People worship "gifts" without question.
They treat the power of a gift like proof of worth… and anything without it becomes worthless— just like me.
|| Name: Rhaen Vauxhall ||
|| Gift: None ||
Floating above my wrist was a blue translucent window that every single person born in this tower had as a proof of their identity.
Gift means power.
Power means they could ascend the floors prepared by the tower and reach the pinnacle that promised a miracle.
"The top, huh…"
I got lost in thought, imagining the possibility of reaching the hundredth floor. The distraction made me careless as I inspected the trash bags piled beside the building and the guard noticed.
"Don't move!" the guard exclaimed, pointing a revolver at me. "You insolent Giftless rat! Jeopardizing the beauty of Ferroa Arx by wrecking the cleanup effort like trash drawn to trash."
Bang!
The crack of the gunshot split the air as a plume of dust burst from the concrete wall just inches to my right. He missed, but not by much.
Warning shot.
I didn't move. For a second, the sound still rang in my ears. Turning my head just enough to have a clear view of the guard, his revolver was still raised while wearing that same expression they all wore when they looked at someone like me.
Contempt.
"Don't make me shoot again! Drop everything, or drop dead."
Slowly, I tightened my grip on the trash bag on my hands and hurled it straight at the guard's head. I didn't hope it would hit, but…
"What the—!"
Bang!
…hoped that rotten fluids sprayed against his face, along with pieces of scraps and metals was enough to block his line of sight and throw off his aim.
That was all I needed.
I sprinted down the alley. I had mapped this path a dozen times in my head and walked it hundreds more with eyes open.
"Stop right there, you freak!"
Behind me, his boots thundered after mine as he chased after me.
"I said stop!"
I didn't stop though. Only an idiot would stop when someone chasing after them told them to stop.
I'm not an idiot.
I vaulted over a rusted pipe, kicked off the brick wall to the right, landed on a rain-stained drainpipe and stepped on the edge, using the bend to boost up onto the ledge above.
Bang! Bang!
Sparks flew as the bullet scraped the metal where I had been a second before, but the second shot grazed my left forearm.
"Urghkkk…"
It hurts, but I had to escape.
Clutching my forearm, I did a six-foot jump to the next rooftop, hit the edge with both feet, and kept running.
Making sure not to step unto the fragile vent cover on my right, I hopped beside it and ducked to dodge a row of crooked satellite dishes jutting out.
"Jeopardizing the beauty of this city of trash?"
Staring out across the rooftops of Ferroa Arx, I slowed for the first time.
Nothing about the city was beautiful.
It looked like the remains of a city. Shanty homes and broken buildings were packed too close together, like they were barely holding each other up.
Rooftops stacked unevenly. Some were made of rusted metal while others were patched with wood or plastic. Bent chimneys leaned sideways, along with neon signs that flickered weakly even though it was daytime.
"Assholes. What beauty? You shitheads."
This city was the complete opposite of Verde Arx on the far side of the First Floor where lushes stood elegantly. In fact, Verde Arx was more like a greenforest than that of a city.
Pulling up the hood of my jacket, I jumped down onto the street and slipped my hand into my pocket, counting the gears I had scavenged.
There were plenty of gears inside the trash bags earlier, but it's not like all of them were worth anything. Most were rusted and stripped. I doubted Mr. Junon would take half of them, let alone give me food for it in exchange.
"...A rye bread."
I pulled my hood tighter as I slipped into the alley behind the burned-out post office, the usual shortcut toward Junon's corner.
Mr. Junon's shop wasn't really a shop but just a stall beneath a crooked tarp, wedged under a half-collapsed scaffold. A few plastic crates lay stacked beside a makeshift table covered with mechanical scraps, some barely recognizable.
Junon stood behind the table. His arms were crossed, shoulders were hunched, and his one eye permanently squinted. His beard had more wire in it than hair, and his breath smelled like burned circuits.
"You're early today, brat."
I didn't answer. I just pulled the gears out of my pocket and dropped them onto the table. Twelve in total. I kept the best ones on top, hoping to distract from the slightly useless junk underneath.
He raised an eyebrow and picked up one of the gears, turning it in his thick fingers.
"Half of these are dead."
"They still turn."
"They turn like a corpse twitching. That's not the same."
Still, he didn't push them back. Instead, he rummaged under the table and came back up with a small cloth wrap.
He unrolled it with one hand, revealing a single round loaf.
I nodded and reached for it, but his hand still stayed on the loaf.
"You want a bag?"
I shook my head.
