Degredation.6
There is a place
within every colony where the decent and fair-minded people dare not speak of
or go. It is a sequestered place far from view, hidden and shunned.
There are those
in every colony, who are shunned, hated and jeered. They are scum and
aberrations among the normal of daily life. They are shunned, exiled and left
to die.
But.
Like attracts
like.
These are the
Warrens.
They came into
existence on Odon by accident, really. Before the sprawling factory complex
that exists today, those who lived here survived underground, huddled away in
massive underground shelters, free from the punishing gaze of the sun and the
destructive storm ridden elements of the planets surface. There they mined, and
toiled, trading the precious stones and oils that they leached from the tunnel
walls for food and drink. The lucky few who struck it big found transport and
escaped the tunnels. From birth children are born wishing to escape. Few did
and even fewer survived in doing so.
It was only when
a battered Fyrainian fleet stumbled into this forgotten sector, running from
the pursuing venerated USCA Destroyer Fires
of Holocaust did the USCA turn its attention to the blighted world.
The fleeing
Fyranians had gone to ground, abandoning their ships and taking to the surface
of several of the ice-worlds in the system. The Fires of Holocaust's supporting fleet was forced to take a lengthy
campaign in dislodging the entrenched enemy, so furious was their defense it
was only when the Fires of Holocaust unleashed
its anti-ship payload upon the surface of the moons, shattering the celestial
bodies completely did their resistance meet its end.
Such drastic
action did not come without consequences though, the ice fragments found their
was to the colonies of Odon, crashing to the surface the fragments of the moon
seeded the dead world with water, and larger meteorites cracked open vast veins
of ore near the surface. Such an explosion of mineral ore attracted the attention
of the Sector command, and within months the manufactory that now rests on the
surface of the planet was born.
The underground
shelters were forgotten in favor of the now slightly more habitable surface.
The shelters had suffered under the fragments of the destroyed moons that fell
to their surface, vast floods and cracked rock and a ceaseless year of
earthquakes and tremors destroyed most of the passages that the colonists
relied on, and many shelters were shattered wrecks no longer habitable.
None lived
underground anymore, the local populace now recruited to the forges that
supplied the furious war in the stars beyond. The people lived amongst the
forges, and after while the old tunnels leading to the shelters were used for
disposal purposes and forge runoff.
Nobody
lived down there anyways...
No one lived down
there, yet, is a more correct term.
For years this continued, the forges ran, the Shelters rotted, and the people
lived their simple lives. Complacency breeds discomfort and stagnation gives
birth to idle minds who are wanton to change.
The riots were
inevitable, and the brutal suppression of them was also inevitable, the CA
mobilized within minutes of the first sign being lifted and before the first
march even began the black, armored APC's of the Civilian Affairs Enforcement
Officers had detained more than a thousand, and executed just as many.
The colonists
soon fell back into line, silent, and complacent in their duties, none would
speak of the horror of that day, among the dead that lay trampled on the
streets in the ensuing panic were families, the young mauled and broken by the
treads of wheels and synchronized boot-steps.
It is such the
case that the outspoken among these people are found missing in the night, or
by a mishap in the forges. Not by the CA's hand. But by their own people, those
who seek nothing but routine and live only to avoid the wrath that was shown to
them from before.
There is still
refuge for these outspoken few, cast out by society they found the warrens,
those underground places long since thought forgotten and abandoned by the
children they sheltered so long ago where once more hosts of a defiant few.
Every so often the CA would take notice of these settlements deep underground,
raids would be launched against these enemies-of-the-state, they were to be
hunted down and destroyed, such tasks were thought easy by the men and women
among the CA's Enforcers.
It was not.
The first raid
ever launched was not heard from again, the second -a rescue team- found the
remains of the first patrol deep within the snaking tunnel systems,
half-devoured corpses floating in raw sewage, bloated beyond recognition and
host to maggot-life.
The Rescue team
was beset by those that they were sent to destroy soon after, out of the ten
only four managed to make back to the surface, and even then one died from
infection, and another shot himself.
No such purges
have been taken from then on.
The inhabitants
of The Warrens' had become bestial things, hardened by their environment and
mutated by the toxins and waste that they live amongst. Some go mad when they
seek refuge down there, most do not live for long, the toxins kill the old or
young, and if a family were to even dream of living there they would be
hard-pressed to survive long enough to find the few still habitable pockets
left within that hell hole. Even then you were likely to be dragged to the
ground kicking and screaming by your 'neighbors' as your flesh would be ripened
by the over-world and such meat is a rare delicacy.
...
It is a testament
to the strength of man that even in such an adverse environment man would still
thrive, huddled together and insane, but alive. The air they breathe is toxic
and the tunnels are dark and the select few still uncorrupted shelters are
tribal battleground between bands of humans looking to survive. But they are
alive. They cannot expect much more when in such a place. Waking to the same
flickering light you fell asleep under, and waking hooked up in a cage, crammed
together with other unfortunates being sized up by starving bandits is a small
victory all of its own.
Salvaging is a
must, the life blood of the Warrens is the steady stream of refuse and scrap
that flows down the access tunnels and pools in underground tram stations
before draining away into deeper pools flowing to the terraformed oceans.
