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.

survive. The city 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, stray remnants of weaponized bacteria, harmful radiation,

worked, but they were sufficiently effective in keeping the city in a bubble of breathable air. Of course, each district also possessed its

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

Hence, the outskirts appeared.

of unfinished barriers had loomed

outside their protection. The air in the outskirts might not have been as bad as in the desolate wilderness beyond, but it was far from safe. Those

It reeked.

paid it much attention, but just

it's not that bad in

buildings were straining to keep themselves together, clean water was scarce, most food came in

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

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

similar to how Sunny had been before the

he had left this place, thinking that he would never return. But Sunny was already a very different person. He saw the familiar

'This is so strange…'

thought of himself as someone from the outskirts, but now, after traveling through several regions of the Dream Realm and building a life for himself in the city, Sunny suddenly understood that the

only ever known and explored a small part of them. The only world he had known for

considered such things, but after his last conversation with Master Jet, he realized the true scope of it all. From what she had told him, there were somewhere between sixty and seventy million people living in the outskirts. Twenty percent of the total population of the city existed in these unpleasant conditions, barely surviving as they were slowly