Prologue
Specks of dirty water dotted my socks as my shoes slapped through the puddles at the side of the street. Each breath was more raspy and desperate than the last and my lungs ached from the long minutes of running. Stray hairs stuck to my brow and itched my eyes, but I didn't have the energy to tuck them back behind my ears. My shoulder was growing sore from the jostling of the guitar strapped across my back, its contents jingling merrily. I hadn't been thinking very clearly when I brought it, and now it was serving as a hindrance. No, I suppose the guitar was important, just not worth the trouble to get it. I should have left it to burn.
Burn. I could still smell the gasoline behind me. I had to keep running. I didn't dare risk a glance over my shoulder for fear that the fire would catch up with me. I could still hear the school crackling and collapsing bit by bit just a few blocks behind me. Soon the cars along the side of the street-
A loud explosion from behind me blew hot wind against my back that made my eyes water. Seconds later another went off, then another, each time a little closer to me. Stray pieces of shrapnel zipped by me and spat tiny sparks onto the asphalt. I ran faster. Already, I could see the entrance to the subway only a couple blocks ahead. If I could just get down there before the fire caught me, I might be safe. The guitar seemed to be growing heavier and heavier and I briefly contemplated just throwing it down and sprinting. But I had already come too far just to give up. The guitar was a prize I had fought hard and long for, and I wasn't going to be intimidated into dropping it. In the world I lived in now, it was much too valuable.
Another car's gas tank was ignited, and it was so close it nearly blew me off my feet. As a ball of flame engulfed the car, a large piece of glass grazed my arm. I yelped and swiveled my head to inspect it, but then another smaller piece scratched the skin immediately below my eye and I knew it would be wiser to not turn around again. Smoke burned my lungs, my eyes, and my nose, and I could hear the tips of my hair sizzling. I was so close; only a couple more strides until I reached the dark safety of the subway tunnel.
Just as I was making the final leap toward the entrance, a taxi parked not ten feet behind me caught fire. I looked at it in horror for a split second before it blew up. I was thrown into the tunnel and flew over the stairs before landing at the bottom. For a few frightening seconds, my vision went black as I heard my head crack against the cement. Finally, my eyesight cleared and I forced myself to sit up and assess the damage. The first thing I noticed was a pounding headache when I moved. I touched the back of my head gingerly and my fingers came away wet. Hopefully it was just a case of 'head wounds bleed a lot.' The edge of the guitar was digging into my back, so I tried to fix the strap only to discover I'd dislocated my shoulder. I winced and let out my breath through my teeth. Slowly, I turned so that the guitar strap fell from its place around my neck. The guitar dropped to the ground with an out-of-tune twanging that aggravated my headache. Then, as quickly as I could, I popped my shoulder back into place with my free hand. An acute pain shot through my arm, highlighting the cut from earlier, but after that most of the discomfort lay in small scratches and some bruises.
Eventually, I collected myself and the guitar and stood up, studying the damp tunnel. Small fires licked across the floor, some real, some reflected in a shallow layer of water nearly covering the bottom. A dull trickling noise caught my attention, and I swung the guitar across my other shoulder and went to inspect it. I only had to walk a few feet before realizing its source. Water from what could only be the sewers, judging by its disgusting stench, filled the trench where the tracks lay. I blanched at the thought that I had just been lying in sewer water at the bottom of the stairs.
I wouldn't say I was any kind of expert when it came to how a city was supposed to work, but I was pretty sure that sewer water in the subways wasn't a good thing. How did the pipes even get through the hard concrete that made up the walls and into the tracks? As I looked down into the grimy, dark water that filled the tunnel, I realized that there must've been explosions on the other side of the city as well, big enough to knock a pipe loose and crumble a tunnel wall, or maybe even on the subway itself. I leaned over to try to see the bottom by the flickering light from the top of the stairs and felt the heavy guitar shift on my back. Right. I had to keep moving.
