William gets from his bed and looks at the different room in his new morning. It is quite strange, waking up in another home.
Shaking his head in a try to move his feelings away, it works slightly, so he moves to the wide window in his room.
Opening it through some knobs, a new kind of sight of the morning enters his view. Fresh air, with a summer feeling of the ocean.
“This will take a long time to get used for,” William says as she pulls his right sleeve to uncover the crimson Emblem on his forearm.
“You did not get lost today. Good. Nothing bad will happen, unlike yesterday. Hopefully...”
Without a need to dress up from yesterday, William still feels like not unwrapping the little bag that he assembled in a hurry on the last day. There are some clothes, but nothing too much.
He rather goes back to the hallway and to an empty kitchen. “What am I supposed to do? Should I wait this out? I don't like this one bit... And here I thought becoming a recruit would be a very exciting part, hah...”
William guesses long ago the effects of becoming a recruit, and in fact, feels the right things. Examinations are done on tides, 4 to 5 times a year, to make it more efficient. Unknown to William, some young Walkers even wait more than 6 weeks patiently within the city.
Although their circumstances are different from his, William still feels like a completely clueless person about the prospect of living in such a city. He wonders what the kind of world has been like in the past. Like before the Dark Age, and stories that are historically kept around to make people's conversation and life more colorful.
Such stories about flying humongous machines, unlike helicopters, what are still somewhat common. There are also others, such as the way people lived like before this age. Different jobs, lives, homes, problems, and dreams reach this age in small pieces. Through the word of mouth, or by occasional discoveries in the destroyed places by some brave scavengers.
It sounds awfully dystopian, yet much better than living in a world of destruction and fear of one's life. William... has to agree with this, as the warmth of the summer in this location is brightening his life in ways he never felt before.
“William! Don't think pessimistically!” he grits his teeth and messes his hair with both hands. Feeling down is never a good option whether a new place is in front of him. He learned quite a few times in the past about this. When he went to new camps after the last one was destroyed, he needed to get adjusted to a new place, and it never felt... right.
This is the same way, but a different kind of new. One which would surely be worth the jealousy of a lot of people in the Rothwell Camp. That, or perhaps some hate, mixed there as well.
The same could be said with the group of 5 people who traveled to the ocean in a hope of reaching paradise, which they view as the only hope. A lot of people hope to have an opportunity to live life safely from the worries. Price does not matter to them, but life... is something that could not be counted as a price.
William always hopes for the best of everyone, but it is a lie to say that his own worth is always more important than the others. Such a view is the same in almost every refugee who is trying to keep their lives safe.
Taking a seat in the chair with some cushion, he waits in front of a big window wall that had a view of what seems like the same as his room.
It takes not that long until Luke shows himself.
“What are you looking at?” He asks.
“City.”
“Is it interesting?”
“It is unbelievable.”
“You will get used to that,” Luke argues and grasps some snacks from the fridge and pantry for himself.
“Hopefully, the same way I got used to the danger of my own life? Is this how should I take my current position?”
“No idea. Time will tell, or you will simply get used to those feelings.”
“When was the first time you came to this city, mister Luke?” William turns around and asks Luke, who is crunching down some biscuits.
“I suppose it has been more than 20 years for sure. Around the time this place was even being built.”
“So you know a lot about this place/”
“Depends on what you are asking about. It is about 8am so I don’t have a lot of time. I have responsibilities what I have to do.” Luke looks at his wrist, which had a watch unlike the day before. Wearing jeans and casual white shirts, Luke seems different than being in military attire.
“I want to spend the time in the library. Can I have a map or something to at least not get lost completely?” William, not surprised by his words, says.
“I have some general map. Changes are made in the infrastructure of the city every half a year, so you have to follow the location of the 47th apartment building on West Avenue. You can get here easily since the structure of the city is very easy to learn. Though, when one is clueless like you... I guess I will fetch the map for you.”
Luke unwillingly agrees with himself and takes some time, but managing to find a rough-looking piece of paper is all he could. William takes it with some questionable gaze of its content, but it is better than nothing.
“Library, what you are looking for is at the Central District. You won’t miss it for most parts. Right. I almost forgot an important part. I am unsure what they had in mind for taking care of you, but I will get some compensation anyway. Take some credits to get a better idea of the city. Food, transportation, and everything are pretty much paid with this currency.”
Luke says and gave William a stack of paper sheets. Each one of them has a simple design with numbers attached to them. There are also some small-sized ink drawings that are rather complex. He could not figure out what they depict. Not like it is important.
