It was a strange device attached to the door, but not an unfamiliar one. A malicious red eye leered back at me from the centre of the sinister lock, and startled me when it flashed green. The door swung open, barely hanging onto its hinges with the weight of the cumbersome metal attachment. A Metrocop stood before me, brandishing his stun baton in one hand and shoving me back with the other.
"Watch it, citizen," he barked through his ivory-white face mask. Mirrored discs guarded his eyes, and a breather exhaled and inhaled with a calm, regular pace. I shot my eyes down to the ground instinctively, then regretted it. The guard walked past me, laughing maliciously with the famous sadism of the Civil Protection, and I entered the building.
Climbing the dank stairway to my shared living quarters, I noticed some of the tattered propaganda hanging off the walls. 'CMB' was emblazoned in harsh, sharp letters, always featured alongside the claw-like image that represented the Overwatch. One in particular caught my attention: a CP stood menacingly, baton raised, finger pointing out of the poster... straight at me. The slogan read 'They're here for you.' Clever double meaning. Nice. I continued up the stairs.
The apartment I lived in was shared with three others. Josh and Kelly, a married couple, spent most of their time worrying about the horrible world they lived in and, despite this, never seemed to do much about it. Kevin, a widower, gazed out of the window from dawn to dusk, and never said a word to anyone. More understandable than the couple's resigned terror, but no more useful.
I sat down at our small, rotting table whereupon a greying porcelain bowl sat self-consciously. I dragged it towards me, and reached for a nearby container. Unscrewing the cap, I poured the contents into the bowl: putrid, colourless sludge sopped out into the bowl. I looked at the 'food' and scowled. I had vague memories of real food, not this foul manna, and that made it worse – but worse still was the fact that there would be some who didn't know anything better at all. I wouldn't feed this shit to a dog to keep it from biting my face off and yet here I was, bowl before me, expected to shovel it into my fucking face and swallow. Was it really so wrong to ask for something else – to want something more? Rage welled up inside me; my hands clenched into fists; my body shook; my brow contorted until I couldn't hold it in any more. Certain types of anger demand expression, and this was among those. I had to break something, something loud and nearby and satisfying to destroy.
The windowpane shattered into glorious crystals, glittering in the hazy light outside as the bowl spun through the air and out of the building, dashed to shards on the road below. A shocked whimper escaped Kelly's mouth, one of her rare and generally pitiful utterances, and she and her husband looked up with fear. Fear was all they knew, the only way they could respond to anything. Kevin turned around and stared at me, his face unmoved. Perhaps he was worse: at least, in their terror, John and Kelly were human, but this cold statue of a man was nothing more than an avatar of apathy. I was breathing heavily, and my knuckles were white. I'd had enough of their inaction... and enough of mine, too. I left through the apartment door, and slammed it behind me against the frame.