okay but the whole thing about not accepting fairy food or drink is that they give it to you and you then owe them something for it
so like, if it’s a normal cafe and you pay for your coffee & muffin you’d technically be okay since you paid them
so what I’m saying is, fairies starting coffee shops because it’s actually pretty profitable and more interesting than just waiting for humans to stumble into fairy circles
Some Fair Folk Cafe’s are fine, you go in, pay for your food, and if you leave wanting to go back that’s normal. These guys want you returning, they like humans, want to watch them and interact with them and learn about them.
Some, less so. You feel an urge, an itch under your skin to take more than you paid for. “We can upgrade you for free, if you’d like!” The cashier says. There’s something a little off in her smile. Sharp teeth are uncanny at this angle, you think. You shake your head, refusing politely.
“Samples, take one!” The person stocking the cabinet says, holding out a plate of small pieces of cake. They don’t say free, they don’t say what they cost. You know better than to take them at the implied meaning. Fair Folk don’t do ‘implied’.
“I just ate, but thank you,” you reply gracefully. The smile fades, sharp teeth hidden, before it widens again.
“Next time then,” they say, and you feel the promise brushing over your skin.
“Maybe,” you reply, still smiling. You know better than to agree with one of the Fair Folk. Words have weight after all, and none more than the echo of a promise to one of The People.
Dystopia Rising is property of Eschaton Media, this is all just fanfiction based an approved character backstory and in game events.
CW: Depression
The sun set over the tops of the trees as he roused himself from his bed and looked through the window. It had been difficult to get out his room recently. He knew that he had to go hunting and scrounging and that he couldn’t keep himself hidden away in the Tap. He had resources he had to collect and deals that had to be made. The members of the gang he was prospecting in were expecting him. He couldn’t let them down after taking the initiative to join. He couldn’t look like anymore of a leech than he already was.
It wasn’t that he was afraid or unwilling to leave the room. He wanted to, desperately, even. He hated being confined in that tiny, dark space. It reminded him of the pod and the less he thought about that, the better. But he found himself in a slump where he simply did not have the energy to leave his bed, and could barely function. At times, it felt like the weight of the world was baring down on him, like an unknown burden was holding him back and keeping him from going about his day. It was a pain he had felt often in his life, one that he could never explain or deal with properly when it arose. He just found himself feeling it again, and when it reared its head, he would just shut down.
He didn’t know why this melancholy kept haunting him, or what made it surface after being dormant for weeks or months at a time. It affected him differently at times. Some days he simply wouldn’t have the energy to function and could barely leave his sleeping space, despite the thirst, and the confined environments he hated so much. Some nights he would wake up crying for no discernible reason, unable to stop. Other days he could function but there would be an inescapable mixture of dread and loneliness brewing in his gut that would make his steps heavy and dull his senses.
He had tried to identify the cause countless times but came up empty after each attempt. Even as the explosions and cries of laughter and the sounds of the carnival echoed outside days earlier, he found himself feeling isolated and lonely, without the will to join the masses in their revels. The best he could explain it was that it felt like something had been taken from him, and he didn’t know what. He felt like he had suffered some great pain in his past that he couldn’t remember, that he had lost something or someone and that the pain of that loss was still reverberating inside of him, but he couldn’t put his finger on who or what it was that he had lost that had caused him so much pain. It wasn’t even that the pain was a constant in his life that was the source of his frustration. It was that it was a constant for a reason he didn’t understand and couldn’t place.
The closest feeling he had felt since waking up that he could place was when he saw Izzy nearly die at the hands of the Warpath Raiders, and the closest thing he could point to was how people acted when they waited by the Morgue. He just felt lost, alone, and weak, and he didn’t even know why he kept coming back to those feelings.
His throat was dry and his arms were weak. It had been a day since he last fed. He needed blood, and needed it soon. He didn’t have the will to hunt. Time to find a willing donor.
Three years out of the tube, and he still wondered why he was the one who survived, and if it would’ve been better if he had never woken up.
Dystopia Rising is property of Eschaton Media, this is all just fanfiction based an approved character backstory. Lyrics quoted before the Read More by Motionless in White.
Crawling from hell
Fallen from grace
And now there's nothing left to take
Leaving the past to the grave
So we can reincarnate
Spending weeks in the caravan left Stray restless. He occasionally had times to hunt to sate the thirst when the caravan would stop, but there were stretches of time where he needed to go without feeding. While it was difficult to deal with, he didn't want to risk being stranded in a place that was unfamiliar to him. He could find his way in Old York, but the territory was too foreign to him and he wasn't used to being in this kind of wilderness. Too many trees, and not enough vertical spaces he could use to his advantage. Far more dead and masked marauders than he was used to seeing as well.
