The group made their leave as dusk gave way to night. No sooner had they cleared the neon lights that the scene shifted dramatically. Where there had been able-bodied rezzers running around the main core of Asphodel, there was a much larger demographic of crippled ones here. Some had peg legs, others with missing arms, some with eye patches or stints holding their entrails in place. And most unnervingly, many with combinations of two or more.

They pressed onward, looping through clusters of shops and kiosks before rounding another bend. Leah led them through a back alley and into another side street.

Sandstone walls rose to each side as they entered a monolithic courtyard. Palm trees pocketed the beige marble walkways, interrupted only by hedges that had been trimmed into neat, tight squares. There was a fountain in the middle, with water spewing from the top and falling like sheets into the bed below. The buildings themselves stretched eight stories tall, with a flurry of balconies, landings, and archways, all rising high before hitting the red-roofed tiles atop, tight and clustered like they were built in the Mediterranean.

Some rezzers with the same skull and crossbone badges sat at nearby tables, chatting amongst themselves. A few were eating raw intestines from plates with silver forks and knives, and dabbing the blood with clean, white napkins. At least they’re civilized with their savagery. They gave the group a salute.

And there were more disabled rezzers toiling away. Trimming the hedges, cleaning up the trash, clearing plates from the patio. Between the custodial duties and the service, they almost looked like captives.

The grim reality of this “city” was thus exposed. The handicapped rezzers were doing all the menial tasks. A one-armed man might use it to drag a cart of goods. A woman with both legs missing would be cleaning the walkways. A child with half his face melted might tinker with wiring in a fuse box. And that was if they were doing anything at all. Many of the amputees they had passed were huddled together in dirty clothes around fires, whispering while Leah and her group marched by, but otherwise keeping their distance.

Of all the paradigms Liam had witnessed, of all the social contradictions that he had faced, this one had to be the most obscene. Basic human decency was premised on the idea that the strong cared for the weak, but here, it was the opposite. The weak seemed only to exist in order to service the strong.

Was this what mankind had been reduced to?

The group entered the antechamber, and the moment became truly surreal. Afghan rugs stretched across spotless white marble floors, starting from a mahogany desk before splitting into neighboring halls. The walls glittered with gilded artwork where there weren’t alabaster statues or exotic potted plants, and chandeliers spilled from the ceiling, twinkling crystalline light like silver encased in diamonds. There wasn’t a speck of dust in sight. Everything seemed to radiate in a veneer of immaculacy.

“Welcome to the Lodge,” Leah said. “My home.”

Just when Liam thought he’d reached his limit, he had been surpassed. “This is all yours?”

“Technically just the top two floors.”

“Leah, this looks like a five-star hotel built for celebrities who complain that the nuts in their salad are the wrong brand of vegan.”

Buttercup laughed. “That’s because it was. Nothing but the best for us Hunters.”

Liam should have let it pass, but he couldn’t help himself. “Isn’t this a bit much?”

“It’s only fifty rooms for us, give or take,” Leah said, as if to downplay her own excess. “Besides, I let the workers use the empty ones for free, in exchange for helping to maintain the property when we’re not around.”

“If they’re doing work in exchange for something, then that is by definition not free. By the looks of how they’re keeping this place, seems like you’ve got the better end of the stick on this one, yeah?”

She kept walking. “Nobody’s perfect.”

The others split apart to find their own manors in this sprawling estate, leaving Liam and Leah alone. She led him through the halls and upstairs in silence, occasionally stopping to give orders to the “workers” that were always just at the edge of sight. Whether their desire to help was genuine or not, none could say.

A nation built by corpses can only ever produce more corpses, Leah had said, and now Liam could see why. All of the industry that he had witnessed, all of the progress they had restored, and this was the cost. There was no concept of hardship for a race that could never age and die, nor could they empathize with the pain of others when they could never experience it for themselves. Their civilization was a reflection of those within, and they had no families, no future, and knew no purpose other than the elevation of the self. If that meant that the strong must leverage their power against the decrepit in order to advance, then the sacrifice of the weak was but a small price to pay.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Pandemonium”. The capital of the rezzers. It was the center of their nation, the Mecca of their culture. Could they have come up with a more fitting name?

The pair stopped near the top floor and turned a corner. There was only one door in sight, and it was open.

Without saying a word, Leah pushed him gently behind her and drew her pistol. Liam took the cue and hung a few feet back as they marched through.

Liam was yet again blown away by the sheer size and scope of her suite. It had to have covered thousands of square feet, with more than a dozen rooms linked together. Bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, entertainment centers, balconies. All pristine white where there wasn’t famous artwork. Was this a hotel room, or the heart of a palace?