Finally, he let go. Thus I took the bread and turned away.
"You break that gear you're hiding in your sleeve," he called after me, "I'll dock you next time."
I didn't look back or answer him. He wasn't wrong. There was a thirteenth gear in my pocket. It was clean, untouched, and worth more than all those twelve combined.
I smiled.
"Thanks for the bread, old man."
"Brat," Mr. Junon muttered, collecting the gears on the table. "Eat well."
Nevertheless, I had something to eat tomorrow.
I stepped out from under Junon's tarp whilst holding the cold and a little moldy bread in my hand and keeping my head down as usual.
But.
I bumped into someone, and the bread flew from my hand, bounced off the ground, and rolled onto the filthy street.
"Watch it."
The man muttered and walked past without stopping. A mask covered half his face: plain metal, scratched, with a single dark slit for an eye.
He didn't even apologize.
"...Fucking bastard."
I reached out to grab the bread, but—
Crunch!
Boots of someone walking past came down on it and stepped directly on the bread, not even noticing. I flinched and pulled my hand back.
Yet before I could try again…
Crunch! Cru–
Another pair of boots stepped down on it, again and again. It kept getting stepped on. No one stopped. No one looked down. People just kept walking.
By the time the crowd thinned, the rye loaf was nothing but flattened crust and dirt.
With my hand still half-stretched, I stared at it.
Still.
Food was food.
I bent down slowly, ignoring the looks (if there were any) and picked up the flattened loaf with both hands. Dirt clung to the crust and one side was soaked with bootprints.
I wiped it off as best I could against my sleeve and held it for a second longer, eyes fixed on the mess of crumbs and footprints on the ground.
"Damn this whole rotting world."
The bitterness in my voice didn't feel new.
A memory flickered as I stood there: a woman in a torn green apron, handing a half-loaf of bread to a crying child on the street. When the kid shook their head and pushed it away, she turned toward me sitting with my back to the wall and eyes hollow from days without eating.
"If you're going to throw it away," she told the child, loud enough for me to hear, "then give it to someone who'll eat anything."
She placed the bread in my hands out of spite. She used me as a lesson and example for the child.
Funny enough, the child started to cry once again and the woman took back the bread before I could take a bite and throw it inside a trash can. Afterall, I was…
Giftless.
Like the word itself was filth.
Just thinking about it, my fingers clenched around the flattened loaf.
I tucked the crushed loaf into my jacket and turned into the nearest alley beneath the old clocktower.
Its bricks were cracked and weathered, the stone blackened by years of smoke and rain, but it was probably the strongest building left in Ferroa Arx.
Panting, I leaned against the wall and pulled the crushed loaf from inside my coat, and I inspected it carefully once again.
Fortunately, it was still edible.
"Pspspspsps…"
Breaking the loaf in half, I crouched slightly and called out for Mr. Graycat.
As the name suggests, Mr. Graycat is, well, a gray cat.
Mr. Graycat was a thin, frail, and once little more than skin stretched over bones. But ever since I started feeding him half of the rye bread I traded day after day, he's been putting on a bit of weight.
"Pspsps…"
I tried again.
Normally, Mr. Graycat would come sprinting after the first call. Some days, he would even wait for me here, curled up on top of a broken generator like he owned the place.
But today…
"...Sigh. Should I call him Mr. Sleepycat instead?"
Taking my back off the wall, I told myself he was probably just sleeping again.
Thus I started walking deeper into the alley. It wasn't the first time Mr. Graycat had overslept as sometimes, I would find him curled up under the tarp near the end of the path.
But just as I took my first step.
Mreeeaaaaw~!!
I froze.
I knew that voice.
"Mr. Graycat?"
He had a certain way of meowing when he was scared, like his throat couldn't quite decide whether to growl or call for help.
It always sounded like it hurt just to speak.
My grip on the crushed loaf tightened, but I didn't care if I dropped it anymore.
I ducked under a leaning metal sheet and brushed past hanging wires and weaved through rusted junk and bent scaffolding. The alley narrowed the deeper I went, the louder the cry went.
Mreeeaaaaw~!
Just past a pile of dented engine frames, I found the source.
There, half-crouched beneath a collapsed awning, was a man. His fingers were wrapped tight around Mr. Graycat's neck and gripped him just under the jaw, lifting him off the ground.
Mr. Graycat's paws kicked weakly.
The man grinned as he looked at the other man crouching beside him.
"See? I told you…" the man said in a cheerful tone. "Cats can make a musical masterpiece if you squeeze 'em hard enough."