The other members of the caravan kept their distance from him. It didn't faze him anymore. By this point he was used to it. None of these people would be around him for much longer. They could think what they wanted. This was his fresh start, not theirs. He saw many different kinds of people that he hadn't seen before on the ride down. Some were more well equipped for the terrain, with utilitarian gear. Others were dressed in furs and leathers with paint on their face. He was getting further from York and it was becoming apparent that things weren't as familiar as they used to be.
The one constant that he noticed as he got closer to the caravan's destination was the scent of spilled blood. The scenery had changed but the scene remained the same. Conflict followed him wherever he went, whether it was along the side of the road or directly in the caravan's path, and he had to help fend off attackers several times over the course of it's journey. The wilderness was just as dangerous as the city, but he was prepared for it now. At the very least, the people guiding the caravan appreciated his aid. As savage as he was, he could hold his own and outwit attackers. He wasn't a burden like some of the others, and his help was appreciated.
Eventually, the stop he was waiting for was reached, and he hopped off the back of the caravan. The lantern bearer at the front gave him a concerned look.
“You're not really planning on getting off here, are you?”
“I am. Why?”
“Hayven's out that way. Damn place is filled with murderers and monsters. I wouldn't go there if I were you.”
Stray paused for a moment before responding. “Fine by me. It's not any different than where I came from.”
“You're a braver sort than I am, I suppose. Good luck.”
Stray chuckled as he walked along the path. Luck didn't have anything to do with it. Only wits and brutality. He hadn't had any luck since he had woken up, and that hadn't stopped him. He survived the jungle, he survived the Bizarre, and he survived his trip out of the city. The world had tried to kill him more times than he could count, and he made it out alive.
The only thing left to do was carve out a place for himself here. If it really was a place for monsters, he'd fit right in.
Dystopia Rising is property of Eschaton Media, this is all just fanfiction based an approved character backstory. Lyrics quoted before the Read More by From First to Last.
CW: Profanity
I can feel my mind, wandering again.
Into where I don't know, and will I ever get home?
Time starts moving, faster than I can.
And I'm sick of this scene, I need to break the routine.
Another full cycle of seasons went by in the Bizarre. Stray continued to follow the same pattern he been following since he came to the area. He would hunt for blood and scour the streets nearby, and then return to the market to sell what he looted or found, staying for as long as he could before making another run. For many months, it was enough to fulfill his needs and keep him focused, but as time went on, Stray found himself becoming more restless and became less satisfied with his existence of just getting by in the Bizarre.
He had found security and a degree of comfort in the market, but he still wasn't happy. For the first time in his life he had a home, but he still felt alone. Despite the fact that Grip Set allowed him to come and go as he pleased, he was not a member of the gang nor would he ever be a member. He was a method of execution to them and a source of income, and that's all he would ever be to them. Most of the other locals of the Bizarre kept their distance from him, and while they'd trade with him when it fit their interests they treated him more like a nuisance than anything else. Keeping out of the gangland politics had kept him safe but it also alienated him heavily from the various gangs of the region.
He didn't understand why it was so fucking hard for them to accept him for what he was. He had seen their true faces, how they acted out in their own turf. They were all fucking monsters, as much as he was or more so. There wasn't a single one of their gangs that wasn't filled with murderers, thieves, liars, and cheats. They put on a good face when they were in the Bizarre, but he had seen firsthand the cruelty and the violence that they were capable of. He couldn't help what he was and what he had to do to survive, but they had chosen their lives when they had other options, and the more they treated him like an animal or a monster, the more Stray came to resent them for it. It wasn't fair that he was ostracized for being whatever he was when they all did things that were worse than his crimes on the regular.
At the same time he envied the bonds they had with one another. Even though they were cruel and vicious towards outsiders, when they were alone with each other, they had a close familial relation and in their own way they had a strange sort of warmth and kindness towards one another. They had each others backs in the wild, and they had people they could rely upon for comfort and protection. No matter how hard he worked and how much he brought in, he couldn't get that from the people in the Bizarre. None of them would give him the time of day if he didn't have something to give them. He tried to tell himself that he didn't need people like them to protect him or take him in, but he envied them for having people that actually cared about them.
The longer he lingered in the Bizarre, the deeper the cuts got. He struggled to find reasons to remain in the market. It gave him many of the answers he had been searching for, but it became increasingly apparent that there was nothing else for him there. His normal questions about the region gave way to ones about the outside world and where he could go. The city had made him but it was time to leave it behind. If he was going to grow and find out more about himself and the world he had woken up in, he needed to go out and search for the answers to the questions he still had.
Wherever he ended up, he needed a change, and he needed it soon.
Dystopia Rising is property of Eschaton Media, this is all just fanfiction based an approved character backstory. Lyrics quoted before the Read More by Knocked Loose.
CW: Blood, Profanity
Forced into a life of repentance
Searching out for a cure
Made to believe that acceptance
Is all that were looking for, is what we need
Life in the Bizarre was both easier and harder than life out on the streets of York. On one hand, the boy now had easier access to food, water, and other necessities. He could find new or mostly intact clothing, tinkers capable of building and repairing armor, and plenty of vendors willing to buy the stranger things he found on bodies or lying about the city. He found that through having a steady supply of scrap to trade he could live somewhat comfortably compared to the squalor he was living in before. If he could bring in an especially large haul, he could live off of it for weeks, and spend time learning more about the people and the region.
