, pressing a button as an automated voice rang out.
[Enter Identification]
"Serian, Apartment 23-B."
Serian pressed his face against a specially designed optic scanner, which recorded an optical image.
[Identification confirmed.]
[Welcome Mr. Serian Fall, Apartment 23-B.]
[User seems to be in shock. Alert auth-]
He cut it off with practiced ease as he entered, "No need."
Beyond the titanium alloy gate, he navigated the labyrinthine corridors as he stopped at a specific shuttle.
[Ding!]
He entered the chrome shuttle, and found himself face to weathered face with an old security guard, who frowned at his disheveled state.
"Again? Didn't I warn ya about those powders? They ruin lives kiddo," the old security guard, who had seen Serian grow from a toddler to a young man, fussed.
Serian just listened, bored, as he always did. The old man's droning was a familiar routine, his concern merely an inconvenience at this point.
"Yes. I understand Mr Morgan. I won't do it again (till I find a stronger one)," he said, his lack of interest obvious.
He exited at the 23rd Floor, not even halfway up the tower, quickly finding his apartment.
It was moderately sized, yet too big for just one person.
"I'm home."
Serian mechanically put away his dirtied clothing, as he entered a freezing cold shower.
The sound echoed throughout the empty bathroom as rivulets of cold water ran down his somewhat defined muscles.
Despite the cold water, he simply stared forward calmly, waiting precisely five minutes before stepping out.
'Something stronger… This was the strongest I could find till now though…'
'Will I never feel?'
He didn't feel hatred, but if he did, he imagined this was when he would feel it. Hatred of failure.
'Or fear? I still get those mixed up.'
He stepped in front of a mirror, still drenched.
He shaped his expression into a hateful grimace with his fingers, individually controlling every muscle in his face, observing his own body language to perfect Hate.
He seamlessly shifted to Sorrow, his frame seemingly wracked with despair.
Then Joy.
Then Regret.
Dozens of emotions flashed across his face, but not one reflected on his soul.
Serian lay onto a large bed, pulling a small tablet from a drawer nearby.
He opened it with a touch, quickly finding a file titled,
[Homework]
Upon opening it, he scrolled past hundreds of drawings of the human face, stopping at a subcategory: Hate.
He quickly sketched a new set of movements to add to his routine practice, before putting the tablet away and laying back down.
'New uniform…'
Mundane was the life of an orphaned student, especially when the aforementioned student lacked emotions.
He reviewed his day, especially the parts hazy from drug induced slumber.
' If you ever need something a bit …grown up, come find me in that place,' he recalled one particular addict telling him a few days ago..
'This seems to be the only lead I have right now.'
'I suppose I'll go there then… the Black Market.'