An Eldian's Journal

by gaujay7

Note: Have you ever wondered what it's like to be an Eldian? My name is Heinrich Steiner (I'm probably dead by the time you're reading this). I'm an 18-something-year-old that lives in the Internment Zone on Marley. Anyway, after a certain declaration of war **cough**cough** I decided to write this novel/memoir to be remembered by. But it's also a journal: An Eldian's Journal.

12. Chapter 10: Some chaos

An Eldian's Journal

Chapter 10 - Some chaos

Fueled by newly made memories of wholesomeness and a mediocre pastry, I began trailing the journalist who attempted to skim through the streets on incognito.

When I reached the mini street that he turned into, I left most of my newspapers near a dumpster. I thought they would bog me down since inky words can get quite uncomfortable to carry after a while. I took only four papers just in case I met any deranged Eldians on my chase.

(Newspapers make for great weapons: Hit people on the head, and the propaganda gets absorbed through their scalps. Then they get disorientated. Simple math.)

No amount of morning sunlight could distract this alley from wallowing in its depression. It was relatively barren except for a dog that found entertainment with a cursed puddle a short distance away from me. There also happened to be a shopping stand there with a lady standing behind it. Hair in the form of grey wires laid as a bun imprisoned to her head.

It was time to employ step 1 of my sleuthing skills.

***HOW TO BE A DETECTIVE***

Step 1: Ask random strangers for help

Step 2: -

Step 3: -

The buildings and the morning fog crouched over us in anticipation of the conversation.

"Ma'am, did you see a journalist?"

A spark lit in the wiry woman's eyes."Yes…but information will cost you."

As all highly intelligent people do, I went along with the woman's obviously honest intentions. I also had no other choice since the only respectable breathing creature on the street at that moment was a mutt. It was peeing proudly near the lady's legs.

If only I listened to that dog's foreshadowing…

The woman raised her hand at the dog as if she had the gall to threaten a creature with more muscle than her entire frame.

"How much?" I replied.

"You have to buy something."

I peered at the items she had to offer. The toys laid there uncomfortably, displaying their lack of value to me. The lopsided table holding them up didn't make an adequate effort to support them. Who could blame it? They weren't worth being held up anyway.

'I don't have time for this.' That thought ran through my head on repeat.

I picked up a little kazoo. It wasn't as musical as my deceased guitar but its low-quality-plastic structure gave it some charisma.

I pulled out a coin (only 25 cents since that's what it was worth in my mind) and gave it to her.

She looked at it with her lightbulb eyes and then back at me. I could feel that gaze shining darkly on me. The gaze of someone lusting for profits…or trying to get rid of inventory.

"Hmm..on second thought, buy another," she said.

A sigh fell out of my mouth.

I looked around to see if there was anyone else I could ask help from. Alas, that specific street was more lacking than the lack of color in the lady's hair.

"Fine-," I said while shoving my 'new' instrument into my pocket. My brain casually reminded me: 'I don't have time for this.'"-I'll take this."

I picked a baseball from the stand. It must have been a lonely ball for it hugged on dearly to the dust/dirt that covered its outer layer.

I gave the lady a coin once more.

"That's all I'm buying. Could you answer my question now?"

"Ok," the lady said while shoving the coins into her apron. "I did see a journalist."

"Where'd he go?!"

"I don't know."

"What?!"

"You asked me 'did you see a journalist?' And I did see one…a week ago."

"Did you see one today?!" I had a newspaper ready in my hand.

"Oh no sir, I'm too busy with my business. Can't you see all the customers I have?" The con-woman pointed to the crowd of air behind me.

"You tricked me!"

"You just didn't ask the right question. You should have asked 'did you see a journalist TODAY?' "

The dog that spectated our conversation appeared to enjoy what it saw. I swear I even heard it bark in laughter.

In my frustration, I dunked one of my newspapers in the puddle that rested next to my feet. I lifted it out and chucked it at the woman's face. It was cursed with liquid and not just propaganda anymore. It clung to her face like a spider on a web.

"AHHH!"

1 newspaper down, 3 left.

***HOW TO BE A DETECTIVE***

Step 1: -Failed-

Step 2: Stay discrete to remove any suspicion

Step 3: -

I bolted away from the stand with a few assorted items: a mangey baseball, a kazoo, and leftover propaganda nestled underneath my arm.

"Come back here you little brat! I can see you!", the woman said 'ferociously' while struggling to get out of her stall. The dog barked repeatedly to keep her in there.

(Dogs are definitely man's best friend.)

When I reached the end of the mini street. I was greeted with two pathways: a left and a right. Both were equally depressing.