However, the boy would soon realize that things were not as peaceful as they seemed. Grip Set ruled the Bizarre without question or opposition, and violence in the confines of the market was rare, but old conflicts and feuds between the groups that frequented the Bizarre were carried out in other ways. Some vendors had loyalties to one side in a conflict, and doing business with them was considered a pledge of allegiance. Secret deals were cut in the peripheries of the market or through code phrases, setting plots into motion that would be carried out outside the confines of the Bizarre. Inside the market, the dynamic of Predators and Prey continued to dominate the interactions of these civilized people, only in a much more subtle way. The boy did all that he could to avoid being caught in the machinations of the gangs of the city, but he would be forced to play into or discard a loyalty from time to time. When he did, he would stay as far removed from the group as possible, close enough to gain their protection but far enough away to drop out without consequence. At the very least, Grip Set considered him a visitor and didn't ask anything of him.
“Yo, stray! Where's the stray at?” Until one day, when he saw crowds departing as several well armed Grip Set street soldiers parted it, calling out for someone or something. He stood by the side of the path like the other visitors. He didn't want to draw the ire of the gangsters as it looked like it was in no short supply at the moment. Several gunshots and a frantic yelling had broken out a few minutes earlier, and it looked like they were dragging a wounded man with them through the market. Odd. They normally just threw them over the walls. The scent of blood filled his nostrils and his eyes were drawn to fresh wounds on the leg of the captive. Likely a thief or a troublemaker. “Eyo, where's the stray at? Someone find that little fucker for me.” The one in charge looked up and down the line of the people watching the spectacle, before making direct eye contact with the boy.
“There you are. Hey, stray, get over here. We got something for you.” He hesitantly walked towards the gangsters. He tried to take his eyes off the man on the ground but his instincts were taking over. The wound was bleeding heavily, and the bullet must've hit something sensitive. He was wheezing in pain and exhaustion. He looked like a Yorker, and between breaths he was trying to plead with them gangsters surrounding him. One of them kicked him in the side after the man tried to grab his boots, causing him to cry out in pain. His eyes locked with the boy's, and an unmistakable look of fear flashed on his face. The leader of the pack of Grip Set gangsters put one hand on the boy's shoulder and pointed towards the Yorker with the other.
“We got you some lunch. Go ahead, he's all yours.” The boy hesitated. They had treated him decently before but they'd never presented anyone to him like this. Was this a test? Some sort of initiation? The boss uttered an annoyed sigh after a few moments. “C'mon, stray, we've seen how you bite into motherfuckers before. He's a fucking thief. Show him what happens to thieves in our market.”
Unable to keep his instincts at bay anymore, he lunged towards the dying man. He teeth bit into the wound on the man's leg first as his tongue lapped up the blood gushing out. The boy became aware of the horrified screams and worried murmurs from the onlookers but could only focus on the blood. After feeding from the open wound, he pulled himself off the leg and went for the throat next. As the noise from the crowd intensified, he heard a single gunshot ring out as the boss of the gangsters fired into the air.
“Shut the fuck up and watch! Do any of to you motherfuckers know how to read? What's the fucking sign say outside of the market? Buy! Sell! Thieves Killed! Remember that last part if you ever think about stealing from anyone here. We don't give a fuck who it is or why you do it. If you're a thief, you get treated like a thief, and thieves get fucking killed here, no exceptions. And you're not getting a bullet to the head. You're getting fed to the slackjaws or the stray. Don't wanna end up like this chucklefuck? Then don't steal from the market.”
The boy lifted his head up from the lifeless body of the Yorker after the flow of blood stopped. He began to wipe what had spilled onto his mouth off onto his claws, licking it off at intervals as to not let anything go to waste. As the gangsters walked by him, the leader patted him on the head a couple times before looking down at the boy and giving him a sadistic grin.
“Good show, stray. Let's do this again sometime.”
The politics of the market were as dangerous as the streets of the city were, filled with their own unique hazards depending on the group involved. But ever since that day, the denizens of the Bizarre treated him with a bit more respect and caution than they did before. His refusal to join any one side in the market had at least made him an asset to the gang controlling it, and in the end the refusal of the Yorkers on the outside to accept him for what he was paid off. He wasn't a member of any group in the market, but he had a place there. It wouldn't be the last time Grip Set would have him put on a “show” to dissuade potential thieves.
He kept thinking about how the gangsters had called him a stray. He only vaguely knew what it meant. But it didn't have the same venom that being called a monster, a freak, or a “leech” had.
It was as good of a name as he was going to get in the city. And so, it became his.
Dystopia Rising is property of Eschaton Media, this is all just fanfiction based an approved character backstory. Lyrics quoted before the Read More by Gallows.
