Chapter 2

The Ghetto

Shura waited for his Captain to walk away. While it was true that Shura had been mostly deprived of food for the previous two days, but he didn't mind. Shura had a past of not eating healthy, he just didn't get hungry as often, one meal could hold him over for half of a week, and the idea of eating three courses a day made him feel sick. Growing up before Sumeragi first arrived, Shura's family was incredibly poor. Maybe if his family was of a normal size, they would've been considered middle class, but Shura belonged to a family of ten, four brothers, two sisters, his mother, father, uncle, and aunt. Because of this, food was scarce around his household, so much that he would often give up a large portion to his entire meal so his younger brother could have more food. Shura had gotten used to the idea of not eating much during the week, so much so that it was a regular habit.

Once Captain Artemovik had walked off to meet with Lieutenant Maklakiva, Shura began heading towards the ghetto entrance. Being able to see his former apartment building made Shura feel nostalgic. No matter how fond his memories of living with his sister were, Shura still couldn't help but feel guilty for having the feelings he did, seeing as how horrible the atrocities Sumeragi committed in those ghettos were. For every laugh he remembered in his first two years there, there were fifteen screams from the final days inside the ghetto.

Shura entered the front entrance gate. Shura remembered seeing it as a grand, beautiful, gothic styled gate, leading into a vibrant place where only Adepts lived. However, now, years later the gate's metal bars had rusted from a reflectant stainless steel into a crusty brown and grey. Vines had grown up the bars leading to the top, giving the entire gate a look that fit the abandoned town. Shura felt as though he was entering one of the insane asylums from the horror novels he would read. Once Shura entered through the gate, he could see through into town. The brick road had begun to crack, grass, weeds, and moss had begun to grow out of the gaps between the red bricks and surfaced.

As he passed by each of the crumbled houses, Shura struggled to forget the people who had resided within their now battered walls. On his left, Shura passed the Klimov's old household. Shura's sister had been friends with the oldest child. They were a family of five children, two girls and three boys. None were Adepts, only the father had possessed Septimal abilities, but regardless, they had been forced by Sumeragi to be secluded from the rest of normal society. And even though there had only been one Adept in a family of seven people, when Sumeragi had decided they were fed up, they killed the whole family. Even the new-born child.

No matter how much Shura tried, he couldn't erase the image of the baby's battered skull as his sister desperately rushed him to safety so many years ago. With each step Shura took on the bloodstained ground, the faint echoes of the pleas for help seemed to get louder. The guilt of being one of the few survivors piled on top of Shura, until it's weight was almost too heavy to break.

Shura carried on, passed the rubble of the Klimov's home. Shura looked to his left. He saw many houses, but none stood out as much as the former home of Tikhonov's. Their daughter, Aline had joined FINR along with Shura, she was roughly the same age, and the two played together as kids. Her father, an average human, had been killed by Sumeragi, but her mother survived. Shura once heard from Aline that she was living within District 8, but now that it was under the control of Sumeragi, Shura didn't know what could be going on.

Sumeragi had created many ghettos in Russia since they arrived. Each one of them remained relatively the same, according to reports from refugees. Sumeragi would gather as many Adepts and their families and force them inside one of their fenced off towns. Each adept citizen would be granted the opportunity to apply to Sumeragi's Swordsmen program, a system where Adepts would give control of their powers to Sumeragi by sealing it inside a Glaive, and in return, would be given free will. After six months to three years, depending on the overall resistance of the Adept community inside, Sumeragi would kill all of those who hadn't agreed to their terms. Survivors, while together seemed like a large group, where incredibly rare. Often, for every fifty Adepts killed, one would escape. With each ghetto, Sumeragi had a different way to neutralize the citizens. The one Shura lived inside, one of the first one's, had been stuck with an initial wave of bombs and napalm, followed by a seemingly unending sea of foot soldiers to finish off any remaining survivors.

Shura and his sister, Avrora, had been incredibly lucky to have made it out of the ghetto without any injuries. As they ran for safety, they saw a wave bullets fly over their heads. Blood had splattered so far and such large quantities that Shura and his sister were able to blend in with the dead bodies around them.

Shura trembled more and more the deeper he went into the wrecked city. His breathing intensified and his legs became weak. Approaching his own former home, which had miraculously been spared by Sumeragi's bombs.

He stopped in his tracks.

Sorry for the long wait, had a lot more on my plate than I initially expected. Chapters should come on a bi-monthly basis from now on.

Thanks for reading and hey, take the time to review. Please.

-Clouxjin