Slowly, I made my way back up the stairs on which I'd fallen. A hot breeze moved a few strands of hair in front of my eyes, and following it the strong smell of smoke and gasoline and burning asphalt. A few gritty pieces of debris were blown down the stairs. When I had nearly reached the top, I tentatively poked my head out. The fires nearest me had been subdued, with only a few small collections of flame and smoke sitting on cars and buildings. I turned my head a bit to face the direction that I'd been running in before taking a dive, and observed that although the cars' gasoline tanks had stopped blowing up, the damage was still considerably large and impossible to get through. I cursed the damn gangsters that had decided to pour gasoline all over the place. Damn pyros. I couldn't very well just turn back at this point, much as I wanted to. I'd have to find another way to get to the pawn shop now that my shortcut had been demolished.
The guitar made some loud clinking noises as I walked out of the stairway. With a better light source to see with, I noticed that any cleanliness my clothes had once pertained was smeared with who-knows-what from the floor of the subway. Already I saw dark bruises forming on my arms and legs where I landed, and my head still hurt like hell. Thankfully, it had stopped bleeding. The dried blood on my fingers made it look like I'd murdered something. My hair was still sticky, though, and I didn't dare take out my ponytail in case the wound reopened. Again, I muttered curses at the idiots who'd caused this. I mean, I get trying to set up a trap using the guitar as bait, but did they really have to set it off on the wrong person? And did they really think that pouring gasoline all over the school and down two blocks of parked cars wasn't going a little overboard?
Still, at the moment the coast was clear and the explosions had stopped. If I was going to profit from this horrible experience I'd have to finish what I'd meant to do in the first place. Sometimes I almost missed having a police force. Even if they couldn't have stopped this, they could've at least prevented it from going so far. Having a functioning plumbing system would have helped, too. I listened to the crunching of my sneakers against the now-uneven gravel of the sidewalk. I'd just have to turn right and go a few blocks farther than I'd wanted to reach the shop. Overhead, a sun dyed red by the smoke hung low in the sky. A single dog barked a couple blocks away, and the crackling of the fire made me feel kind of paranoid. I hoped the ignoramuses that set this fire thought that me and the guitar had been burnt to a crisp. If they learned that the guitar had survived, they'd definitely come back for it.
With the guitar continuing to jingle with each step, I kept walking. I passed the once-great buildings of downtown, now with all their windows broken and their useful supplies looted. Not a soul moved but me, and the silence was getting to me. I kept looking around to make sure I was alone, truly alone, without some kind of thug lying in wait in a dark alley. No, I corrected myself; thugs didn't just thrive in the dark anymore. They were everywhere now, free to roam the streets any time they wished. They lived by a sort of 'survival of the fittest' kind of conduct. Now the ones in the alleys were those that didn't want to die. That was where I usually hung out. Believe me, if I could take 'em I would, but there's only so much an average height, fifteen-year-old girl can do.
I turned into the first alleyway I could find, and had to rely on my memory of downtown to make it to the pawn shop in a way that I didn't run into anyone interested in the guitar. A guitar by itself wouldn't be too bad, but an abnormally heavy guitar that made suspicious noises would be pretty noticeable. I had to get this right. I'd probably never have a chance like this again. I remembered just how stellar it had been to wander into my old algebra classroom, thinking I might find stuff to loot, and found this gem lying on the desk. Initially, I'd ignored it, but when a ray of sun had made the inside twinkle just a bit, I had dropped everything and picked it up and ran. I knew that it had to be some sort of trap, but I just hadn't been thinking clearly. Almost the second I'd stepped out the front door of the school, classrooms began going up in flames. Not a half minute after that, dynamite went off, and that's when I began my adrenaline-fueled sprint down the block, slinging the guitar across my back by the strap attached to it.
Lost in thought, I almost turned a corner leading to a small group of people. One of them, dressed in a long black coat of sorts, held the Bible in front of her thin nose and chanted in Latin. The others, some clad in robes similar to those of the woman, chanted back monotonously. Candle light flickered against the dark walls surrounding them. Nervously, I backed away. I'd heard rumors of the new religious cults and didn't want to stay and find out if this was one of them. The alleys grew darker as the sun sunk behind the buildings, and I hurried to reach my destination. My last flashlight had died early that morning, and I didn't want to be stuck in the dark. As I grew closer to the center of the city, I could hear raucous shouts and a dull roar of voices, which I carefully avoided. Soon, the doors of the pawn shop were in sight.