CW: Profanity
Calling all you helpless souls,
throw down your swords and tools,
and strike a conversation about my blood hands,
there are no words to say, "I just killed a man".
The boy spent most of his days traveling along the paths he saw the other scavengers and packs take, using what he found or took along the way to pay off the local packs and move through territory without much struggle. Given how so many different groups came from and went to this one place, he assumed that it was some sort of neutral ground where he could finally try and get some answers about where he was and what he was. The dead, animals, and some of the Yorkers and masked ones in the city would threaten his survival from time to time, but he would find a way to overcome them, through either strength or guile. He was a skilled survivor and killer now, and knew when to fight or flee.
After many days of traveling, and climbing to the rooftops of the area, he finally saw it. Out of several buildings sticking out of the murky urban swampland below, and connected to the outer buildings by a series of crude bridges, lay a walled and fortified structure similar to those controlled by the larger packs of the regions. Unlike the other places he had been through, only the dead seemed to cause trouble here. The living kept the peace, aside from an occasional poor soul who was tossed off the walls into the hordes attracted to the lights and noise. People came and went freely, although some would be shaken down for goods by the ones who seemed to guard the compound. The guards were vicious and well armed. They didn't often harass the people coming and going from the region, but anyone that tried to put up a fight against them would be swiftly and brutally dealt with. They were the law of the land, and while they were more lenient in some ways than many of the other packs, they were no less dangerous.
He spent several days around the area, gathering scrap in case they asked for tribute, and monitoring how the guards acted and how travelers were supposed to act. He dared not attack anyone entering or leaving the compound, as he saw what happened to those who would try to do so many times during the days he spent making his preparations. He would go deeper into the city to hunt, and stash any scrap or valuables where he slept. When he finally had a decent amount of items built up, he worked up the nerve to approach. The compound was locked down during the night with the exception of a few larger local caravans that it allowed through, forcing him to approach during the daytime, giving him no easy means of escape if something went wrong.
He nervously walked across the rooftops, and approached the rusted metal gate that served as an entrance. Two guards in front of the gate. Several more on the walls. One had an automatic rifle. The other was sitting down, taking puffs of some strange, musty smelling object. They didn't pay much attention to him until he reached the gate, where the one with the gun cocked his head and looked over to the boy. Both of them were massive men, their skin covered in words he couldn't read and strange markings centered around a motif of a closed fist. The one with the rifle had a cloth pulled over his month, and his rifle had a series of lines along its stock, with a diagonal one going through one set every so often.
“Who are you?” The boy blanked a bit as the man walked closer to him. The boy didn't make eye contact. Eye contact was what provoked predators. “You ain't got no markings or colors and I haven't seen you before. What's your name, kid?”
“I-” He paused for a moment as he tried to come up with the words. “I don't know.”
“You don't know?” The two looked at him quizzically for a minute before bursting out in laughter. “What kinda dumb motherfucker don't even know their own name? You been through the grave recently or something?”
“Holy fuck, look at the hands on this little shit. Fuckers are like daggers.”
“Goddamn, cousin, they're red as fuck too. You haven't been going after people on our turf, have you?”
“N-no, I-” He subconsciously pulled his arms in tight, and tried to fight the instinct to go into a defensive position. That would imply guilt and lead to a very quick and violent end. “They were outside of this area. A few streets back. Not on the main roads.”
“Aight, little man, whatever you say. You had to get all the shit on your back from somewhere. I ain't one to judge a man's hustle. Just not on our fucking turf, and not in the market. You keep those fucking knives on your fingers to yourself.”
“Who, man, you sure we wanna let him in? You see the teeth on this fucker? He looks like a trog had a threesome with a fucking hunter and a gorehound or some shit.”
“We let trogs in if they're civil, he can come in so long as he don't cause any problems. Besides, he's got a good haul. It'd be bad for business. Yo, Slim! Open the fucking gate.” He heard the sound of chains being pulled and mechanisms whirring, and the heavy scrap iron door was lifted up. “You can go on in. Just remember that we'll be watching you. One wrong move and we throw you to the fucking slackjaws, you heard?”
The boy breathed a sigh of relief and walked into the compound, and was immediately greeted to the sight of dozens of tents, shanties, and other crude structures filling a wide open area. Hundreds of people filled the place. Mostly Yorkers, but he saw others dressed in less armored and more colorful clothing adorned with fur and shiny objects, surrounded by some of the most intimidating looking people in the entire area. There were some of the tunnel dwellers above ground in the daytime, covered head to toe in rags or armor. There were others dressed in colored scarves that seemed to be facilitating some of the exchanges between people. He had never seen this many people in one place that were not actively trying to murder each other.
