Concordia was a city charmed by devils, a concrete metropolis built with bones and fueled by blood. But, on the surface, you'd never know because the neon lights are as blinding as the placebo of life is intoxicating. The smallest coffee shop could've been selling kids from the basement, and as long as those kids weren't human, no one would've batted an eye.

I knew the strains of the title 'devil,' though, it was not a moniker I wore willingly. None of us did, that is, the scapegoats for all of Concordia's shortcomings, cambions. We were like humans and wanted to be equal to them, but equality was a constraint society wasn't ready for. 

Humans had a monstrous history that brought the world to near destruction, yet, we were the ones vilified for their mistakes. Though I'm getting ahead of myself, I honestly thought I knew what it was to be human before I learned the truth.

That day started like any other, stealing from a small corner store. Today's target was Vilio's fruit stand, a tiny joint situated at the end of the produce market in sector 18.

It was a light crowd, right after lunch in the early afternoon. Perfect time for me to make my “purchase.” Don’t judge me; I didn't steal for fun; I did it out of necessity. I couldn’t find work and a guy had to eat somehow, right? Besides, I knew Vilio was getting a new shipment soon and would write me off as a bad experience. I did my best to limit my thieving's inconvenience, so no harm in the long run as far as I was concerned.

I squeezed through the small group in front of the stand and surveyed my options. It was a usual spread for this sector, apples, grapes, bananas, and oranges, nothing that screamed wealth like starfruit or strawberries.  

“You staring or buying, kid?”

It was Vilio himself, rudely assessing my value as a customer. Granted, I would've too if I were him, judging solely from the way I was dressed. Beaten slacks and a worn-out leather jacket don’t suit many, especially not some homeless-looking teenager in Concordia's lowest end sector.

“Are you haggling or harassing me, Vilio? What? Is looking before I buy illegal just cause I'm a kid?”

What I said must’ve struck something because he backed off immediately; however, he didn't look apologetic. He was probably caught off guard being called out by someone younger than him in front of a crowd. He left me alone and turned his attention to his other guests.  

I watched closely as a woman came up and told him what they wanted while rifling through her purse for tokens. Vilio pulled a bag from beneath the counter and filled it as she talked. He was intimidating, at least 2 meters tall, and a laborer's physique. But, big meant slow, and that made my job easier.

Bingo, that's mine.  

I can’t explain how I did it, but I was quick with these things. Like, very quick. While Vilio was focused on exchanging tokens for the fruit, the bag was already in my hand, and I was halfway down the street. I was able to turn the corner before I heard them screaming after me.

“Hey! Where'd that kid go?”

"He took the bag right out of my hands!" 

They wouldn't catch me. No one ever did. That was the luxury of deft hands and backstreet knowledge; by the time they figured out which alley I had ducked into, I was already two streets over. I guess if you’re forced to be a street rat, at least be good at it.

Sector 18 was the poorest, and we mostly had the water treatment plant to thank for that. No one wanted to live there, so profitable businesses were scarce. There was also a fair amount of crime and not just small timers like me. With this sector being right on the inner harbor, it was easy to transport whatever kind of contraband you needed. For the most part, the military police's presence here was limited, as they only patrolled the exit gates to keep people from leaving freely.

I traversed the sector like a cartographer, and I could tell you where anything was from the unmarked sell houses to the corner HIZ dealer. I kept my impoverished kingdom well hidden; twelve cardboard boxes stacked meticulously behind a dumpster in the corner of the alley behind the water treatment plant. But my home wasn't the boxes; it was the grate leading to the underground tunnels beneath the boxes. I lifted it and jumped in, letting the metal grate slam down behind me.

I called them secret tunnels for effect, but they were old sewer channels. From what I'd heard, it was the sewer system that existed before establishing the walled city-states. Not sure how true it was since the city-state system had been in place for hundreds of years. Regardless, the dry corridors made me feel like less of a sewer rat and more of a sly bandit, but whatever the moniker, I was what I need to be to help myself. When the world turns on you, you turn on the world.

“Sylas! You’re back!”

Well, I guess I hadn't turned entirely on the world. I tried to help people that needed more help than me. My fellow sewer dwellers scurried out from the dark tunnel ahead of me. Four munchkins that begged for me to bring them food every day without fail as if they couldn’t go out and do it themselves! The leader of the small bunch, Palm, always approached me with her hands firmly planted on her hips, demanding my respect.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“I promise, Sylas. When I get older, I’ll help you get food. Someone has to help you feed Kay's fat tummy! I bet Bonnie and Lucas would help too!”

I was offputting if I’m earnest. This little mind reader was in my head.

“No, Palm,” I smiled, “there’s no need for that. I’m fine working on the streets by myself. Besides, I'm old enough not to draw suspicion. A little kid like you would get swooped up by the blues immediately!”

'Blues' was what people called the military police. It had become somewhat derogatory over the years, but it started because of their navy uniforms.

I handed out the spoils to my children. They weren't my kids, but what else was I supposed to call them? My munchkins? That’s disrespectful. However, I sometimes felt like they were my kids, just adopted. I gave them food, and they gave me company and trinkets they found in the tunnels; this was the agreement we'd had for about a year.