Slowly, I pushed open one of the faded green doors. A small bell rang as the door closed, shutting off all the noise from outside. For a moment, with the displeasing sounds from outside no longer plaguing my ears, everything felt normal again. Then my head sent a shooting pain down my spine and I snapped back to reality. A couple last rays of dusty sunlight filtered through chipping white shutters at the front of the shop. Oak floorboards creaked as I tread forward. Most of the shelves hanging on the floral wallpaper had been wiped of their old contents, and the shop looked almost bare. Only a few old mismatched chairs and an antique desk remained, sitting near the back of the room in front of another door. It slid open just a bit, and a young man no older than twenty slipped out and seated himself behind the desk. Smooth black hair almost covered his eyes, which looked cold and cunning. "Hello," he said politely, his lips twisting up into a clever smirk. "How might I help you, m'lady?"
"There's only one thing a person can do in this shop," I replied unsmilingly. I had no desire to play games with him; the time for games had long gone by.
"Indeed," he conceded. His expression didn't change. I knew I could sit there as long as I wanted without him saying anything further, so with an irritated sigh I removed the guitar from my back. I held it in my arms, its dirty front facing up at me. I locked eyes with the shopkeeper for a moment, trying to gauge his sincerity and finding no reason to trust him as he stared back at me with a bemused look. Still, there was no other way to acquire the supplies I needed. Without breaking the gaze, I emptied the guitar onto his desk.
The sound of metal against metal shattered the silence as hundreds of keys poured out. Diary keys, house keys, drawer keys, car keys, gate keys, clock keys, and many more bounced onto the weathered surface of the desk. I could see gold, silver, and copper reflected in his eyes as they glinted deviously before he regained his uninterested persona. I nearly grinned, but caught myself just in time. I couldn't let him see me smile, or else he might try to con me out of more than he was already planning to. His eyes flicked back up to meet mine as the cacophony of sound created by the keys came to an end.
"My name is Ren," he said smoothly as he rose from his seat to shake my filthy hand. "It is a pleasure doing business with you."
Burn. I could still smell the gasoline behind me. I had to keep running. I didn't dare risk a glance over my shoulder for fear that the fire would catch up with me. I could still hear the school crackling and collapsing bit by bit just a few blocks behind me. Soon the cars along the side of the street-
A loud explosion from behind me blew hot wind against my back that made my eyes water. Seconds later another went off, then another, each time a little closer to me. Stray pieces of shrapnel zipped by me and spat tiny sparks onto the asphalt. I ran faster. Already, I could see the entrance to the subway only a couple blocks ahead. If I could just get down there before the fire caught me, I might be safe. The guitar seemed to be growing heavier and heavier and I briefly contemplated just throwing it down and sprinting. But I had already come too far just to give up. The guitar was a prize I had fought hard and long for, and I wasn't going to be intimidated into dropping it. In the world I lived in now, it was much too valuable.
Another car's gas tank was ignited, and it was so close it nearly blew me off my feet. As a ball of flame engulfed the car, a large piece of glass grazed my arm. I yelped and swiveled my head to inspect it, but then another smaller piece scratched the skin immediately below my eye and I knew it would be wiser to not turn around again. Smoke burned my lungs, my eyes, and my nose, and I could hear the tips of my hair sizzling. I was so close; only a couple more strides until I reached the dark safety of the subway tunnel.