The one large pack that controlled the area seemed to be keeping the peace between the visitors. If disputes broke out, they swiftly stopped them from getting worse through threat or application of greater harm, and a healthy mixture of fear and respect of them seemed to keep the visitors in line. He spent several days in the market, sleeping on the ground and either trading or gathering information in the daytime. The boy finally got some of the answers to his questions. The city was Old York, the ruins of some great capital of a world ravaged by the dead rising from their graves and by a great war that had nearly wiped out all life. This place was the World's End Bizarre, a market for trading goods and information run by Grip Set, the pack who identified themselves with the mark of the closed fist. According to the traders, there were other parts of York different from this one called Burrows that were vastly different from this one, and that the Burrow the market was in was named the Iron Gardens. Despite all that he learned from the people in the Bizarre, none of them knew what he was. Some guessed that he was something called a Remnant, a genetic defect caused by two different kinds of survivor breeding, but most either refused to believe his story of waking up in the chamber or could not think of why he would've been sealed in such a device. Most of their theories pointed to something called the Gravemind, the supposed intelligence behind the dead things that stalked the streets of Old York.
The Bizarre became a sort of home for him. He could not spend all of his time there as Grip Set were not fond of “squatters” and had a habit of throwing them to the ravenous undead who gathered outside the walls, but he spent as much time there as he could. He occasionally paid for lodging there by selling scrap for strips of plastic called Credits which served as the local currency. There were even some people inside or outside the Bizarre desperate enough for Credits that they accepted payment for allowing him to drink some of the blood, giving him more incentive to bring scrap into the Bizarre. He obeyed the warnings of Grip Set and never got on their bad side, and some of the gangsters would come to take a liking to him, although they made it abundantly clear that he could never be a part of the gang. The one thing he could never understand about them was the noise they would project from strange devices. Voices amplified and speaking in a pattern over a cacophonous beat and strange melodies. In their spare time, they would drink and smoke and listen to the noise reverently, quoting lines from it as “scripture” and discussing the “truths of the kings and queens.” They were like the ones who read from books in the square of the Bizarre, but louder and more confusing. They seemed to talk about figures like “Biggie” the same way the preachers talked about “God.” But unlike any other gang he had encountered, they seemed to respect his ability to bring in scrap and weapons to their trading hub, and he was grateful that they at least left him alone.
For the first time since he had woken up, he felt a semblance of peace in his life. The day to day struggle had not ceased, but at least he had a place to hang his head, and a place he could come back to.
Dystopia Rising is property of Eschaton Media, this is all just fanfiction based an approved character backstory. Lyrics quoted before the Read More by Darkest Hour
CW: Blood, Violence, Profanity
Go out,
Enter the cold dark night,
Show your survival,
Your purpose, your plight
“Where the fuck are you, you little shit?” The boy didn't respond. He crept silently through the rubble spread throughout the alley, keeping his head down and his body low to the ground. Another one called out to him. “We're going to find you eventually! Come out and we'll make it quick.” They weren't going to find him if they kept giving away their position. Their steps were loud and careless and they kept fucking yelling at him or to each other. They were three. One with a gun, but he seemed hesitant to use it. They were intruders in this place and likely didn't want to alert either the locals or the dead. At least they had that much sense about them as to not introduce another threat to the situation, although he was grateful that they were too stupid to stay quiet. Better to have to deal with the stupid ones than ones who knew what they were doing.
The boy had lost count of how many days had gone by. Warm gave way to cool, then to cold, then to cool again, and two cycles of the change in temperature had passed. The cold times were the hardest. Keeping a fire lit to stay warm was difficult and dangerous as it attracted more attention, and staying dry in the face of the frozen water was a constant danger. It reminded him of the chamber, and he hated it for that. But he persevered through it twice as he wandered the streets of the city, moving closer to where he saw other people go after they finished their salvage runs. He had grown to fear for his own survival in the wild parts of the city, and found that prey was more abundant when he did not have to contend with the larger animals of the city. There were more people, and they were more careless when cats and apes weren't around. The “Yorkers,” as they called themselves, were sloppy, loud, and boisterous. They knew their way around the rooftops and knew what streets to avoid, but their arrogance was always their undoing. Eventually, one would slip off the roofs, or one would go where they knew they shouldn't out of their desire for “cheddar,” and he could pick off the dying or the wounded. The ones wrapped from head to tow in cloth that emerged from the tunnels at night were more dangerous, as they could see him, but curiously enough they paid him little mind. They would often take the flesh of the dead after he finished draining their blood, and their packs let him pass by them without trouble most of the time.
