Finally, I saved enough money to visit a seer. After being homeless for three years and living in an abandoned airstrip in the Alkell dunes, I could finally be reunited with my brother.

I knocked and entered the dark, humid room. The seer, Eyer, gave an exhaustive sigh once he noticed me. “I already told you, Oel, the third eye cannot see for the poor.”

“Shut up. I have your stupid money, dumb seer,” I snapped back. I had no patience for such a scummy person, but his reputation was a seer was pristine. The bag of money was placed on his table in front of him, “Count it.”

He smiled and licked his lips, “Well, well, well. What have we here? Little old Oel finally did it. Alright, kid, what do you want to know?” He pulled his headdress off to reveal a robotic eye in the middle of his forehead. It was creepy, and shoddily inputted. His skin healed around the little legs.

“My brother,” I pulled a cheer and sat down, “I want to know where he is and how I can find him.”

“Done,” he said, then closed his eyes. His third eye dilated, as if focusing on something. The seer’s face contorted, and his body suddenly jerked. His eyes shot open and he looked at me with a worrying mixture of pity and concern. His fists clenched, as he looked down. He showed great hesitation, but my anticipation was at its boiling point.

“Well? Where is he? What did you see, Eyer?”

“Oel,” he took quite a while until he could formulate what he wanted to say. He twisted in his chair and rubbed his temple. “It’s not good news. You should not pursue him any longer. I can return your mon–”

“Where is my brother, seer?” I stood up, just about finished with his pussyfooting. “I spent years working, homeless, hungry, just so I could find out! So, where?!”

He closed his eyes once more and took a deep breath. “Oel,” his heavy voice reverberated, “your brother’s screams come from the Calamity. Going there isn’t only impossible, it’s suicide!”

“Where can I find a calamity pilot?” I asked.

“Did you not hear what I just said?! You’ll be killed, boy!”

I grabbed him by the collar. “Listen to me,” I grumbled lowly as I got close to him, “I, have nothing in my life! I’ve accepted death a long time ago! Now, where can I find a fucking calamity pilot?”

“Ah, young and brash. Fine then,” he pushed me away, “go look for your death in Alkell City.”

Alkell City it is, I thought. I packed what little I had in preparation for my trip to Alkell City. A few years back, I went there in search of jobs but got mugged three times and almost got shot by stray bullets from warring gangs. Despite my qualms about the place, I resolved to find that calamity pilot.

I sat in silence that night and thought about how dangerous it would be. According to the rumours, the Calamity suddenly appeared some decades before I was born. It was a humongous sandstorm that never wavered for one moment. There was some strange power behind it. There was said to be a land of treasure, paradise, heaven on earth, within the Calamity. However, no one could enter the damn place without a calamity pilot because all vehicles eventually stopped working once inside. And what’s worse, anyone who entered the Calamity without a calamity pilot was never seen again.

This entire thing wouldn’t have been an issue, but many people said the calamity pilots suddenly went missing one after the other a few years back, right after my brother went missing. Alkell would be the only city lawless enough for someone like a calamity pilot to stay under the radar.

After a restless night, I rode to Alkell City. My hoverbike was one of the oldest models, but it got the job done reliably. I arrived around noon, and was about to enter a pub to ask around. A random man, most definitely from a gang by his getup, was sprinting out the door. He almost hit me with it. Just as I stepped aside to get out of his way, his head suddenly exploded and unapologetically splattered brain matter and blood onto me. Alkell City always welcomed you with a nice surprise, whether you liked it or not.

When I entered the pub, no one was even the least bit flustered or bothered. Everyone ate and drank as if murder in broad daylight was the norm. No one batted at eye at me either, despite my clothes having its fair share of fresh blood.

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My eyes surveyed the room in search of the type of individual who would know the things I needed to know. I saw someone intriguing. He sported a worn leather jacket without any symbol of affiliation, dark and round sunglasses, and one too many pistols hanging off his waist. Possibly dangerous because he was the only person sitting by himself. Even his table seemed to be a bit separated from the others. I took a deep breath and walked over. Just as I was about to pull a chair and sit at his table, his brains also got blown out.

I jumped this time, but Alkell City just refused to give a normal person the time to get himself in order. A man stood up in rage. “My fucking bacon!” he complained about his bloodied food and reached for a weapon, but his head rocked back from a perfect bullseye to the forehead. He also dropped down, dying almost instantly.

