Shadow Slave

On a cold winter morning, two people were making their way through the black slush that drowned a rundown street, piling high near the dirty walls of the cheap panel buildings that clung to each other, as if for warmth. The loud sound of their steps echoed in the dim twilight, making it seem as if a monster was chewing on rotten flesh.

Nephis glanced at the dirt covering her expensive boots, then smelled the air and grimaced. Adjusting the collar of her white coat, she then glanced at Sunny and asked:

"Why are we here, exactly?"

He shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged.

"Weren't you told to submerge yourself into how mundane humans live? Well, here we are. This is life, too."

He gestured at the ugly landscape that surrounded them and sighed.

After several years... Sunny was back in the outskirts.

'Brings back memories…'

In the aftermath of the collapse of old humanity, ravages of war and natural cataclysms made most of the planet uninhabitable. To exist in relative safety, people had to congregate in large cities like the one he had grown up in… the Northern Quadrant Siege Capital. Everywhere else was either drowned underwater or looked like a desert.

Of course, life persisted. Some trees and plants were still clinging to life. Large mammals mostly went extinct, but a few species of animals and insects had managed to adapt. However, the damage to most ecosystems was too severe. The earth turned barren, the water turned poisonous, and even the air itself was not safe to breathe anymore.

incorporated sophisticated water filtration systems, food distribution infrastructure and other means of keeping the population alive. It was surrounded by tall barrier walls that prevented excessive microdust, various toxins,

but they were sufficiently effective in keeping the city in a bubble of breathable air. Of course, each

however… was that the barriers were stationary, while the city was not. The human population across the planet had dropped, but here in NQSC, it was slowly growing. As a result, the city grew, too. It stretched further and further, both into the sky and underground. Of course, it also sprawled horizontally. Eventually, the city had outgrown the

Hence, the outskirts appeared.

even more time. The colossal, skeletal frames of unfinished barriers had loomed above the outskirts for as long as Sunny could remember, unfinished. With what he knew now, he doubted

outskirts might not have been as bad as in the desolate wilderness beyond, but it was far

It reeked.

life and never paid it

big deal… it's not that bad in winter,

keep themselves together, clean water was scarce, most food came in the form of synthpaste rations provided by the government. Everything was dirty, worn out, and on the

there was supposed to be a working transportation system with connections to the rest of the city, but in practice, it broke down and malfunctioned so often that getting anywhere with its help was hard. That was the reason why Sunny and Nephis

of events, however, because that gave them the chance to get a good look at people who lived in the outskirts. Just like the slums themselves, the inhabitants looked decrepit. They were all frail, thin, and with unhealthy skin. The most striking difference was their height. People who lived in the outskirts were much shorter than those

how Sunny had been before the

months ago, he had left this place, thinking that

'This is so strange…'

but now, after traveling through several regions of the Dream

small part of them. The only world he had known for most of

he realized the true scope of it all. From what she had told him, there were somewhere between sixty and seventy million people living