As he encountered more and more people in his travels, he began to learn the rules of the city. In the jungle, there was only the fight for survival, but as he got closer to “civilization,” it was not as simple. Where he only saw small packs of Yorkers before, he saw them in much larger groups now. Their packs could be identified by how they dressed, the symbols they painted on the walls of their territory and adorned their clothing with, and what colors accented their palettes of gray, brown, and black. They hated each other, but he found that the larger packs could be bargained with. Hunting or scavenging in their lands without their permission drew their ire, but when presented with a “due” or “tribute” of scrap or weapons, they were open to the possibility of him moving through their lands to pick off any “unwanted guests.” Others would let him in on the promise of a “cut” of whatever he got. He learned to either break down any weapons that were close to unusable into scraps that could be reforged, or take anything that could still be used, and he used his findings on dead bodies or on his prey to get safe passage and hunting rights. Other times, a show of force was enough to convince the smaller packs to leave him be. That was what he was hoping would work on his current pursuers.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, where did that thing go?” One of them continued to rant and mumble to himself as he searched. Once again, they did not understand that in the jungle, giving away one's position is death. When hunted or hunting, keeping quiet is necessary. For all their street smarts and knowledge of the land, they didn't know that.
“You sure it's not some fucking slackjaw? It didn't look like any fucking Trog I've ever seen and there's only one of 'em.” They didn't have any markings or colors. Likely a new pack, or one trying to avoid being identified. “Gangs” and “sets” would sometimes avoid marking themselves to commit acts of violence and make it look like unaffiliated people were responsible. Whether or not this was the case for these Yorkers, they clearly were not supposed to be on this land, and they knew it. He had hunting rights here for the night, and they had attacked him first when they crossed his path while scavenging. Now that he had slipped away, they thought they were hunting him. They couldn't have been more wrong.
“Maybe it's some kind of fucked up remnant. Them claws looked like a fucking hunter's hands, though.”
“I don't know. Joey, get to higher ground and keep an eye out on us. Get your heater ready.”
“Why the fuck do I have to be the one to go off on my own?” They were getting louder and their movements had stopped. There was only one building that had a usable staircase nearby. He began to move towards it, and once inside, he ducked down behind cover and waited.
“Because you're the only with the fucking gun, you fucking dipshit. You're really afraid of one kid? You some kinda fucking Baywalker or something? Get up those fucking stairs and get on overwatch.” That must've been enough motivation for “Joey” as footsteps and muffled profanity began getting closer. Yorkers really hated being called “Baywalkers” for some reason, comparisons to them seemed to be a common insult, although the boy didn't understand why. Sure enough, footsteps on the staircase rang out as did the creaking of rusted metal. He waited for them to stop before following, taking care to move quickly and step lightly.
Sure enough, “Joey” was standing with his back to the stairs, rifle pointed down at the streets, eyes through the scope. Seeing his opportunity, he rushed behind the Yorker and wrapped his claws around his neck. A torrent of blood erupted from the Yorker's throat as he tried to scream but could only choke on the blood pouring out of his mouth and neck. The two below on the streets panicked at the sight of the body being pulled away from the edge of the roof. The boy dug his claws into the Yorker's chest to further wound him, and finally, when he thought that he was no longer able to fight, he dug his teeth into his throat and began to drink. The two on the street went silent. Taking the rifle, the boy fired three shots into the air to throw them off.
“Joey?” They bought it. Or at least, they were entertaining the possibility. “Joey, what the fuck? Say something!” The boy picked up the body of the Yorker and walked towards the edge. It was heavy, but a message needed to be sent. When he got close to the edge, he threw the body onto the street, two stories down. When it hit the pavement, the two remaining Yorkers panicked and he heard hurried footsteps leading back towards the direction they had approached from. The message was received. This was his jungle, and he was not prey. He walked down to the boy and stripped it for anything of use, before wiping the blood on his face and clothing off onto the Yorker's clothes. Better for the dead man to have the scent of a fresh kill on him than for the boy to have it lingering on his own clothing.
They always called him a freak, or a monster, or an abomination. They always looked at him with disdain for being what he was. Their words meant nothing to him. He didn't want to be the way he was, but he had no choice. They had that choice, and they were the ones who chose to attack him, to beat him, to smoke him out of his refuges with fire, to rob him of his property, to constantly try and kill him just for existing. The real monsters were the ones who had that choice, and still chose to kill and to harm, not because they needed to, but because they could.
He saw the lights of a faraway rooftop and heard faint sounds echoing in the distance mixed in with the screams, the gunfire, and the groans of the dead that rang out in the night. That seemed to be where all of the other scavengers would be headed if they survived their trips. Perhaps it's where he needed to go to finally find a place to rest his head without fear of harm. He didn't think there was any place in the city free of danger, but it was worth a shot.
Dystopia Rising is property of Eschaton Media, this is all just fanfiction based an approved character backstory. Lyrics quoted before the Read More by In Fear and Faith
CW: Blood
Why do I deserve a second chance?
Am I lucky or inhuman? Am I sane or am I mad?
I'm the only one who gets a chance
A chance to live on
‘Cause I can breathe without my mask
The boy wandered the streets for a long time. He didn't know where he could go, and wandered in whatever direction had the least noise. He would come to learn that noise meant danger after a few early encounters with beasts or monsters. Lost in a foreign environment, he had to learn how to move unseen to avoid the various threats in the decayed urban sprawl. Day and night provided different kinds of danger, but he would spend most of his days sleeping in dark areas of ruined buildings, and moving by night to avoid the most attention. Most things couldn't see well at night and he was very good at keeping low and avoiding attention from most of them. The lingering cold from being frozen helped him bare the heat of the first few humid late spring days, but eventually he would come to prefer finding shelter from the harsh sun during the day and embracing the cooler nighttime.