I finally looked in the direction and noticed a woman with an eyepatch and a mechanical arm. She confidently walked forward, sawed the dangerous-looking guy’s head off and nonchalantly walked off with her fingers gripping his hair. Everyone else just ate and drank, as if what happened didn’t just happen. I wondered if it was all a hallucination, but quickly came to my senses when I heard the door’s creak. She was leaving, and so was I.

I followed her, “Hey, wait! I want to talk with you!” Despite my efforts, she just ignored me and continued to her hoverbike.

I quickly jumped on mine and began following her, shouting at her to slow down. Without warning, she turned around and shot at me. In efforts to dodge, I fell off my bike and rolled countless times. Thankfully, I wasn’t injured too much. “What the fuck?!” I raged once I caught myself.

I had a look around and found myself in a street filled with abandoned cars and condemned buildings. Most of Alkell looked like that, really. However, I had no time for sightseeing. Some questionable fellows were giving me a look I didn’t like, so I grabbed my bike and sped out of there.

On my journey to nowhere, I realised I was being tailed. I could see a couple hyenas in the broken reflections of the buildings. It was no surprise the criminals here could sniff out new blood like sharks. I kicked into high gear and darted through alleyways to escape, but they knew this city like the back of their hand. Before I knew it, I hit a dead end after a sharp turn.

Shit! I grabbed my sawed-off shotgun and kept it cocked, ready for the moment those bastards breached the corner. Admittedly, I quavered. I heard their hoverbikes’ engines suddenly come to a stop, and footsteps encroached. They got louder, but got slower. They were being cautious because they knew I had nowhere left to run. With quick wits, I jumped onto an air-conditioning unit and climbed some metal stairs as silently as I could to gain some higher ground.

The first man, bald and tattooed, revealed himself. His pistol was cocked, but he aimed look at the wrong altitude. I blasted him. The other man came quickly after and found me trying to reload. He pointed his gun, but his body jerked backwards right before he shot at me. I collected that bullet in the arm, but somebody killed him just in time, otherwise I’d be the one breathing my last.

That same eye-patch woman broke the corner and looked at me like I was an idiot. “Go back to wherever you came from, kid. Alkell is no place for you.” She walked off again.

“Wait! Don’t you think I know that?! I’m looking for a calamity pilot! Do you know where I can find one?!” I shouted, shimmying my way down clumsily.

“Oh, calamity pilots? Been a while since I heard o’ those.” She mounted her hoverbike. “Anyway, you’d best get on out these parts.”

“Please! I don’t have a choice. I have to find my brother!” I pleaded with her. “Do you know anyone who can help me?”

She scoffed, exhaled her cigarette smoke and laughed, “Alright, kid. It’s your funeral. Keep up, eh?”

I scurried off to my bike, somehow trying to tie piece of my shirt around the wound and follow her at the same time. But was this the right move? She was crazy. First, she killed two men like it was nothing, then she shot at me; and then she saved me. Well, I chuckled. I guess if she wanted to kill me, she probably wouldn’t miss.

After struggling to keep up with her modern bike, I finally caught up to her. She was entering an old abandoned building on the outskirts of Alkell City. It served as a little theatre, and she lived backstage. The place was filled with junk. The red of the seats bordered on brown. Cobwebs reigned king. The theatre curtains were closed, as if that was the lock on the door to her bedroom. When we got backstage to her living quarters, there was even more junk scattered about the place, and a lot of old contracts. She was quiet, but I peeped around curiously, then my heart took a leap into fright. Those contracts were hits. “You’re a hitman?”

“I’m a woman,” she retorted, opening a halved bottle of bourbon.

“You’re a hitwoman? You won’t kill me, will you?”

Without a reply, she dropped a glass right in my hand. “Drink,” she commanded, and watched me in the eye until I sent the gilded substance down the hatch. Once she was happy, she waltzed over to a desk filled with other contracts. “Take a seat,” she said, then pulled some medical tools from a drawer. But she didn’t do anything with it like I thought; they just sat there as she looked over her contracts.

In a few minutes, I began feeling extremely drowsy, so I threw an arm over the chair I was on and leaned back. I was out like a light. When I awoke, I awoke in her bed, right next to her. My nudity only pushed my addled mind toward one conclusion. She nonchalantly just rested there, reading a book. What kind of killer reads books?

“Uh, did you… Did I… Did we…”