William takes it without being polite about it and observes them precisely to see each one in detail. There are numbers 1, 3, 5, and 10. In total, an exact 100 credits total.
“T-thank you. What use they have apart from that?” “Everything. Those 100 or so will last you for a few weeks, so you better be careful with them. Take a 10 of 1’s and the rest will remain here. Food is cheap here so don’t feel too scared about it, alright?” Luke, for once, assures Williams' visible worry.
Seeing his uncertain nod, Luke sighs and finishes his quick snack to get to work. Since no one bothered to give him orders yesterday, he has to manage them himself.
Pain in the ass from this mission has to be kept for himself since the orders are the orders. Saying goodbye to William, he leaves his apartment while completely forgetting to get William his key. It would probably have to wait... or he already tosses this issue behind his back, before it even came to his mind? Who knows? William is taken aback while sighing at himself and accepting his current situation.
“Are other refugees in the same shoes as me?” he wonders.
Without much else in the world to hinder his ways, William finds snacks in the kitchen as well. While wanting to spend the money is not the idea in his mind, he figures it would be the last thing he actually has to do. The last straw into the new world.
Since Luke already left, William takes some time to fully seeks out the whole apartment that he was too tired to look at last night.
“2 bathrooms, whole 3 sections of rooms for each person? Open space with kitchen, living room and halls makes it rather big.” William assumes.
He had no recollection of meeting any kind of apartment like this, but it is also safe to say that no camp would go their way, and build a rather big place like this for single or only a few people to live there.
The whole apartment is roughly the same scale as the Roshwell camp’s rather impressive kitchen segments, which are feeding hundreds of people at any given time.
This left no impression on William since his worries are already moved away from his current reality. Facing the limits of 6 weeks until the fated examination where his opportunity is not in his hands, William figures to go out and get familiar with the land instead of worrying any longer.
Kaufman’s library card has not left his mind either, so he will definitely travel to the Central District from Luke’s words.
Wasteful time calls for useful opportunities and William has never been one to slack, apart from waking up in the morning, of course... He hates it through the notion of his bone and being!
Opening the doors outside, he slams the door shut before he even realizes that he is completely screwed.
“Crap… I forgot to ask for the keys… Huh?” Sighing, he takes his hands in his pockets and goes with the route he remembers outside. There, a burst of morning sunshine is much stronger, and not a lot of people are around as he expects.
“Now, how in the world am I supposed to carry myself into a world where I have no friends? In such a situation, having someone like Dann is truly useful.” William thinks and takes the rough map out of his pocket out.
On the map, he could see an outline of what appears to be this region, with a red mark on what should be Luke’s apartment. If he continues to his right, he will get to a bridge which will lead to a more northern part where he will need to figure out the location of the library.
This in itself sounds simple, so he takes the map back in his pocket and goes on.
Building complexes in this avenue have rows of buildings like the one he has lived slept in last night. Parting with many alleys and pedestrian paths, one could get easily everywhere. Unlike the camps which are cramped and quickly build, William finds this quite marvelous. Trees and small ponds of green grass liters every corner of the buildings, and pathways. It seems the people of the city take care of it every week, since there is no garbage around, and the place remains crispy clean.
This in itself does not surprise William, who already went through this episode yesterday where he had seen the night city. It left an impression on a lot of marvels about the possible sight that could be hiding from the common eyes of people.
10 minutes go by, and people start to emerge in many streets and parts of the streets he just walked across. Not suddenly, they are regular folks who go by their day, to their work, provided by The Federation. Residential complexes of a more common kind are south of the West Avenue of the building complexes, as William notices from the rough map.
Right, there are no death weights around this city. Everyone has to take part in the connection and funding of this city through their action. One way or another, whether one goes here with regular path, or by forcing themselves to become the citizen of this city.
The same will probably go to the group that got rescued by Luke, but their fate is not known to William, who had no need for that. He will most likely forget about them in a couple of weeks... Or perhaps not, since the whole experience is very memorable to him.
“Oh, there is that bridge. Central Bridge on that sign is the same as what is written on the map. Alright, since they are written around, I should have a much easier go at the Central District.” William assumes from the sign around the Central Bridge.
Unfortunately, his whole idea went to dust, as he enters the Central District.
Hundreds of people are crushing to each other as the streets in his perimeter are so crowded that William feels like running out of this mess.