Normally, in a situation like this, I would flip a coin to decide my path, but I was running low on time. So instead, I went with something more efficient: I spun around really fast and walked in the direction that I faced at the end.

While the lines of reality blurred together, dizziness massaged my brain with its unkempt claws. Everything in my vision lengthened out with the mutt becoming a sausage and the lady multiplying. Unfortunately, I think it's safe to assume that her profits were the only things that didn't multiply.

When I stopped, I was facing left with my vision as stable as a river and as reliable as a drunken cabbage man.

As I wobbled into the left street. I could make out something approaching
closer
and closer
and closer
but its lines were not well drawn. Whatever it was, it was not animated properly in my vision.

It yelled, "Get out of the way! I'm coming through!"
Still a little tipsy, I asked, "hAve yOu seEn a JoUrnaLisT?"

As a reply to my question, my body received a bludgeon in the form of a tire. (If that's not karma I don't know what is) Next thing I knew I was watching the ground and myself laying on top of it. And as usual, the stone tiles were giving me an uncomfortable hug.

A little ways away from me was a toppled-over bicycle and an ice-cream cart with its creamy contents sprayed out. The stone tiles were inedible cones.

The person that happened to ride the cart was nowhere to be seen…
…because he was behind me grabbing my ear.

"You're paying for this you little brat!"

***HOW TO BE A DETECTIVE***

Step 1: -Failed-

Step 2: -Failed-

Step 3: If you failed the past two steps, just give up

Everything that could go wrong was going wrong. That's just how the cookie crumbles when you're me. (Except the cookie also happens to be soggy.)

There's an unsaid rule in the internment zones. If you anger a street vendor trying to do business, no one really cares. But when you anger the ice-cream man, there's simply no future for you. If there's one thing people like, it's ice cream. No one likes people that make the ice cream melt.

Who do you think made the ice cream melt in this last scene here? You guessed correctly.

The shock of the bicycle reset my senses including my ass-whooping sense. I picked up my things and bolted away as fast as I could even though I had gotten hurt a little.

After a short run down the newly discovered street, I looked over my shoulder to see the ice-cream man blazing towards me on his aerodynamic ice-cream mobile, his bicycle. Luckily, this street was a little more populated than the one from before and there were things nearby that could help me out…

My gaze happened to land upon a little girl that was playing nearby on the right side of the street. 'Is this person happy? What is this?' I stole her bike, threw my moral compass on the ground, and rode right over it. The bike itself was a few sizes too small, but it got the job done.

Along with the soundtrack of the girl's crying, I rolled down the street with the exaggerated swagger of an Eldian newspaper boy on a tricycle.

(It was actually a bicycle)

The must-filled Section E air ate at my face as my knees took turns aggressively raising up and down from the inefficient pedaling. The tinge of morning fog started to grow in prominence.

Beer-bellied workmen and random shopkeepers added onto the crowd chasing me. Astonishingly, some ran on foot and managed to keep up. Why did they join? I dunno, maybe the ice-cream man asked them nicely.

***THINGS THAT DEFY REASONING***

1. The ice-cream man

2. People that want ice cream in the morning.

I had grown a decent lead on the crowd when approaching a mini-intersection. But we wouldn't have a plot here if things happened properly, would we? As I approached the intersection, I could make out the rumbling, whistling, and jeet-jeet sound of a mechanical horse nearby; it was the first obstacle I met in our extremely logical chase scene here.

For a brief second, I imagined myself sliding underneath the car with sparks all around me or jumping over the windshield with a makeshift ramp. Then I would land swiftly with the screech of my tires like a true action hero. But unlike most stories, I follow the rules of physics.

***AN ANTI-CLIMAX #2***

Before the car intersected my path, I slammed my brakes and waited a few seconds for it to safely pass by.

The aggressive tapping of off-brand shoes on the pavement and the confused yells of the crowd chasing me flirted with my hearing more than before. I had lost some of my lead for they encroached on my position. Along with these various cries, laid a logical question and an answer stapled to it.

A fodder character asked, "Hey! Why are we chasing this random kid?!"
"I dunno! It's the weekend! There's nothing better to do!"
"Ok!"

Every time I looked back a new person would have added on since they were probably bored and needed something to.

(This entire chase scene is so ridiculous that I feel like my life is a work of fiction sometimes.)

I stole a short glance at the rising sun through the ever-growing fog. I wondered if it was having a good laugh up there watching us devils go about our mediocre shenanigans.