The thirst was a constant. He would find suitable drinking water either in ponds located along chains of pipes, or on the bodies of people that had not yet sank into the ground, and although most of the water was salted, he eventually overheard some people he was stalking talk about boiling it to purify it, and would begin doing so to keep himself from being dehydrated. And while one kind of thirst was quenched with water, there was a lingering one that could not be sated. He didn't understand it until the first time he found a body of a person that had been mostly devoured by the roaming monsters of the city, and saw the pool of blood that had spilled out from the wounds caused by their ravenous teeth. Instinct took over, and before he could process what he was doing, he found himself licking the blood from the ground, mixed in with dirt and debris. He didn't care. For the first time since he awoke, the thirst lessened. He understood what needed to be done from that point on. He took the clothes off of the body of the man, getting most of them off before the body sank into the ground. He didn't understand why the ground seemed to rise up and absorb it, but he didn't care, he had gotten what he needed.
As he wandered the city he would come to identify three categories of threats that he would have to contend with. There were the monsters who constantly groaned that wandered aimlessly through the streets, the bloodless ones without any intelligence or drive beyond devouring any living thing they found. They didn't speak, they barely bled, and when they did, their blood tasted rancid and didn't affect the thirst. The slow ones were easy to deal with. He could move by them unseen in the night, and during the day, if they did find him, his claws would easily tear through their flesh and strike them down. Like the body of the man he found, the ground took them under even if he didn't finish them off. But there were the other lifeless monsters. There were the large and loud ones, who he would simply learn to avoid as they were slow and stupid. There were the gaunt ones who could contort their limbs and climb into his sleeping spaces. While he could dispatch them without much trouble, they made it so he could never sleep easily. There were the ones who carried weapons, calling out names of people who betrayed them or killed them, who could hunt him during the day if they saw him, as they possessed a twisted intelligence about them. And then there were the quiet ones who stalked him during the night, and, even worse, could see him when he tried to slip by unseen. The worst of all were the ones with spiked limbs who waited on the ceilings for their prey.
But the dead things could not compare to the animals of the city. The small ones, such as the birds and rodents, did not concern him and let him be for the most part. The dogs were a larger problem, as they hunted in packs and were ferociously territorial. But the urban jungle had larger predators that he would come to fear. There were the primates, who were not as aggressive as the others, but were clever, territorial, and dangerous, and the worst of their kind had taken to wielding devices that fired balls of metal, forcing him to flee from a hail of death if he found himself in their territory. At the very least, with those primates, he would often hear them firing before it was too late. The silver haired ones were far quieter and far more dangerous if he encountered one, but he could vanish into the night if he crossed one's path. By the water's edge, there were the long necked plant eaters that paid him little mind, but also the strange, gray skinned water beasts that nearly killed him more than a couple times while trying to harvest water. The biggest threat were the cats. The large, black furred monsters that roamed the urban jungle as its apex predators. The first time he saw one it filled him with awe. It was a beautiful, sleek, and deadly creature. Awe and wonder gave way to fear as the beast found him in his hiding space and pounced. He managed to escape by crawling through rubble too narrow to allow the beast through, and learned his lesson. They were to be admired from afar and avoided at all costs. At the very least, if he did have to fight animals, their blood sated the hunger, and their flesh helped sustain him further if cooked, and as such he would seek out the separated or wounded beasts of the gardens to pick them off and devour them.
He did not meet other people for some time, but when he did, he would come to learn that they were the worst. The first time he tried to approach a small group of what he assumed were hunters, he noticed that, like the body he found before, they did not have his claws or his fangs. He tried to speak, but struggled to find words, while the group found their own easily.
“What the fuck is that?”
“Fucking shoot it! Don't let that fucking freak get any closer!”
This became the norm for his encounters with the living. Everyone he encountered, whether alone or in a group, was concerned solely with their own survival. They were older, stronger, and more experienced, and inevitably, if he could not avoid them, he would have to fight or flee. They had weapons, sharp ones, heavy ones, and ones that shot projectiles, and they were just as clever as he was. But his claws were sharper than their fists, and in some cases, their blades, and if he had the element of surprise, he could pick off the weak or the separated, just like how he saw the dogs and the cats hunt. There were also the masked ones that did not speak, only growled or yelled, but were tougher physically, and whose blood tasted wrong, who he would come to only fight out of necessity. It was clear to him that he would not find any help or any compassion from the jungle. He needed to be stronger, more clever, and more savage than any other predator, and faster and more enduring than any other prey animal, if he had any chance of survival. Blood, water, and food were all that mattered. Survival was a constant struggle, but he was skilled, and he persisted.
