The final day of Powered Entity #2088
"Everyone calls this place an oasis from cruelty of the naturals who treat us like
rabid animals, but that’s nothing more than blind optimism. Even here, the same shadows hide in people’s hearts and lurk within the buried passages of this Mall. They wait patiently for the right moment; when the blinding lights flicker and dim just enough for them to strike.”
Unfortunately, I’m interrupted quiet rudely by my audience, their tired expression reflecting more about our reality then words can say. “That's great and all, but I didn't ask for a lecture, choom. I asked for the ketchup.” She is tentmate and her name is Elaine. She’s my…
friend, if you twist the word until it cracks. We’ve been a team since our time in Powered public school system. A school in name only, it was more a jail to keep us Powered away from the squishy naturals. Grouped by S-Radiation percentage, we were the only women in the same class,Class B. Being the only two women in that class of freaks, it was stick together, or risk being alone. It wasn’t friendship that brought us together. More like necessity. Even now, years later, I still don’t know if I can call her a friend. Not really. But it’s what I got. I pass her the ketchup which she drains over the rations we bought from the caravan this morning with our meager earnings.
“Go easy on the Ketchup, I need some too.” I said, yanking back the now nearly empty bottle. “It's the only thing that makes these meals edible.”
After squeezing what little I could out of the bottle onto my food, I sighed and began to eat. It tasted vaguely of hamburger, if it was made of sand. The ketchup did little to hide the tastelessness of the meal. Elaine groaned in agreement with my thoughts. Between bites of the flash frozen meal, she
complained. With a stutter, she exclaimed, “Just once, I wish we could eat real meat. Not this factory lab grown, b-b-bogus!” It had been years since we were run out of our homes, losing the last vestige of a normal life. After a few months, we found ourselves where any Powered youth with nowhere to go does, the Imperial Mall. “Yeah, and I wish I had a million Edollers. But that's how it goes. The Powered with good powers get to live it up as heroes and be on TV, raking in the big E-Dough from Megacorp sponsors, while the only thing we get for our troubles is getting run out to the streets like vermin, dining on expired rations.”
With that disheartening thought, I go back to my ‘meal’. To distract myself from the cardboard between my hands, my mind wanders back to my attempted conversation with Elaine about the Mall. The Imperial Mall isn't an oasis; it’s a wasteland. A graveyard for dreams that never had a chance. The air here stinks of burned-out neon and synthetic meat. Above, broken holo-billboards flicker, playing advertisements for events to happen with days long past. Half built fountains, Elevator shafts that stop in the middle of a floor, and the upturned umbrellas that are used to cover open market stalls all signal for a future that will never come to be. Footsteps echo off the walls, merging with the constant hum of malfunctioning machines. The sharp smell
of spilled oil and decaying dreams hangs over the Mall like a cloud, mixing with the voices of the vendors, selling wares and broken promises. I gulp down the last bites of the ration, my stomach no happier with the slop filling it than it was empty.
“I’m going to Big Tent; I’ll catch you later, Elaine.” I get up before she can reply, trying to see if I could literally outrun from my problems. I've always been very good at that. Running, physically and metaphorically. I know it's not the smart thing to do; hell, Elaine was probably about to tell me to come home late so she can have Jason over. Not that she needed too, I didn't plan on coming home until I could pretend to be happy or a good distraction in another bed. If only it was that easy. I make my way north, away from Elaine and our little camp and towards the heart of the shanty town that lives in this rotting steel corpse. Above, the construction lights standing tall peer through the patchwork panels. Cheaper to leave when construction stalled, they illuminate the way through the Mall as I push my way through increasingly crowded streets of people. The very air was filled with the scent of despair and lost potential. Endless rows of shops with buzzing signs, some lucky enough to have names, most left blank, waiting forever for a
business that will never come.
The sharp smell of spilled oil and decaying food hangs over the market stalls, mixing with the voices of the forgotten Powered kids scraping by. To my left I spot a small group Fronius goons playing dice, and too my left, a boy sells retrofitted parts at a stand that he’s barely tall enough to see over, meanwhile what appears to be his sister fritters about, darting from person to person, trying to make a sale. I finally make it to the Big Tent, standing as a true oasis amidst the squalid conditions of the food court. Less of a lifesaving pond and more of a stagnant puddle, polluted with spent cigar buds and broken glass. It’s the closest thing to heaven in the Mall. “ID please?” Asked the bar owner Ardiena, snickering. I'd have too if she didn't make the same damn joke every singletime. There hasn’t been ID laws since before the crisis. The government was as thirsty for a liquor tax as its youth were for an escape, and the rest is history. I raise the grimy glass of Ardiena’s specialty to my lips, intending to shotgun it.
Yet, instead of the familiar heat that I was seeking filling me with a shot of good spirit, I am gripped by the exact opposite. It’s as if I had swallowed freshly fallen snow instead of my shot, which lies overturned in front of me. The chill runs deeper, seeping into my bones like the breath of a banshee,
freezing everything in me that it touches. Before I can fully comprehend such a confusing sensation, another occurs. The wind flies past me, and the ground rushes up to greet me as my spirit pours out, adding one. I try to speak, sputter, anything; but instead of words, only blood spurts from my throat, adding one more stain to the worn wood countertop. The world tilts sharply as my body betrays me for one final time. It feels unreal, like a nightmare I can’t wake from. In my dreams, I can fly away when the situation gets to hot and escape with Elaine—but not now. Now, I’m sinking.
Falling deeper into the cold, with no bottom in sight.