Just as I was making the final leap toward the entrance, a taxi parked not ten feet behind me caught fire. I looked at it in horror for a split second before it blew up. I was thrown into the tunnel and flew over the stairs before landing at the bottom. For a few frightening seconds, my vision went black as I heard my head crack against the cement. Finally, my eyesight cleared and I forced myself to sit up and assess the damage. The first thing I noticed was a pounding headache when I moved. I touched the back of my head gingerly and my fingers came away wet. Hopefully it was just a case of 'head wounds bleed a lot.' The edge of the guitar was digging into my back, so I tried to fix the strap only to discover I'd dislocated my shoulder. I winced and let out my breath through my teeth. Slowly, I turned so that the guitar strap fell from its place around my neck. The guitar dropped to the ground with an out-of-tune twanging that aggravated my headache. Then, as quickly as I could, I popped my shoulder back into place with my free hand. An acute pain shot through my arm, highlighting the cut from earlier, but after that most of the discomfort lay in small scratches and some bruises.
Eventually, I collected myself and the guitar and stood up, studying the damp tunnel. Small fires licked across the floor, some real, some reflected in a shallow layer of water nearly covering the bottom. A dull trickling noise caught my attention, and I swung the guitar across my other shoulder and went to inspect it. I only had to walk a few feet before realizing its source. Water from what could only be the sewers, judging by its disgusting stench, filled the trench where the tracks lay. I blanched at the thought that I had just been lying in sewer water at the bottom of the stairs.
I wouldn't say I was any kind of expert when it came to how a city was supposed to work, but I was pretty sure that sewer water in the subways wasn't a good thing. How did the pipes even get through the hard concrete that made up the walls and into the tracks? As I looked down into the grimy, dark water that filled the tunnel, I realized that there must've been explosions on the other side of the city as well, big enough to knock a pipe loose and crumble a tunnel wall, or maybe even on the subway itself. I leaned over to try to see the bottom by the flickering light from the top of the stairs and felt the heavy guitar shift on my back. Right. I had to keep moving.
Slowly, I made my way back up the stairs on which I'd fallen. A hot breeze moved a few strands of hair in front of my eyes, and following it the strong smell of smoke and gasoline and burning asphalt. A few gritty pieces of debris were blown down the stairs. When I had nearly reached the top, I tentatively poked my head out. The fires nearest me had been subdued, with only a few small collections of flame and smoke sitting on cars and buildings. I turned my head a bit to face the direction that I'd been running in before taking a dive, and observed that although the cars' gasoline tanks had stopped blowing up, the damage was still considerably large and impossible to get through. I cursed the damn gangsters that had decided to pour gasoline all over the place. Damn pyros. I couldn't very well just turn back at this point, much as I wanted to. I'd have to find another way to get to the pawn shop now that my shortcut had been demolished.
The guitar made some loud clinking noises as I walked out of the stairway. With a better light source to see with, I noticed that any cleanliness my clothes had once pertained was smeared with who-knows-what from the floor of the subway. Already I saw dark bruises forming on my arms and legs where I landed, and my head still hurt like hell. Thankfully, it had stopped bleeding. The dried blood on my fingers made it look like I'd murdered something. My hair was still sticky, though, and I didn't dare take out my ponytail in case the wound reopened. Again, I muttered curses at the idiots who'd caused this. I mean, I get trying to set up a trap using the guitar as bait, but did they really have to set it off on the wrong person? And did they really think that pouring gasoline all over the school and down two blocks of parked cars wasn't going a little overboard?
Still, at the moment the coast was clear and the explosions had stopped. If I was going to profit from this horrible experience I'd have to finish what I'd meant to do in the first place. Sometimes I almost missed having a police force. Even if they couldn't have stopped this, they could've at least prevented it from going so far. Having a functioning plumbing system would have helped, too. I listened to the crunching of my sneakers against the now-uneven gravel of the sidewalk. I'd just have to turn right and go a few blocks farther than I'd wanted to reach the shop. Overhead, a sun dyed red by the smoke hung low in the sky. A single dog barked a couple blocks away, and the crackling of the fire made me feel kind of paranoid. I hoped the ignoramuses that set this fire thought that me and the guitar had been burnt to a crisp. If they learned that the guitar had survived, they'd definitely come back for it.