'How am I going to lose these people? If this goes on for any longer that journalist is going to be long gone,' I told myself. I kept looking for something on the path that could help me escape. As I kept riding though, the cloud of fog grew thicker but morphed in color complexion for it increased in grey pigment. It must have intermingled with the smoke from the coal/charcoal-house nearby.

As we kept passing through, my eyes began receiving ripe, bite-sized nuggets of pain. The smoke grew thicker and thicker as I got closer and closer to the coal house.

I hated it,
until I started loving it.

"Hey, where'd the kid go?!"

"I think there's a coal-house all the way down there. I can't see him through the smoke around it though!"

"Dammit! My eyes are burning up!"

When the smoke was thick enough, I hid in it on the right side of the road. I stood there in anticipation that the cult of ice-cream worshippers would keep running past it without noticing me standing it.

The smoke itself was much different than the cigarettes from Section F's cigarette wielders. Cigarette smoke has a stale, grey haze and it floats through the air relaxed. This smoke was a malevolent cloud of smog.

My eyes felt like they were being delicately stabbed by needles drenched in alcohol. There was no vaccine in these needles however and they wouldn't leave even when I closed my eyes. The inside of my nose felt like a flamethrower came in and dried out any semblance of moisture available.

Like I had done in chapter 5, I listened to what was around me for my other senses were being held at gunpoint.

1. Clicks and Clunks

First off, a few intertwined sounds panned from left to right. It must have been the clicks from the pedals and clunks from the chain of the ice-cream man's bicycle.

2. Taps

Taps panned left to right continuously. They must have been from the shoes of hungry ice-cream followers.

Tap. Tap.

When I first heard these sounds, an urge to cough spawned in my lungs. After a while, it crawled up my trachea slowly with spikes in each hand.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The taps continued dancing through my eardrums with the urge to cough continuously growing extra limbs. I tried to hold it back for I thought it would reveal my position.

Tap. Tap.

The urge laid at the back of my throat ready to pounce into action and cause its destruction.

My mouth opened as if it was about to yield to the urge. But in that one second, I could taste the malevolent smoke as my body briefly sucked it in. I could taste the pained last breaths of the coal in their withered form.

Then came in an unexpected sensation: an oddly euphoric build-up.

The beginnings of a sneeze.

The urge to cough had transformed into its slightly more monstrous cousin.

"Ah-choo!"

The sneeze was a gunshot of air that released itself while shutting the door forcefully before it left.

I finally opened my eyes to a less invasive cloud of smoke. One could have thought the grains of smoke ran away from my sneeze, but it must have gone away to harass the air of another street. The passing silhouettes of people grew stronger.

One of these silhouettes stopped and stood still.

"Hey, there's someone in there!"

My cover was blown. Or was it?

"Hey. What were you doing standing in all that smoke?"
"Umm…I'm just trying to make my lungs stronger…"
"Well, you should get outta there 'cause it won't."

'Does this person not recognize me?' I thought to myself. It then came to me that no one took a good look at my face other than the ice-cream man. I tried to deepen my voice just in case to avoid suspicion.

I said, "I heard that kid we're chasing is a real douchebag. He threw a newspaper at an old lady."
"We're chasing a kid? I thought everyone was running after the ice-cream guy."

***ELDIAN'S ONLY RIGHT***

The right to be a dumbass is commonly exercised

"Wait wha—oh yea."
"It's not every day that you can get ice cream in the morning, you know?"

Apparently, people at the back of the crowd didn't get the memo of who they were chasing.

---

After I evaded the cartoonish chase, I walked away into another part of the street with the stolen bike and a few newspapers. I sat down on the sidewalk with disregard for the filth that inhabited the ground rent-free.

I looked down at my hands.

Coal dust held onto them dearly.

I looked at the sleeves that followed.

Faint darkness was woven through the threads.

All sense of ridiculousness of the chase that preceded that moment narrowed down to reality; to a tip of a needle. I reminded myself where I was; what world I was in; what air I breathed…what blood I bore.

It was then that a drop tripped off the sidewalk that was my eyelid and landed on my smoky hands. It wasn't enough to wash away the dust, however.

More drops tripped one by one. So many in fact, I think they fell on purpose.

---

Real Author's Note:

I'm back motherf*ckers. I'm back!

I've been gone for a month mainly since my college work/research work has become more of a pain in the ass than usual. Thankfully, it's coming to an end soon so I will be returning to regular uploads.

This chapter was supposed to be longer since it was supposed to be the last chapter of "Part 2" but I couldn't get it completed in time. I will release the rest of it in the coming week. After that will be "Another damn prologue" to start off "Part 3"

And y'all know the drill: drop some feedback in the comments.