The stink. No one knows about the stink. Sam wrinkled his nose, furrowed his brow, and coughed into his hand. Sewage, swept up through the manholes by Leviathan's tidal wave? Human excrement? The rotting flesh of something too long dead? Its never the first thing you think of. The buildings bisected, drowning the city in rubble and raising dust to block out the sun. That's what the news likes. Vicious gangs patrolling what's left of the streets. The Slaughterhouse Nine. There's the story. But God damn. Stick around long enough and you realize the smell. It was strangely sweet, like someone poured sugar over a pile of vomit. Sam almost gagged. He pulled his shirt up over his nose. It was filthy, but at least it masked the smell.
Would they hurry up already? Sam looked down the alley. Sandwiched between two small buildings, it was probably filthy even before Leviathan. Now… Sam preferred not to think about it. The moon cast its beams towards the blackness, but they lost courage along the way, illuminating only barely the figures at the end of it.
"Would you guys hurry it up back there?" Sam's voice echoed off the walls, finding its way to the intended target, mingling briefly with the sound of muffled screams and rhythmic thumping.
"Don't talk to me asshole!" Cried the boy fucking the woman in the alley.
"Yeah, you know he can't concentrate if you talk to him." Called Tara. She held the woman's arms and mouth as she struggled, occasionally punching her in the head and saying, "Be quiet!"
They had found the lady some three blocks away, navigating the treacherous terrain with a backpack hanging from her shoulders. When they saw her, the decision was made unanimously, without words. They stole her bag and found mostly food and water. They roughed her up, Sam took a few swings at her face and kicked her ribs after her legs gave out and she lay on the ground, sobbing.
Sam looked down at his feet. He saw a rat skeleton. The bones were scattered but they were all there, picked clean. If I were face to face with the ground, Sam thought, I'd want a kick in the ribs to distract me from the filth.
Sam hadn't wanted to fuck her. He tried to persuade the others but he was outvoted. He never went in for that sort of thing. Now he stood guard while Tim and Tara went at her. It wasn't the first time.
"I'm going for a walk." They ignored him.
He walked down the road and made a left. He had no direction; he simply chose the path of least resistance. He scanned the environment, but that became boring. He started to whistle but he didn't like the way it sounded in the silence. He looked up at the stars. Much less light pollution without electricity. He squinted his eyes, glaring at the moon. He hated the way it felt like a spotlight, illuminating everything that shouldn't be seen. It made him feel exposed, like a lab creature nailed to a slab.
If he had a watch he would've checked it. Either way, he decided it was time to return. No escaping the smell anyway. As he turned, the sound reached his ears. It started low, then rose, asserting its presence against the oppressive silence. With some amazement, Sam realized it was a human voice. It jumped from syllable to syllable in an unintelligible melody. It was a song, dancing delightfully up and down the musical scale in a language Sam did not recognize. His interest piqued, Sam removed the loaded pistol from his waistband and followed the strange chorus. He climbed over a heap of tangled concrete and rebar, past an abandoned car, someone dead in the backseat. The sound grew louder, and it seemed, as Sam drew closer the voice responded, raising in pitch, launching powerful notes that exploded like grenades in the night air, shattering the silence into a million pieces.
Just as he approached the source the voice stopped. Dead. Sam stopped too. His heartbeat, his breath sliding in and out of his nostrils. They seemed so loud in the sudden quiet that he attempted to stifle them, feeling very conspicuous again. He looked around, almost frantic now. Where was he? Was this a trap? Horrible images ran through Sam's mind, the Slaughterhouse Nine looking for evening entertainment, some rogue parahuman with the ability to fuck him up in every way he could imagine and some ways he couldn't. The gun felt like a chunk of lead in his hand, useless, dragging him down into the grime.
Slowly, carefully, he turned around and made his way back the way he came. He sought the shadows but the moon was brighter than ever. Everywhere he looked, he was met with its cruel, white rays, piercing him like daggers. The silence returned slowly, like a skittish animal after being frightened. Eventually, it reclaimed the air and settled down even heavier than before. It clogged up Sam's eardrums, deafening him. He could feel his heart throwing itself against his ribcage, trying to break free of his chest. He could feel the licks of fire dancing and raving in his lungs. He could feel the concrete slapping his feet. He was running. He didn't remember doing that, but now was too late to stop. He ran, tripped, fell, got up, ran again. He thought he might be lost, until he came upon the pair of buildings that sheltered the darkness of the alley. He stopped. He composed himself. He couldn't appear this way in front of the others. No need to earn himself a reputation as a punk bitch. He shoved the gun back into his waistband and noticed it was damp with sweat. He wiped his palms on the back of his pants and walked calmly up to the alley.
"Hey, are you motherfuckers done yet?" He gave himself a mental pat on the back for sounding so composed.
His friends didn't respond. Instead, the silence answered smugly, as if the air itself were mocking him. He peered down the alley, but couldn't make out the figures of his friends. Every instinct in his body was telling him to turn around and leave.
Sam turned, but he didn't expect it would be that easy. He was right.
"Whom are you talking to?"
