May 4, 2063
The scorching sun melted the asphalt, sending children into squeals of delight while adults trudged to work like flies in boiling water. Among these miserable toilers were our heroes, dispatched on a mission to an utterly wretched place—a pitiful sight that made you want to either flee as fast as possible or, at the very least, burn it all to the ground.
The narrow, crooked streets drowned in perpetual filth, as if the very earth here refused to absorb anything but garbage and human misery. The roads—if they could even be called that—more closely resembled rutted tracks, pockmarked with fetid puddles floating with scraps of food, cigarette butts, and other unidentifiable nastiness. After rain, they turned into a sticky sludge that clung to your soles, while in the dry heat, they kicked up acrid dust laced with the stench of rancid grease and urine.
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The image for the chapter (just poke and there will be a comment from me with the attached image)
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As they trudged toward their destination, Niya—bubbling with restless energy—suddenly barked:
"Hey!"
The Prophet seemed to snap back to reality, blinking dumbly.
"Huh?"
"What's eating you? You've been stomping around all day like a thundercloud! I am worried, y'know!" Niya grabbed his cheek, her black almond-shaped nails digging in just enough to sting while her thumb absently stroked the small paw-shaped sticker on his face. She tried to peer into his maroon eyes, veiled in shadow, but her own pupil-less red orbs only reflected his disheveled white strands, escaping from his messy bun.
"…Drop it," the Prophet grunted, mechanically adjusting the torn sleeve of his T-shirt and avoiding her gaze.
"Nuh-uh, spill it, dumbass!" She squeezed his cheeks harder. Flickers of blue pixelated light danced in the depths of her crimson eyes. "You know I won't let up till I pry it out of you!"
"I… It's just something Nelly said. Can't shake it," he muttered, staring into the middle distance. His gloved right hand clenched the hilt of his ninjato. Was he seeing anything beyond his own thoughts? Hard to say.
"Ugh, come on!" Niya flicked his forehead, her sleek white bob swaying with the motion. "She's always off in la-la land! Spouts nonsense 24/7! I don't let Adelina's crap get to me, and neither should you!"
"I know, I'm trying," the Prophet sighed, running his bare hand through his hair to fix his bun. "But that last talk about dreams… It stuck with me. Been thinking about it for days!" He swallowed hard, his harem pants rustling as he sucked in a breath and blurted: "What the hell's wrong with me? Everyone's got dreams, goals… hell, even ambitions! But I just— I can't tune this crap out! It's pissing me off!"
"What part, exactly?" Niya crossed her arms, her sharp-lined blue blazer riding up to reveal black suspenders.
"All of it! You three have these perfect, down-to-earth dreams! You—your defense agency, Nelly—her little cabin up north, riding snowmobiles… Adelina, she—"
"Yeah, yeah, you're our special little weirdo," Niya cut in, booping his nose. Her red eyes narrowed. "Y'know what my dad called guys like you? Dumbasses! Said a man without a dream is like a man fishing—both are dumbasses! Ha!"
"Nini, first—you interrupted me! Second—what does fishing have to do with anything?!" The Prophet's maroon eyes flashed as his jacket slid off one shoulder.
"God, you're slow!" Niya rolled her eyes, her pupil-less gaze briefly flooding with blue light. "I told you—Dad grew up when all the waterways were rad-poisoned. So fishing? Total waste of time! Hence: dumbass!"
"…Right," the Prophet grumbled, shoving his left hand—clad in a vintage watch—into his pocket.
"But y'know what, Prophet?" Niya grinned, punching his arm. "You're the best dumbass I know. You're honest, tough, and you've always had our backs—your three sisters! And about that dream… you'll find it. You always do. You don't half-ass anything!" She paused, then abruptly pivoted: "Now, wanna explain why the hell they sent us to this shithole?"
"Drug trafficking," he deadpanned, adjusting the ninjato on his back.
Niya opened her mouth to protest—then froze. A sickening squelch hit her ears. She looked down.
Her right foot was submerged in a grease puddle, runoff from the surrounding food stalls.
"OH, YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!" She recoiled in horror. "WHAT THE FUCK?!"
Rage replaced disgust. Scanning the filthy street, she zeroed in on a nearby vendor and snarled:
"Hey, dickweed! You got any idea how much these Oxfords cost?!"
The shopkeeper—a man with a thick Georgian accent—spread his hands.
"Vai-me! Why wear such fancy shoes here? You know this place is khatabala!"
"All I heard was: 'Please bury me six feet under today.'" Niya slammed her palms on the counter, her crisp white cuffs stark against the grime. She jabbed a finger at the skull emblem on her chest. "See this? It'll be the last thing you see when I end you. And this—" She pointed at the Prophet's ninjato. "—is gonna slice off your—"
"I'm not slicing off his foreskin," the Prophet interjected flatly, fixing his lopsided bun.
"Tkhaves! Forgive idiot! I have four kids! Please, don't take zmani, gogo!" The vendor begged, wiping sweat with a filthy sleeve.
While those two bickered, the Prophet scanned the area, eyes sharp.
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The image for the chapter (just poke and there will be a comment from me with the attached image)
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The stalls clinging to the edges of the street more closely resembled shacks cobbled together from rotting planks and rusted sheets of tin. Fortunately, the Prophet quickly spotted their target building and, with a comical yank on the collar of Niya's blue blazer, dragged her inside.
Crossing the threshold
The moment they stepped inside, Niya erupted in her trademark outrage.
"What the hell's wrong with you?!" she screeched, but the Prophet didn't even get a chance to respond.