We all had recently celebrated Palm's birthday, with some slightly stale bread and a sack of raw potatoes. I wasn't sure how old the other three were. I had guessed that Kay was likely Palm's age; he had that baby fat look to him and big brown eyes that didn’t show signs of aging yet. I knew Bonnie and Lucas were twins, and they were also the youngest.

Then there was me: Sylas, the teenage foster father.

“Besides, Palm, you’d get eaten up by this city. You’re far too cute, I’m afraid. You lack my sharp eyes and foreboding features! No one would take you seriously with your pigtails.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my piggies!” she protested. She always kept her hair pulled into tight pigtails. They looked like bundled straw sitting atop a puppy's face.

I'd say whatever I needed to keep the kids from becoming like me, even if it meant taking on more risk myself. At that time, all I was concerned with is getting them safely to Sector 13 by the outer bay. I had heard there was a refuge for orphans there. I doubted they'd take me in, but that was fine as long as the kids were somewhere safer than the sewers.

“I think you look cool! Like a supervillain!” Kay shouts over Palm’s pigtail dejections.

A supervillain, huh? I don’t know about the super part, but the villain made me sound edgy. 

“Kay, your mouth, keep it closed while you eat. You’re spitting apple chunks.” Palm shouted back.

Kay raised the apple back to his face and continued munching on it. Bonnie approached me, and beneath the dim light cast from the sewer grate, I could see her emerald eyes, framed by dark curtains for hair. Every time a car passed over the grate, things would go dark for a second, and time seemed to stand still.

“Why would the blues take us?” she asked me softly.

Darkness, then thin streams of light returned. Bonnie was the hardest for me to see living like this. Her face carried an innocence I had trouble understanding. Lucas was more like me, housing realism in his green eyes instead of hope.  

“Is it cause of Dead Circus?” she continued.

Darkness returned for much longer this time. The stone ceiling above us trembled under the weight of the busy road. I supposed the workday must've been over, and the workers from the water treatment plant were returning home. The stone's cracks would birth tiny meteors and swirls of dust, only visible as the light filtered back in. This darkness came with a decree of silence, and I held my breath till the light returned. 

“Bonnie. Where did you hear about them?”

Bonnie looked petrified as if she’d just told a secret to someone who wasn’t supposed to know it. Palm stepped between us.

“I can explain-“

“No,” Bonnie interrupted. “It’s okay. I can tell him.”

“Tell me what?” I responded.

“I heard people talking about Dead Circus through the radio.”

Dead Circus was a taboo in Concordia. They were challenging to describe, and you'd get varying accounts dependent on who was answering. They were either silent heroes or violent villains, and they'd judge you based on which you decided they were. To me, they were just another wobbly leg on an already weak societal chair.

I knelt, my arms crossed over my knees. I tried to put Bonnie at ease, coming down to her level. Her face lost its tension a bit, but she continued to pull nervously at the bottom of her dress.

“What…radio?” I asked, as calmly as my anxious mind would let me.

I then noticed that Lucas was gone for the first time, and I stood, turning my body and straining my eyes to find him in the dark. He came up from behind me, with the radio in his arms.

“This…this radio, Mr. Sylas,” he stammered.

I took it from him and looked it over in my hands. As I feared, it was an MP radio, but it was brandished with a symbol I’ve never seen before, an embellished and stylized C within a diamond. I'd seen the blues do this before; they would leave trackers for children to find, then follow them back to where they lived. We would need to leave the radio where they found it then relocate, to my displeasure.

“Where did you guys find this? I told you not to leave the tunnels without me, didn’t I?”

Lucas kicked the dirt around him, hands behind his back and head held down. Bonnie walked around me to hug his arm. Palm came to my side, showing disappointment toward Bonnie and Lucas for revealing the secret. Then there was Kay, who has just obliviously finished choking down the last of his apple.

“We didn’t leave Mr. Sylas. Bonnie and I found it down here a couple of days ago,” Lucas responded.

Uh oh.

If they'd been keeping this a couple of days, I would need to move us quickly. Thankfully, the only indication it was even working was the blinking red light on the top of it. So, while it was active, it didn’t seem to be receiving anything at the moment. 

Or so I thought.  

“I heard the blues only take kids because if they didn’t, Dead Circus would eat them,” Palm says nervously. She looks up at me, "Is that true, Sylas?"

I shook my head, no.

“They’re complicated from what I hear. But complicated doesn't mean people eaters. Besides, I've told you the blues aren't to be trusted either.”

Kay stood up to join the powwow.

“I heard they help people in need. Unlike the dumb blues!” Kay shouted. 

“Sorry, Kay, even if that's true, they don’t help people like us. We aren't their kind.”

I didn’t know much back then about the city I was chained down within. I didn’t have the blissful ignorance of a child, but I didn't have the knowledge to escape my situation. All I wanted was to be free of the imposing lights, the overbearing skyscrapers, the heavy chains of a society that didn’t want me. 

Life wasn’t fair for anyone, and the most unfair part was the understanding that there was no getting better. Concordia was the type of city where you lived with what you were given. But, the city never thought about how you're supposed to live with what you had taken.

Beep. Beep. Beep.