The entire time, he looked back on the chamber, the place he awoke in, and the others he found in the room. He wondered why he alone had awoken, instead of sharing their fate and being spared this hell he had found himself in.
Dystopia Rising is property of Eschaton Media, this is all just fanfiction based an approved character backstory. Lyrical prelude by the Acacia Strain.
CW: Body Horror
Frozen to the bed
And terror in my mind
She calls out to me
I cannot scream
I leave the world behind
I cannot scream
It begins with a single pulse.
Calm. Slow. Steady. Repeating, getting faster with every beat. Then, cold. Dark. Cold. Cold. So cold. Everything is cold. Darkness, everywhere. Darkness and cold. And then, he blinks. Atrophied eyelids open. He does not know how long since the last time. Shivering and gasping for breath, he struggles to move. He tries to move his arms or his legs, but all he can do is shake. The cold is overwhelming, his limbs are weak and withered, and all he can do is quake in a feeble attempt to cling to any warmth he can find. He does not find any, and so he shakes until finally getting a semblance of control over his arm.
His breaths are shallow and weak. He feels something on his face, covering his mouth, blocking his breaths. His eyes finally begin to adjust. All he sees around him is metal, something transparent covered with residue on the other side, and a device attached to a tube on his face. The walls of the coffin of steel and glass are covered with frost that slowly dissolves as he frantically tries to remove the apparatus from his face. Buried in a nameless grave, barely able to move, and freezing to nearly a point of hypothermia he thrashes about the chamber as he finally manages to move his other arm and tear the device off of his face. He takes his first breath and breathes deep. He still can't feel his legs. He feels himself hit the bottom of the chamber. His lower torso is what makes contact with the floor, not his legs or his feet.
And then the pain begins.
Throughout his body waves of agony begin to take hold. He screams. All he can do is scream as the pain worsens. His heart races, bringing the warmth he had wanted so much, but bringing with it an increased sensitivity and awareness of what was happening to him. He looks down. His legs are gone. Gone, but he can feel something growing out from where they were. He panics. He beats on the glass with as much strength as he can muster. It is not enough. He can feel it weakening slowly but it refuses to shatter no matter how many times he hits it. His twisted hands tear at the door, trying to find any sort of release, anything to force it to open. The growing sensation in his lower torso continues, as does the pain, and he can finally see something growing out from beneath him, pushing him higher up.
He keeps beating on the door. He feels himself tiring, but also the glass finally beginning to give. With one final strike, a crack forms, and spreads over the surface of the glass. Using the last of his strength, he throws his chest into it, and breaks through. His body is covered with dirt and cuts from the shards, but he is free. Still in agony, and now with the pain of the broken glass embedded in his flesh, he tries to pull himself across the floor. Looking back, he sees what almost look like legs growing out of where his own once were, only half covered in flesh, with more skin and muscle growing from the remains of his lower torso. Shards of glass that were stuck in them are covered, wrapped inside the new limbs, causing extreme pain to wrack through his new limbs as they form. Unable to move, he whimpers and waits for the process to finish.
After what seems like an eternity, the pain lessens. It is there, but it is not as severe. As he lies on the ground, sensation comes to his legs. Wounds caused by the broken glass embedded in his arms heal. He tries to fight the extreme pain in his legs and makes several attempts to stand. He fails, but gets closer to walking upright with every attempt as blood enters his legs and his muscles adapt. It is difficult, but at the same time it still feels natural to him. Finally, through the pain, the atrophy, and the panic, he stands.
Standing alone in the darkness, all he sees around him are chambers like the one he had been trapped in. His is the only one that appears to have been opened. He slowly walks up to one, and wipes away the dust covering the outside. He sees the bones of its inhabitant, leaning against the back of the walls. Stumbling back from the sight, he falls back down to the ground. He does not check the other chambers. He knows what lies inside of them now. The room is dark, and it would likely have been pitch black if not for the light shining through several holes in the concrete ceiling. He sees a door ahead of him, left open. He walks forward, finding a veritable maze of hallways devoid of life. There are other doors leading to other rooms. Most are ruined completely. Others are intact but devoid of any life or objects. He does not find any other chambers like the ones in the room he was in.
He sees light ahead, by a column of rubble, likely from where the ceiling had collapsed. He finds that his clawed fingers help with climbing the rocks, and as his strength returns he climbs through, finally reaching the light. Looking at his surroundings, he sees dozens of structures of steel around him, rusted out and brimming with overgrown plant life. The asphalt beneath his feet is split and the patches of dirt in between the cracks are covered with grass. In the distance, he hears faint pops and a strange, guttural wind coming from different directions, as well as the songs of birds in his immediate surroundings.
And that is when he felt the thirst for the first time.
jbbartram-illu
theartofmadeline
prguitarman
snowghoul
gummygunk
andulkaphoto
yousharknotpass
germansingergirl