But then their sight fell to a corner. A female rezzer leaned against one of the doors, her back to theirs. She only had a single arm and leg, with the elbow closing into bone, and leg with a prosthetic bolted straight into her knee. While her clothes looked as presentable as everyone else around here, her skin was shriveled and peeling wherever it was exposed. As they drew near, the sound of metal scraping inside the lock became apparent.

Leah rushed over, yanked the trespasser free, and pushed her against the wall, the barrel of her suppressed pistol digging into her scalp.

“Looking for something, Chantelle?” Leah roared.

Her red eyes bulged. “Oh, God, Leah. It’s n-not how it l-l-looks.”

Leah twisted her arm over her shoulder and threw. Chantelle’s lithe frame rocketed onto the floor. Bone cracked through flesh as her back struck the carpet.

“Easy!” Liam shouted.

Leah glared. “Stay out of this.”

“Please!” Chantelle gasped. “I s-s-swear, I j-just need s-s-something to eat!”

“The distro meat not good enough for you? Thought you’d take the easy way and steal something from me instead? Maybe get a night at Elysium that you’ve never earned!?” She pressed her knee against her chest.

“For pity’s sake,” Liam said. “Look at her! She’s not some bandit on the road.”

But Leah just aimed the pistol between her eyes. “Why shouldn’t I just purge you right here? Why do you deserve the chance to survive!?”

Red tears ran down her cheeks. “I’m s-sorry, Leah! I p-p-promise, I was g-gonna return what I took! I j-j-just can’t go back. My Rez… Once I g-go dreg I w-w-won’t c-come back! Not this t-t-time. I c-c-can f-feel it!”

Leah let Chantelle go, and the poor woman cried, with streams of those red-colored tears sprouting free. There was something different about her, in a way that Liam hadn’t seen before. Unlike the vibrant hue that all the other rezzers had, her eyes were dull and pale, as if the light was about to blink out.

Leah holstered her pistol and reached into her jacket. A couple of photographs came tumbling out.

“Here,” Leah said, scattering them about. “Go get yourself something nice.”

Chantelle licked her blackened lips. “Do y-you m-m-mean it?”

She held up one of the photographs. It was a sunset overlooking the San Francisco bay. “I took this one myself at Seaside a few months back, last time I was there. You can have it.”

Chantelle clutched the picture to her chest as though it was made of gold. “Thank y-y-you.”

Leah leaned in, her eyes like two smoldering orchids. “But so help me, Chantelle. If I ever catch you pulling something like this, and I mean ever… I will drain you myself, nice and slow, so you can spend all the time in the world thinking about how much you’ve fucked up, until there won’t be any thinking left.” She nudged her shoulder. “Go on and fuck off.”

Chantelle floundered onto her chest and scurried away, made more heartbreaking by the lack of her arm, unworkable leg, and now-crooked back.

Liam stared Leah in the eye the moment Chantelle left. There was nothing more to say. No moral justification to be levied. His tolerance could only go so far.

“Don’t judge me,” Leah scoffed. “If I didn’t send a message, she’d start thinking that I can get rolled. Don’t underestimate what we’re capable of when we get desperate enough.”

But Liam only crossed his arms. “You didn’t have to hit her.”

“It’s for her own good.”

“Is it?”

Leah said nothing. For a time, the two stood in the hall of this ostentatious room, neither making a move to do much else. This wasn’t the sort of impasse that Liam intended to let slip, end of the world or not.

She sighed. “You probably think we call ourselves ‘rezzers’ out of some derivation of the word ‘resurrection’, huh?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” Liam said, still firm.

“What separates us from you isn’t how our bodies were reborn, but how our minds are sustained. Every sentient creature has an internal well of thought… Their own reservoir. Any memory gained trickles its way down to there. The older you get, the larger your Rez becomes.

“But for us, it’s the opposite. The Hollowing has rendered our reservoirs into a constant state of regression. If we don’t fight hard to restore them, we revert back into the hollows we came from. That’s the vulnerability of our kind. Without mental sustenance to keep our reservoirs stable, they erode, and the memories leak out.

“And so you can see why we became ‘rezzers’. The strength of our souls is dependent on the design of our individual reservoirs, and if we ever allow them to break, we die again, but this time more slowly and with full awareness of its decay. That’s what was happening to Chantelle, and I can only hope that by gifting a small part of my story, she’ll be able to sustain hers.”

She took a step forth. “This is why you’re here, Liam Fenix. The key to ending this fate is hidden in your uncorrupted blood. Only through you can the Hollowing be reversed.”

Liam stayed silent. This was all so very much. He looked to the empty space where Chantelle had been and contemplated all that he’d been told.

Could there really be a worse fate than that?