V00001.5 – Dress up
Looking away from my camp towards the direction of the city, I decided to run for civilization. Muscles coiled and exploded, sending my hurtling forward into long, powerful strides like an Olympic sprinter. My vision was crystal clear as I ran, absorbing every detail without a hint of the usual blurring of my vision I experienced when I ran. My body reacted almost automatically, dodging roots and swerving out of the path of trees on reflex.
After twenty minutes of sprinting and pushing my body as hard as I could, I was starting to run out of breath; however, I had reached the edge of the forest and torn through the tree line and made it into the clearing that kept a tenuous peace between the city and the woods.
Stopping at the edge of the tree's, I looked into the cityscape and suppressed a rising sense of disgust and tried to ignore the fact that a part of me was almost gleeful at the idea that it was all over, that my childhood wish had come true, and I was the last one left.
Is this really who I am now? Am I really excited that at the prospect that humanity has perished?
A voice crawled into my minds ear and whispered. This is who you’ve always been, Viktor; it’s just that before you had a reason to tolerate them.
Walking into the city through the main road I had to crawl over and between cars that jammed the roads up, but eventually I did make it in, and what I found, both excited and disappointed me as well as somewhat surprising me, was Anchorage looked well on its way to recovering.
The city showed signs of recovery in almost every way except its population; shattered windows had boards over them; a lot of the glass fragments seemed absent now, like a serious effort had been made sometime recently to clear it up.
The people though were upsettingly present, but there was this look in everyone’s eye: a weighty distrust filled everyone who was nearby, and people were avoiding me, not because I was covered in blood as I was clean this time; it just felt like no one wanted to be near me or each other.
Walking deeper into the city, I could feel the mana in the air getting thinner; it was still thicker than when I left the city a few days ago, or I think it was a few days prior. The atmosphere felt drained and hollowed out, like the well of a village had been watering thousands.
Ok, so humanity is definitely still kicking, so what does it mean by I’m the last of my kind? Is it about being a legacy beast? Maybe I’m the last or only Legacy beast on earth. I need more information.
Walking through the streets, I felt a mixture of anger and annoyance at the idea of talking to any of the people around me, but I knew I had to. Approaching one of the people on the street I called out, trying to get the attention of an elderly man. He promptly turned on his heels and walked away from me.
“What an asshole,” I said as I scanned the sparse streets for another person. It took a few minutes of pacing up the street and looking around, but eventually I found a girl that looked close to my own age and called out.
“Hey, wait up for a minute, would you?" Seeing her also try to ignore me sent a pang of anger through me, and I began running, catching up to her in a few strides. As I approached her, she turned quickly, and my instincts hammered my head, telling me she was about to attack me.
I threw my hand up and slapped her raising arm down hard, leaving a red mark on her dark skin, and a small canister flew out of her hand and onto the floor. “Did you just try to fucking mace me?”
Her eyes were filled with anxiety and worry as she stared at me, and my instincts pulsed once again in my mind, telling me how weak she was. I forced myself to calm down, attempting to understand her position, and some herculean asshole just started sprinting at her and shouting.
"Christ, could you try to relax? I was just hoping I could get some answers... I’m not going to do anything to you, and I’m sorry about slapping you. I just saw your hand coming up; it was a reflex.”
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She still looked anxious and startled despite my admission of wrongdoing, but she seemed significantly calmer seeing that I wasn’t moving to hit her or do anything in retaliation to the attempted pepper spraying.
She looked me up and down a few times, and I saw her face scrunch for a moment before relaxing again as she clearly forced down whatever comment had just popped into her head.
“I’m sorry about that; it’s just that well you can’t be too careful these days; you can’t exactly call the police for help anymore.”
To my surprise, her accent was southern, maybe Texan? I forced a calmness into my voice that I didn’t quite feel. I’d never liked people much, but I was surprised at how difficult I was finding it to tolerate being around them all of a sudden.
“I understand, and I didn’t mean to startle you; it’s just that I’ve been out of the city for a while and I was wondering what’s going on. I know the powers have gone down and the quakes have really fucked shit up, but everyone seems so on edge, even though this place is in a hell of a lot better condition than when I left... Also, everyone’s just ignoring me since I got here and avoiding me.”
