[justify]For a phenomenon that scientists routinely describe as falling through a crack between universes, the process of surprisingly gentle, one moment you are:

[i]Fighting for your life in a battle you cannot hope to win…

Dying in the back of an ambulance…

Passing through the veil in search of a cure for the uncurable…

Blissfully binging a brand new game…[/i]

And the next you’re gone, the world goes black, and you’re dreaming.

***

When next you wake it is to the sound of a bell ringing in the distance, deep and loud, cutting clean through the midnight fog that crept up on you while you were sleeping and thrusting you into the stark reality of your current situation. Beneath you damp concrete. The sky is dark and waves can be heard breaking against the shore in the distance if your hearing is keen enough, the area is all but empty, empty save for you and the bodies around you and the many keen eyes peering at you from between the many locked warehouses that pen you in. You cannot see the ocean but you can hear it nearby. In the sky hangs the moon, just one, wide as a saucer but with a visible chunk torn from the northeastern hemisphere like someone detonated a massive bomb beneath the surface and the wound continued to bleed into the vast empty sky even now.

But most of all, you cannot sense anything; long range sensors, divine connections, spiritual bonds. You are completely and totally alone in this world. For some of you this means nothing, of course, you’ve lived your whole life an autonomous individual but for others separation is worse than death. What you can feel is an intense spiritual pressure pressing down on you from every angle.

This is the Wharf, the safest place in Neo Babylon, but you don’t know that yet. It’s also the only place in the city where the homeless population is treated better than garbage on the side of the road, frequent patrols and the presence of shelters make it the most ideal place to live a life on the street, as if such a thing were possible. And it has made the rats bold. In Neo Babylon those without power, money, or the technology to make up for a lack of both are better off death. The average survival rate of someone living on the streets can be measured in months and the possibility of bouncing back is next to none, once you’re there it’s over, nobody thinks about it with how widely publicized all the supernatural occurrences that happen on a daily basis are but most of the people who fall in through the so-called Rift are normal versions of whatever passes for human in their corner of the universe.

It’s a tough life, and it only gets tougher.

The man in the lead seems like he might have been someone once, he’s still a bit handsome beneath the unkempt facial hair and bolder than usual as he stalks his way towards the group in a low crouch, behind him two more follow. A large man and a mousy woman. His hands twitch in their emptiness. He’s sizing up the group, it’s easy to see maybe—he thinks—he ought to try and kill the man in the armor before he can make trouble for himself. The boy who glows could be toxic for all he knows. Though that overgrown chicken sure looks like a fine meal…

In the end he settles for the small one, the robot, grabbing a large stone with two hands. He figures that metal chassis of hers will stand up to knives and fingers but a heavy blow from a blunt object might crack her open, technology is valuable in the city, scavenging it is one of the few get rich quick schemes that people on the lower end of society still clint too and she looks so much cleaner and smoother than any other machine he’s come across. So he hefts the stone high. Will you stop him? He doesn’t look particularly strong, none of them do, the rats are starving and even a moderate blow would likely snap them like twigs. Excepting maybe the large one. Will you talk to them instead? Surely they have valuable information to share being so close to the ground floor of this new place than anyone else…

Whatever it is, you better do it fast, you can see more of them are beginning to slip out of the shadows. Emboldened by the adventurous looters before them. You could stomp out any one of the rats as easy as taking a step but as your eyes adjust to this new dimension you start to realize that there are more of them than anticipated, a whole swarm of them, and the prospect of fighting the tidal wave at its apex is [b]unappealing[/b] even for those of you blessed with unusual strength.[/justify]

[@Shinny] [@Circ] [@THE ADORATION] [@odium]