12:05am, Thursday the 9th October, 2132.

The bowels of Kanto City cried in the night, a forest of engineering and disposed machinery screeching with strain and rust. As it passed crescendo a man’s scream joined in; a terrified, high-pitched wail reaching out into darkness as he struggled to clamber and climb from his pit.

When the sounds of advanced industry waned, so too did the man’s voice. Soon there was nothing more than the rain, falling through the shadows of great, black, angled towers that reached so high they disappeared into dark clouds. Far above him, bridges, pipes, and metal structures formed incomplete ceilings, lit only by a lambent of coloured words and signs; neon ghosts in distant fade. Rainwater coagulated on any surface it could find, then poured down from corners or cracks – thick, freezing streams splashing onto an ancient and forgotten ground.

Aiden King was curled into a foetal position amidst garbage and discarded electronics, hugging his arms and shivering from the wet and the cold. His entire body burned from the inside, like acid was spilling into his bloodstream, and his head was being pulverised by something that he wished would kill him. His eyes were clenched shut, and he could do nothing but lie there and beg that whatever was happening to him would end.

Footsteps. The unmistakable sound of boots hitting wet ground, and the patter of rain hitting plastic or rubber coat. Aiden groaned, turning his head just enough to look at the source of the noise. A figure wearing a dark green coat moved across a walkway high above him, and paused under a light just long enough to light a cigarette under his hood. Then, without ever noticing Aiden was there, he disappeared through an automated door.

“H-Help me,” Aiden tried to say, though through the chattering cold his voice was too weak to be heard. He eventually reached out a pale, wet hand and tried to grab something, anything from the nearby scrap that he might use. There was no thought process behind this, no plan of action – just an overwhelming desire to find something that could ease his suffering.

He found nothing of value. A broken screen, a rusting rod of metal, part of a discarded firearm. He eventually dragged his legs and managed to get up to his knees, where a pale, iron-tasting substance fell from his half-open mouth. He spat the rest out, watching thoughtlessly as it washed away in the rain.

Soon he was pushing himself to his feet. His eyes burned, and he wiped them with the sleeve of a pale blue shirt that he didn’t recognize. Where was he? Why was he wearing clothes that weren’t his?

He began to walk. He stumbled at first, a dizziness filling his head that made the dark street sway ahead of him, and he had to fight to maintain his balance. After some time he found it fading, becoming clear-headed for the first time since he woke in that accursed place, and dredged forward through an endless storm of rain.

Where was he? Kanto? He somehow knew that, though he didn’t know how. But where? In some lower, forgotten part of the city? Some abandoned area or complex? Where was everyone? Even run-down neighbourhoods were occupied by the forgotten; homeless people, stray animals, or criminals who roamed the streets keeping look out. Yet apart from the figure on the bridge, all he had seen were pits and piles of trash, scrapyard heaps growing up the sides of walls like mould.

There were no windows in the buildings he walked past, just broken screens. Occasionally the inescapable world of advertisement revealed itself in a flickering, stuttering video or product placement, but he limped past them. Eventually he found an automated door, but no amount of knocking, moving or pressing on its control panel could get it to open. It showed no signs of life, a piece of dead circuitry entombed in a wall of concrete and graphene. He left it and moved on.

Several minutes later he came across a small, open area. It was as wide as a two-lane road and not much longer than a train carriage, yet it was filled with the skeletons of abandoned food and market stalls. Any discernible colour had been stripped from their surfaces years ago until only steel and rust remained, but on the far side, Aiden saw a dim yellow light in a perpetual cycle of waxing and waning. He approached, squinting through the rain to get a better view, and saw an automatic door that was stopped from fully closing by a brick.

He approached, reaching his arm into the gap between the door, and forced it open wide enough for him to climb through into an interior hallway. Like the market square, the hallway was stripped of colour that could have given it character, yet it was filled with blue garbage sacks strewn across the floor. A dim, flickering light came from the ceiling above, and stained stairs at the side climbed up to further floors. It was quiet and cold, yet even there he was still significantly more comfortable than he had been in the rain.

He felt compelled to go up, so he climbed the stairs out of the trash and the debris. On the first floor he encountered what looked to be apartment doors, but somehow knew that no-one was living in them. They were locked but abandoned, so Aiden went up again. On the second floor it was a similar story, except this time a dark cat was sitting at the end of the hall, cleaning itself with its tongue. It stopped when it noticed him, and stared silently with blue-green eyes until it lost interest and went away around a corner. He considered following it, but there was a sudden noise on the floor above him, and he crept back around to another flight of stairs.

It was difficult for him to make out what the noise was. Some clatter of some sort, or a thud, and looking up to try and see it he climbed the stairs two at a time, his hand reaching to hold the railing.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Kuso! Fuckin’ piece o’ junk,” said a hushed, masculine voice.

“Calm down,” said another, barely more than a whisper. “Just try it again.”

“Shinjimae, Cooper,” the first replied.

By this point, Aiden had reached near the top of the stairs to find that there was no light, and that two men were lurking by a door on the opposite side of the corridor. One man, with blonde hair and a grey coat, stood over a second who was skulking down in the dark and operating some hand-held device. This second man wore a red, sleeveless jacket, and was holding the device against the door’s electronic keypad while manipulating a pair of naked wires with his other hand.

“You know I can’t understand your ancient fuckin’ language,” the blonde man complained. “Just get it done.”