She took a moment and seemed to consider her words and what she’d say: "Well, if you’ve been out of the city since the quakes, I guess you wouldn’t know about the military showing up, a unit’s holdup in the city center distributing food, and trying to get some sort of order restored, assigning temporary housing, and that kind of stuff. They’ve been coordinating with what’s left of the police.
“That sounds pretty good... So what’s the but? I mean, if the army is here and coordinating relief and housing, I don’t get why people are so on edge.”
"Well, the thing about that is the soldiers have been pretty aggressive with people; they’ve even been forcing some people with the necessary skills to stay in their camp and work for them, and they pretty much just execute anyone who steps out of line; then there’s the reapers.”
“Reapers?” I asked, raising an eyebrow quizzically.
"Yeah, there’s this old gang that used to hang around the outskirts of the city called the Reapers. They were pretty small time before all this, but without the cops, they’ve gotten really aggressive, attacking people, robbing them for food and anything else they got... There’s even a rumor going that they’ve got some leveled.”
I took a good few moments to parse that. The soldiers and police were trying to establish military order, and the reapers were killing people and leveling up.
I think your timeline just got moved up, Viktor.
"Listen, thanks for the info.”
"Penny,” she cut in.
“Thank you for telling me what’s been happening, Penny, but I’ve got to go stay safe, alright.”
She gave me a goodbye of her own, but I could see the tension in her draining as I finally left her alone and began to stalk deeper into the city faces past me by few and far between as I headed towards my first destination, L&L’s Tailor.
Approaching the store, I found it in rather good shape. The windows were dusty but largely clean except for the crack that spider webbed out from the first golden L that was painted onto the glass.
Walking up to the door, I pushed inwards on the door and found it locked up tight, so I took a step back and leaned in with a brutal kick just below the keyhole. The wood on the door exploded as my rubbery sole slammed into it, the frame letting out a loud crack as the door flew open and slammed hard, one of the hinges tearing loose as it came to a stop.
I stepped into the dim store and scrunched my nose as the musty air filled my lungs. I stopped as I entered, absorbing the fact that the store was so untouched and dusty, and for a moment it sent a pang of sadness through my chest.
The Lawson’s loved this place like it was their own child... If no one’s been here since the quake, well, that tells me it got bad for them.
“Hope you two are doing alright." My mind replayed the image of the couple who had given me my first legit over-the-counter job, an old man with steel silver hair and ice blue eyes who constantly seemed to know what you needed and gave it without a thought, whether it was coffee or just some really good advice.
And his wife Leila, a lovely and kind lady with a South African accent who taught me a lot over the years and loved to tell stories about all the places she and Mr. Lawson had been to in their youth, she had gifted me her late son's suit to wear to the dance Alice invited me too.
Looking over to the counter, I saw myself standing there younger and more awkward, with a rough face still healing from bruises and a razor burn on my jawline, wearing a loose and ill-fitting suit that I had managed to scrape together from thrift stores so I would look presentable for my interview.
As I walked deeper into the store, the mirage of my younger self faded away like the mists that swallowed a swan boat, and I pushed the memory away, shoving it into the back of my mind while I rummaged through the clothing shelves and hangers.
It took me a while, but I’d eventually managed to find a selection of apparel that would fit me.
A black suit jacket and button-up shirt, as well as a pair of nice dress pants and leather formal boots. I grabbed a few sets of these and even a nice set of leather gloves to help protect myself from the cold. The last item I grabbed before stuffing the extras in my backpack was a large leather trench coat.
All dressed up in my nice clothes and looking considerably less like PCP hulk, I left L&L’s Tailor.
As I walked down the street, I noticed I was getting less weird looks; people were still wary of me, but at least they weren’t looking at me like I was a pervert anymore.
Moving on and taking in the views, I began planning where I wanted to go next, making a mental list of things I wanted and would need to help my lifestyle as a woodsman, as well as what I would need to handle the reapers.
Some decent tools wouldn’t go amiss, and some real weapons too—an axe, maybe a bow? And a shitton of arrows, handyman tools like screwdrivers and hammers, plus some medical supplies and a bunch of books.
Heading deeper into the city and turning down a bend in the street, I was making my way deeper into the city towards the commercial district when I was given an extremely disturbing notification from my system overly.
The red screen forced itself open, covering my vision without me summoning it.
[You have encountered an unknown pathogen that is targeting your mutations]
[Immutable has been disabled]