With the guitar continuing to jingle with each step, I kept walking. I passed the once-great buildings of downtown, now with all their windows broken and their useful supplies looted. Not a soul moved but me, and the silence was getting to me. I kept looking around to make sure I was alone, truly alone, without some kind of thug lying in wait in a dark alley. No, I corrected myself; thugs didn't just thrive in the dark anymore. They were everywhere now, free to roam the streets any time they wished. They lived by a sort of 'survival of the fittest' kind of conduct. Now the ones in the alleys were those that didn't want to die. That was where I usually hung out. Believe me, if I could take 'em I would, but there's only so much an average height, fifteen-year-old girl can do.
I turned into the first alleyway I could find, and had to rely on my memory of downtown to make it to the pawn shop in a way that I didn't run into anyone interested in the guitar. A guitar by itself wouldn't be too bad, but an abnormally heavy guitar that made suspicious noises would be pretty noticeable. I had to get this right. I'd probably never have a chance like this again. I remembered just how stellar it had been to wander into my old algebra classroom, thinking I might find stuff to loot, and found this gem lying on the desk. Initially, I'd ignored it, but when a ray of sun had made the inside twinkle just a bit, I had dropped everything and picked it up and ran. I knew that it had to be some sort of trap, but I just hadn't been thinking clearly. Almost the second I'd stepped out the front door of the school, classrooms began going up in flames. Not a half minute after that, dynamite went off, and that's when I began my adrenaline-fueled sprint down the block, slinging the guitar across my back by the strap attached to it.
Lost in thought, I almost turned a corner leading to a small group of people. One of them, dressed in a long black coat of sorts, held the Bible in front of her thin nose and chanted in Latin. The others, some clad in robes similar to those of the woman, chanted back monotonously. Candle light flickered against the dark walls surrounding them. Nervously, I backed away. I'd heard rumors of the new religious cults and didn't want to stay and find out if this was one of them. The alleys grew darker as the sun sunk behind the buildings, and I hurried to reach my destination. My last flashlight had died early that morning, and I didn't want to be stuck in the dark. As I grew closer to the center of the city, I could hear raucous shouts and a dull roar of voices, which I carefully avoided. Soon, the doors of the pawn shop were in sight.
Slowly, I pushed open one of the faded green doors. A small bell rang as the door closed, shutting off all the noise from outside. For a moment, with the displeasing sounds from outside no longer plaguing my ears, everything felt normal again. Then my head sent a shooting pain down my spine and I snapped back to reality. A couple last rays of dusty sunlight filtered through chipping white shutters at the front of the shop. Oak floorboards creaked as I tread forward. Most of the shelves hanging on the floral wallpaper had been wiped of their old contents, and the shop looked almost bare. Only a few old mismatched chairs and an antique desk remained, sitting near the back of the room in front of another door. It slid open just a bit, and a young man no older than twenty slipped out and seated himself behind the desk. Smooth black hair almost covered his eyes, which looked cold and cunning. "Hello," he said politely, his lips twisting up into a clever smirk. "How might I help you, m'lady?"
"There's only one thing a person can do in this shop," I replied unsmilingly. I had no desire to play games with him; the time for games had long gone by.
"Indeed," he conceded. His expression didn't change. I knew I could sit there as long as I wanted without him saying anything further, so with an irritated sigh I removed the guitar from my back. I held it in my arms, its dirty front facing up at me. I locked eyes with the shopkeeper for a moment, trying to gauge his sincerity and finding no reason to trust him as he stared back at me with a bemused look. Still, there was no other way to acquire the supplies I needed. Without breaking the gaze, I emptied the guitar onto his desk.
The sound of metal against metal shattered the silence as hundreds of keys poured out. Diary keys, house keys, drawer keys, car keys, gate keys, clock keys, and many more bounced onto the weathered surface of the desk. I could see gold, silver, and copper reflected in his eyes as they glinted deviously before he regained his uninterested persona. I nearly grinned, but caught myself just in time. I couldn't let him see me smile, or else he might try to con me out of more than he was already planning to. His eyes flicked back up to meet mine as the cacophony of sound created by the keys came to an end.
"My name is Ren," he said smoothly as he rose from his seat to shake my filthy hand. "It is a pleasure doing business with you."