They both had coastal Kanto accents, a mixture between 21st century Japanese and American-English, formed when migrants had created a low-class, multi-cultural community around the old Tokyo Bay. Aiden knew their stereotype, and it likely meant one thing: that they were spice addicts at best, gangsters at worst. He stayed as quiet as he possibly could, trying to decide if asking them for help was worth the risk of them turning on him. No-one would ever find his body down there.

“Maybe if this piece of shit slicer wasn’t as old as my language, we’d be through this door by now,” hissed the crouched man. Then suddenly, “got it!”

Electricity crackled, and the locked door slid open with a hum. The crouching man stood, slipping the slicer back into his pocket, and peering through into the apartment with the other man at his side.

“It looks empty,” the blonde man said.

“It can’t be. There’s gotta be something in there. Let’s look.”

“I swear to god, if you dragged me all the way down to the Steels for a ghost haul, I’m gonna kill you myself.”

Aiden watched as the two men stepped through the door, then crept up to the top of the stairs. He stuck to the darkest shadows, trying to conceal himself from who were clearly illegal scavengers. He decided it was best to leave them, that nothing good could come from them finding out that he was there. When he looked down to the far end of the hallway, he saw a second door that was stuck completely open, leading out onto a walkway that crossed the street outside. The rain was so heavy it was like a curtain across the doorway, and he could hardly see the bridge’s far side.

Step by step, he crept down the hall towards the outside. The whispering voices of the scavengers echoed distantly in the apartment, and the freezing chill of the outside grew with every step he took.

“I can’t believe it, fuckin’ empty.”

All of a sudden the voice was back and in the hallway, and instinctively Aiden froze there in the darkness, not daring even breathe. He became as silent as death itself, hoping beyond hope that they didn’t look his way, that they didn’t see his silhouette against the rain.

“You led me out here – again – for nothing. That’s it. I’m done with this shit. You can find another partner next ti- what the fuck is that?”

Aiden panicked. His flight response kicked in and suddenly he was sprinting out into the downpour and across the walk-bridge, a desperate, flailing attempt to escape. Something snapped past him, accompanied by deafening gunshots that rang out into the storm. A bullet hit the concrete wall to his front, and another the metal door on the bridge’s far side, ricocheting away into the night. Then there was a third shot, and Aiden felt it punch through his right shoulder, almost throwing him forward off his feet.

Somehow, he maintained his composure. Hot, pale liquid began to flow from his wound, and it spilled out down his clothes and onto the bridge beneath him. Then, as though his body’s only sensible reaction had been delayed, his shoulder began to burn unbearably. He released a pained scream, hearing the men shout something incoherent behind him. He ignored them and kept going, stumbling forward towards the closed door to slam his fist against it and beg it to open. It didn’t, then several more shots were fired.

A second later, Aiden was lying in the rain, the side of his face pressed against the floor and barely able to move. He shivered and groaned, trying desperately to fight against his own certain death, but he could do nothing but bleed. He felt a boot press against his side and, too weak to stop it, felt it roll him onto his back. He looked up at the two men, each with their handguns ready, and watched as they searched him with their eyes.

“Yo, who the fuck is this?” Asked the man in the red.

“No idea, but what the fuck’s he doing here?” Asked the blonde. “Shit, man, look at those holes.”

“Fuck it, Coops, we need to get out of here. Someone will have heard those shots. PMCs will be down here any second.”

“I know, I know. Can’t leave this guy though. If he survives, he might talk.”

“Then fuckin’ shoot him, man!”

The blonde man aimed his gun down at Aiden’s face. “Sorry, kid,” he said, then pulled the trigger.

Aiden felt hot, wet blood in his mouth. Everything was dark now. Had he been killed? Or was he simply about to die, lingering like a soul imprisoned in a brain that had not yet ceased to function?

There was no pain anymore, that was good. And he could see a light now, down the dark tunnel. It was bright and warm even in the rain, and it was growing closer, more welcoming. All he had to do was go into it, but something told him not to. He turned around, slowly, and began to realize he was standing. Strange. Hadn’t he been lying on the ground?

In fact, he could see where he was lying now. He saw the pale liquid on the floor, and the soundless rain hit the concrete under his feet. It wasn’t cold anymore. It wasn’t hot either, but it wasn’t cold. And his body wasn’t there.

There were bodies though. One in a sleeveless red jacket, another in a torn trenchcoat, their guns lying abandoned by their hands. Their blood was all over the bridge, being washed away by the rain, but the lacerations in their flesh were permanent. Dead, both of them, but by whose hand? He raised his fingers towards his face and looked at them, looked at how they were stained with red and how blood had congealed beneath his fingernails. Then he looked at the holes in his blue shirt, and the unmarked, pale flesh beneath them.

As the realization that he had killed the two men came to him, so too did the sounds of his environment. His shadow was cast tall on the far side of the bridge by a bright light that came from behind him, and as he heard the rain again, he turned back to the hallway with blood smeared across his face.

“Get down! On your knees, now!” The masked soldiers shouted as they advanced closer; the neon blue eyes of their helmets, their spotlights, and their submachine guns aimed directly at him.

Aiden swallowed, feeling warm blood creep down his throat. He began edging backwards, trying to raise his hands to show his intent to surrender, but the soldiers were scared. He could see the fear in them, in the way they moved, and as he opened his mouth to talk they opened fire.

Their bullets tore through him, forced him back to the side of the bridge, then pushed him over the edge.