A tidal wave of stench—a cocktail of pus, mold, and forgotten sins—slammed into his nostrils, making him gag. Niya pinched her nose shut and began scanning the room.
The interior was even worse than the outside. It was as if the air itself had absorbed decades of poverty, despair, and something unspeakably rotten.
The smell hit first: the mustiness of stagnant air, undercut by the sour tang of unwashed bodies, rancid grease, and creeping mildew. Something scurried beneath the floorboards in the damp darkness—rats, roaches, or maybe the filth itself had twisted into some grotesque form of life.
The walls, once whitewashed, were now streaked with yellow-brown stains, like the house was suffering from some festering skin disease. Soot and tattered cobwebs clung to the corners, hanging like funerary banners. The floor groaned underfoot, sagging with a wet, suspicious squelch—one wrong step, and your leg might plunge straight into a pit of reeking sludge.
Furniture was scarce: just a couple of rickety stools with peeling paint and a table caked in layers of grime and congealed grease. In the corner, a pile of coarse straw covered by a torn sack pretended to be a bed. Nearby, an overturned pot sat with the petrified remains of some unidentifiable slop, already swarmed by a battalion of rust-colored ants.
The windows, draped in filthy rags instead of curtains, let in only a sickly, jaundiced light, stretching the shadows on the walls into unnaturally long, trembling shapes. The air hung heavy with silence—not peaceful, but smothering, as if the house itself was holding its breath, waiting for its unwanted guests to take one step too far before swallowing them whole.
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The image for the chapter (just poke and there will be a comment from me with the attached image)
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"Why'd you drag me here? You've got a pretty twisted idea of dates," Niya muttered, her voice slightly muffled as she pinched her nose shut.
"Hilarious," the Prophet grunted, utterly deadpan.
"Then why the hell did you bring me here?! I missed half your damn speech because of that Georgian asshole!" She wrinkled her nose, trying in vain to escape the putrid stench.
"Like I said—drug trafficking. That's why we're here," the Prophet replied, his voice rough with restrained irritation.
"And why us? We hunt cults and nutjobs who believe in cosmic bullshit, not god," she shot back, clearly baffled.
"Because," he said calmly, still scanning the grime-coated walls, "intel says there's a cult here that doesn't believe in god. They think science runs everything. And according to locals, they're the ones pushing the drugs."
"And that helps them how? They'd get fewer followers that way," Niya said, her face twisting in disbelief.
"Listen close: drugs make money. Money funds... let's call them scientific experiments," he said, the last words dripping with unspoken menace.
"Scientific experiments? Oh, those fuckers!" Her eyes blazed. "Give them an inch, and they'll spit in God's face. I'd crack their bones just for thinking it!" She bared her teeth, fury rolling off her in waves.
"Yeah. Which is why we need to find their den and—"
"Kkhh... ggrrlk—"
A wet, gurgling rasp echoed through the house—like something dredging mucus from the depths of rotting lungs.
"You hear that?!" Niya's voice was razor-sharp, her hand slapping over the Prophet's mouth.
"—punish them," he finished, peeling her fingers away with a sigh. "Yeah. Came from the right. That door, to be exact."
"Then why the fuck are we standing here? Let's go meet this freak!" She stomped forward, her boot squelching ominously.
"Pfft—" The Prophet muffled a laugh into his fist.
"I swear to—"
"Sorry," he said, though the ghost of a smirk lingered.
"Don't interrupt—" She huffed, flustered.
"Fine. Let's go." He moved toward the door.
"Mhm." She nodded sharply.
The Prophet eased the door open, hinges shrieking.
"Jesus Christ," he muttered.
"Who gives a shit?!" Niya kicked the door off its hinges. "Alright, shitstain, COME OUT—" Her eyes locked onto... "Наркоман?!" she snorted in Russian.
"Junky," the Prophet corrected flatly.
"Aghh... fffhh... uulgh." The half-rotten figure slumped against the wall, its face hollow, skin sloughing off in patches.
"Oh, fuck me," a voice groaned from upstairs.
The Prophet turned. A man in a respirator stood on the landing—way too clean for this hellhole.
"Hey. You lost?" the Prophet called, stepping toward him.
"Uh— I—" The man bolted.
The Prophet lunged after him. Niya moved to follow—
—and a gaunt figure in a sweat-stained robe materialized in front of her. His face was a mess of sores, pupils blown wide, eyes glazed with feverish madness.
"Fuck. Runner," she spat.
Then he threw a chunk of flesh at her.
Niya twisted aside, the rancid mass whiffing past her cheek. It hit the wall with a sick splat, oozing blood and pus.
"What the he—" Her words died as she got a proper look at his eyes—unnaturally red, pupils swollen. Her lips curled into a cold smile. "Hah. Genome freak."
"Heh. Took you long enough," the man wheezed, blackened teeth crumbling as he grinned. "Rude to call everyone a junky, y'know." He stepped closer, the stench of rotting meat and chemical decay rolling off him.
Niya's stomach churned, but her smirk didn't waver.
"Oh really?" She tilted her head, mocking. "Then what are you? Just passing out?" She pointed to the syringes and pill wrappers strewn nearby.
"Didn't think gov-dogs were this stupid," he crooned, leaning in until their noses almost touched. Under his skin, something wriggled. "Good dealers don't use their own product."
"So you are the Dealer," she purred, fists tightening.
"Mmm." His head lolled, neck stretching unnaturally, skin splitting to reveal glistening black muscle beneath.
"Perfect." Her eyes burned with manic glee, fangs bared in a predator's grin.