An awkward silence. He in his musky brown suit, his balding skull shining in the gloom of the fading moon, paced to the window and swung it open to release the air and tension. The room immediately filled with noise, the droning cars could clearly be heard down below from the 32nd floor. The bed lay in the corner, the mattress still dripping damp from the night before. The metallic whir of New York city fizzed in his ears. He noticed the dim, crimson lamp, the red light casting a shadow over room 437. With a sigh and a feel of his light pockets he crept towards the door, slipping out as quietly as he had come. His polished shoe thumped the gravel outside. Daybreak threatened over the stare of the buildings, suitcase under arm, pager in hand, he marched towards it. The oblivious city carried on its restless flow, the slum once crawling with girls sporting cherries in their mouth transformed into a blind, uniform greyness. The blaze of the sun showed the true colours of his suit, pinstripe. Spotless. His complexion was made pale and sickly by the light, the sharp features glinting in the crisp sunlight struck a feeling of respect in every passer by who spotted him, the businessman. The highly regarded executive. His work was not normal. One stare from those lidless eyes could tell you that.
The golden nameplate perfectly placed upon the smooth mahogany desk read Mr Vincent Slintly OBE in sinuous letters. The Chief Executive read the check with an intense glare, a fierce grin, which almost ripped his angular cheeks and a fat cigar poised between his thin lips. He had always been like this, successful, sly and forceful. He had writhed his way up the ladder, tearing down all who got in the way until he reached the top. His joints moved in an unnatural jolting and sudden motion when agitated, but otherwise he slinked through the streets with a perfect flow, his tendons contracting smoothly and powerfully. Behind his teeth was a piercing voice which penetrated the air, it was as sharp and clean-cut as his appearance and issued forth from his thin tongue. He only spoke when he had no other choice, but what he said and how he pronounced it had such venom that its effect left holes in the atmosphere.
An awkward silence. She swept her hourglass body from underneath it, she stared at the blackness of the world from the inside. Her girlish charm had earned her bread tonight. She sat on the rough, black carpet and cried silently. She looked at what she had done with hatred and swore to herself she would try to get out of this. Her smooth, mistreated body appeared lustful and used in the redness, hardly noticeable in the dull 437, which resembled a photograph developing room. She rose elegantly and adorned her stained white top, her tiny denim shorts and the 3 inch stilettos. The pockets were emptied, the night was over, she whisped out of the door without a look back as if she had never come.
Her shoe buckled and snapped as it hit the concrete. Looks of loathing surrounded her on all sides, everyone she passed by didn't care for her, she wasn't needed until later that night. She blinked at her reflection in a dusty shop window and realising what she had become for the eighth time that week, she broke.
It hadn't always been like this. In times long forgotten she had potential, a family. A life instead of an existence. It was a miracle she was still breathing after all that she had been through, this, she thought, was the last of it. The bitter world harsh, abrasive, scorned the girl who had lost her purity long ago. Strolling seaward seemed the best idea. With the pocket money she had acquired from society she caught the ferry; a grim, patronising vessel, with as much character as fact. The slimy sea swashed up at her alluringly. She hobbled up and down the boat with a subtle look of lust coupled with desperation in her faded pupils. It had been so long since she had had any other gaze. Locals as polluted as the waters that surrounded them drooled and winked as she passed them and she knew what she had to do. The ferry had landed, she made her way to the shore. The bleached beach gawped at her as she unlaced the stilettos and tore off her suggestive, abhorred garments. The feet padded across the sand, the left lacerated by a broken bottle renewing her limp. Grains entered the crevice in the popped blister of the sole grinding and infecting it. The grimace quickly faded to a smile as she looked from her place of solitude to the remorseless city. The drugs had started to take effect and she waded into the glassy ocean the salt cleansing her wound. The cool water refreshed her in the clammy heat, her whores make-up drained from her face forever. Smiling widely she continued her journey, leaving the city which never sleeps to enter an endless one. Who thought death would be the pinnacle of life? She was a dying example and in her ecstasy breathed one last word. "Liberty."
Five men. The cornerstones of humanity, the protectors of stability, the keepers of exclusivity. Watched on with acceptance and vowed to track down the evil of the world. They turned their backs on the city and the tragedy. With a subtle shake of the head they walked on.