The voice rolled deliberately out from the dark, and when it reached Sam it froze the marrow in his bones. It was not the voice of his friends.
Immediately the gun was drawn and aimed. Sam forced the sudden nausea back down. The stink was back with a vengeance.
"Who's back there?" He kept the fear bottled somewhere in his mid torso, allowing none of it into his voice.
Silence again. But then movement, a silhouette emerging from the black ocean. The figure was revealed slowly, every step forward bringing it just further into the light. A pair of feet, then legs, stomach, shoulders, and a face. It was a man. Very tall, easily seven feet. And gaunt, boney joints pushing against skin, as if a skeleton trying to tear through the rind and taste the air. Very pale. From on top its head hung mangled tendrils of hair, black as the inside of Sam's eyelids. On his face, cheekbones stood sharp and hard as stone. His lips were prominent, and very pink. His eyes were as dark as his hair, and under them shadowy circles dented the alabaster skin. A shirt hung loose from his torso. It was black and long sleeved. He also wore jeans over his legs. He was barefoot.
He looked at Sam and smiled. His wide lips stretching the already taut skin back over his cheeks, his eyes crinkling horridly. It was all Sam could do not to drop the gun from trembling hands.
"Hello." The man spoke easily, as if to an old friend.
Sam didn't realize the man had stepped closer to him. He was now merely yards away, stretching out a skeletal limb in some kind of greeting. Sam backed away.
"Don't come any closer. And keep your hands where I can see them."
The man's arm lowered back to his side, where it rested.
"Where are my friends?" Sam demanded.
"Did you hear my song?"
Sam tightened his grip on the gun. "That was you?"
"Of course." His voice was deep and full, in contrast to his appearance.
"What the hell are you doing out here singing anyway?" Sam asked, his eyes stinging from the putrid stench that now swirled about the vicinity. When did it get this bad?
The man inhaled through his nostrils, his smile growing slightly wider. He raised an arm and pointed with a finger, pale and grotesquely elongated, at the sky. "Look there."
Sam didn't take his eyes off the man.
"That's the Lyra constellation."
"I don't care."
The man looked genuinely disappointed. He paced into the street, turning slowly to marvel at everything around him.
"How long would a person have to gaze up at the stars in order to perceive the fantastic pictures hidden between the threads of their celestial tapestry?" He mused. A noiseless moment passed. Finally, the man moved over to an overturned food stand swept in from the pier and sat on it, crossing one leg over the other. He appeared as though some art installation, an overly exaggerated vision of the human form.
"Think of everything you're missing." He looked amusingly over at Sam, anticipating an angry retort. He got none, Sam still holding the gun.
The man continued. "We are alive for a reason. The wrath of God himself has blown through this place and yet we persist. Do you know what this means?"
Sam didn't respond.
"It means we have an opportunity. A chance to live the way we are intended to. Through fire and destruction the world has been melted down to its essential components and all that remains in truth. When I arrived at this place I found two children raping a woman. When they were done the boy cut her throat. There is truth in that, veracity as old as the stars. Think of your life before. Doesn't it come to you as a dream?
Sam found himself involuntarily thinking. For him, life wasn't so different before Leviathan. Family, friends, comfort, things most people miss when they are deprived. Sam never had them in the first place. Startled, Sam found that the man had stood up and outstretched his hands toward the boy, as if to embrace him.
" You glorious wretch! Look at you now! How wonderful it must be. I envy you."
Sam raised the gun again.
The man smirked, surrounded by an air of confidence despite the firearm.
"You think I want to hurt you. Why would I? You're already complete. All the morals and empathy bled out of you long ago. There's nowhere to go from here. I take no pleasure in people like you."
The man was walking again, over to the alley. He disappeared for a second, re-emerging with two bodies in tow. He tossed them down, revealing the faces of Tara and Tim. Sam wanted to be shocked, he wanted to be angry. But he wasn't. He could have guessed as much when he returned to find his friends gone. He looked at them. They were breathing, but badly hurt, each with bruises and lacerations. Tara was missing an eye. Sam didn't know how the man could have done this, both his friends had weapons and this stranger was skin and bones.
He must be a parahuman.
"They weren't so lucky." The man regarded his victims. "They were boring. The only way to find meaning in a boring person is to cut them open and look for it."
He held a knife out towards Sam. It was Tim's. Sam had seen that knife used many times. It would strike fear, make grown men piss themselves before it tore their flesh. Sam looked at its owner. Barley alive. He seemed so pathetic now. Without thinking, he took the knife from the stranger. He stood over Tim.
"Haven't you ever wondered what makes your friends tick?" The man's breath reached Sam's neck, it made the hairs stand up, alert, but not afraid.
Tim met Sam's gaze. Recognition flashed, a moment of consciousness. That was Sam's cue. He bent down, and began cutting.
The stranger stood there, his formidable form between Sam and the moon, casting the boy in shadow. Before long, he began singing; sweet notes swirled through the air, taking pleasure in melting the silence into soft nothing. They were soon joined in form by Tim's screams, each with a humor of its own, and together they danced a splendid waltz through the pale light and the smell of death.