Cross Effects > Areas

The Slums

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SINIB:
The Slums
A swathe of land on the outer edges of the city that laws forgotten and neglected by the rest of the Nexus. The most outside attention it gets is the occasional elite whom trepidatiously enters the slums when a particularly nasty creature sets up a nest inside them and starts hunting outside its boundaries.The rest of the time, it remains wallowing in neglect, the dilapidated buildings slowly falling apart and being reclaimed by nature. The entire area is walled off with chain-link fencing and barbed wire in an attempt to keep whatever squalid beings who live there from ever escaping into real society.

Almost nobody lives here by choice. Those who do are utterly desperate individuals whom are seeking to escape justice, debtors, a few particularly nasty vampires, or those truly wishing to be forgotten by society. Rumors speak of a black market in the sewers beneath the area where slavers go to peddle their wares, where one can purchase untraced weapons, or illegal poisons. And beneath even that, there are whispers of a great hungry monstrosity sealed beneath the ground, searching for a way to escape.

At one point, this district had a proper name, but by now, after decades of neglect, nobody remembers it by any other name. There is very little publicly available information about the nature of this district or whom lives in it, as nearly everyone who does is unregistered.

SINIB:
Tsumiko
10:00 am

Days later, nothing significant had changed in Tsumiko's life. She continued living her life, hunting down criminals, hiding away in her house as if she'd never met Thea.

She tried to pretend like everything was okay in order to keep going. She ignored the second thoughts about her lifestyle, nagging her in the back of her mind, scratching at her unpleasantly, causing her headaches. She simply continued existing, because she didn't know how do do anything else. She only knew how to kill; she only knew how to survive. Killing was survival for her.

But is that the only way?

The childlike woman shuddered as she tried to ignore these troubling thoughts and refocused her mind on the matter at hand. Yes, she tightened her trembling grip upon the rifle she was holding, steeling her grip and silencing her thoughts. She looked through the scope and bit her lip, closing one eye as she honed in upon the man whose life she had decided needed to end this morning.

He was a beast of a man, half giant. His cruel disposition and extreme size had enabled him to climb through the ranks of the gang owning this part of the slum to an enforcer of the gang.

She'd seen him beat up innocent people for the sport of it. Rob them of their livelyhoods, and sometimes their lives.

She could feel her fingers trembling again. "He deserves this." She muttered, steeling herself once more, looking into herself, becoming one with the gun.

And then she fired, the large bullet traveling at supersonic speeds towards his unsuspecting head.

Through the scope, she saw his head explode into blood and viscera, chunks of his brain coming out of the other side of his head as the bullet burst through the other side.

Another confirmed kill.

The girl slumped down onto the cold rock, took a deep breath, and blinked back tears. After a moment, she descended into her shadow, fleeing to a safe location so they wouldn't be able to find the culprit.

Aiden:
Carin
10:00 am

Mortals are so strange to her. They walk around their lives in cages of concrete and plaster, hearing only vibrations in the air and the sounds of their own bodies. They know themselves by assertion, by self-image, pushing their identities against each other in a challenge: I am this! I am me!

… Samantha’s parents found out about the new girl she was dating. The yelling began again, and continued until the crying started. ‘You don't love me at all!’ Sam fled, unheeding of the gentle touch wiping tears from her cheeks...

She doesn’t know when the first prayers began. Their whispers filled her, shaped her in the image they desired. She heard the prayers before she heard herself, and reached out to answer - feelings of warmth, comfort. What little she was, she gave to them. More added their voices and their gifts to her, and she began to recognize who they believed she should be.

‘... and please, look out for my daughter on her way home from school…’ Michael pleaded with hands clasped before a desk on which scented candles slowly burned out. The little girl was already watched, but it was nice to hear him care again...

She was the chorus of a song, a loving refrain of their faith and hope. Their needs and desires filled her as thoughts and feelings did them. She blessed their hearts with love, and knew ‘This is me. I am!’

… taking the left and avoiding the gang… finding the hundred on the ground to meet the rent… a voice and a dream to keep out the memories of the monster’s touch…

It was all she could do for them now. But Carin knew, as she knew herself, that there were more who needed her. She was incomplete as long as others suffered alone. So she reached out to find those precious people who needed consolation, that she might know herself once more.

Umbra of Chaos:
Ariel
10:00 AM

It's true that this place was beautiful. There was a sun, a bright moon, a sky full of stars. The angles of the Euphrates did not charge across its territories, the locusts did not swarm up with too human faces to sting people to madness, and there was grass. This world abounded with life, more than enough for to feed everyone. Ariel had always wondered if they could have done better. That if humanity had the tools, peace, and prosperity they could wipe out everything that was wrong with them. She had always hoped they could rise above these necessary cruelties, the inequalities across their cities, if only the world was kinder.

But it wasn't the world. It was the people.

It felt wrong to be here. Her first set of wings shone like a star surrounded in the mire of the slums. It almost felt cruel, showing people something so beautiful. Still, some found comfort in it, and that comforted her as well. But that wasn't why she was here.

With her eyes Ariel could see sin. A look told her the sins of man. Thief, murderer, rapist, adulterer, and how many more? How many times over could one man ruin others? So she donned the mantle of the Accuser, far enough away that none would know the mark of sin, and brought judgement upon them one at a time. Some were destroyed. Many were in fact. They were crushed under the weight of judgement, and their strength or gangs could not protect them. But some... some found repentance in that darkness. In the midst of the darkness, they truly repented and were saved. Their dreams were peaceful, the insects and parasites fell from their flesh, and their torment had ended. Not guiltless but saved.

Again she sat on the ruins of a building, surveying her tormented target in his house. He had killed before. Many, many times. Perhaps he even enjoyed it. Could someone like that truly find forgiveness?

With a troubled look, the archon opened the book given to her and began to read. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool..."

SINIB:
Tsumiko

10:15

Tsumiko descended into her shadow, the previous familiar she'd entered from quietly disappearing back into the aether. She dove deeper into the thick mess of shadow, swimming towards her home, and after a moment, she arrived.

The girl was spat out of the shadow monster living in her house holding tightly to her gun. She walked over to the wall and gingerly hung it up. She knew that she could easily project an exact replica, but...

A forgery just didn't feel the same as the real thing, despite how infinitely close she could make it to the original.

The girl sat down on her couch and just sat for a while, decompressing from her night's work.

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