Scavengers pick
through metal bits that flow downstream, occasionally they might stumble across
a nest of the native vermin that infest the underground passages, and if they
were swift enough to catch one they had a meal for the day. Even better would
be if they were to find a cluster of fungal spores found only around the sewage
flows. IF the pods were cooked right, one would be able to escape the dank
hateful environment for a night or two, wandering instead in sunlit
dreamscapes.
Down, deep in the
forgotten parts of the Warren, scurrying through the oldest tunnels that
existed long before man had descended into the first cavern of this damned
world centuries ago. There is water, pure, un diluted refreshing water. In this
subterranean hell, water is life. And those who have dominion over these few
wells held power. Water was currency was much as scrap was. If scrap was
pennies, then water was diamonds.
To eat was a
different matter entirely. Meat was meat, no matter the source of the meat.
Vermin or mutant, man or otherwise, so long as it filled the belly of the
depraved it would suffice. Of course this was not without some stipulation,
there needed to be some form of law, lest the fragile community built upon the
filth and waste of others would fall entirely.
...
"Jusa' keep wach
'bit lunger, I'most got dis 'ere scrub out." The voice was like a raccoon
thrown against a heating-iron, only worse. "nYeh," the second figure was
quieter, though no less
Hunched broken
forms scurry along rusted tracks, cold faded metal walls and a ceiling picked
clean of wires and lights. Malformed hands scrape along the walls, tracing over
grooves worn away by time and toil, scratched away by rocks and rebar a
language of those who only knew of the pale light of fires that die all too
often.
"S'mmer, dis 'ay"
a wet squeaking voice tests the shadows, the soft patting of stunted limbs on
rock.
"yuh?" a
response.
"Gid it op'n,
Sach's sed id be 'ere." More movement, soft, quick and jerky figure feels its
way through the shadows.
"Nuff'in." It
speaks, raspy and cold.
"Naw, id be duwn
'ere, fon' it." A crueler voice, a harsher tone lashes out against quivering
figures.
"isat it?"
"Fink id is." The
naisley voice draws down to the floor, limbs scrape against rock until a latch
is felt, hands grasp and pull.
The Tunnel is
filled with the sound of stressed metal, only the sound of dripping water
striking cold rock is heard for a moment.
"Whydigya stop?"
"Dun wan tah wake
deh Grablers. Can smell 'em."
"Only scut-rats
'roun here. Grablers lef dis place while go, nevu stay roun' long afta' a
kil'."
"y'sure?"
"Yuh, been
trailin' dem grablers fer years."
The groaning of
metal, slower and softer this time.
A dim flicker in
the darkness, a blinding sun to the hunched, withered faces that cluster around
the hole in the stone floor, the hatch is pulled open as a foul stench wafts up
from the hole.
"D'un look at dah
light." A man, ragged hair and sunken eyes looks at the group assembled, his
teeth are rotten, and red raw muscles show beneath translucent skin, snakes of
purple veins pulse over his hunched back. "Blind-yah." He nods, but the group
ignores him, instead staring down into the maintenance room in the floor of the
tunnel. A ghastly stench wafts up, the stagnant air long undisturbed now flows
free into the tunnel air.
"S'mmer, check id
out duwn der." One of the five pushes the miniscule frame of a girl forward,
bleached white skin and hair, She trembles as she creeps to the edge, shadowed
face ducking away from the light. "I sed git duwn der!" An arm lashes out and
punches the girl in the back, sending her fragile frame toppling over the edge
into the room.
All is quiet as
the group watches her from above, pale wet eyes staring eagerly down as the
girl scrambles to her feet. She crawls on her hands and knees, scuffed red from
constant use. "S'good?" A man with half his face missing asks through a mangled
mouth.
"S'good." The soft whisper from below would
have been missed by any surface dweller. But was picked up by the tribe of
freaks and deviants assembled above.
The jostled each
other as they scrambled down the ladder, others just dropped down to the floor
rather then wait.
"Gid yur hans off
dat!" the man with the translucent skin snapped, stumbling over to the girl as
his feet were twisted things, a mess of bone and muscle grown inwards instead
of out.
The Girl was
viciously biting at the arm of a human corpse half decayed, tearing off chunks
of grey flesh with a fanged maw. The man balled his fist and punched at her,
she shielded her head until she was forced to release her 'prize.' "Gid up an'
out!" the man screamed. "Stupit' bish'." The others assembled at the far
corner, sifting through ransacked shelves and rotting wooden drawers, picking
at mold encrusted notebooks. Some examined broken electronics, turning them
over in their hands as if that would discern its use.
A woman, half
walked and limped to the skinless man, "We get sum?" She mumbled, half of her
face limb "Hungy..." She said, her eyes straying to the corpse, what used to be
one of them, a tunnel dweller cornered and killed. Half of the body was
missing; everything below the torso was a mangled mess, meat picked clean off
of the bone.
The skinless man
snapped his head up to look at them, they began to gather around him, hunger
clear in their eyes. "Uh minute, I lead y'all 'ere didn' I?" He spoke between
mouthfuls, tearing decaying flesh from the corpse with his teeth.
"Yuh sed der was
more." Another man spoke, normal, save for the fact that another shriveled pair
of arms sprouted from his torso, curled around themselves, his face mired in
eternal agony as his organs coiled around bones that should not have been
there.
"Der is, in duh
uder room ova der'." The skinless man pointed a hand with too many fingers at a
black stained doorway, the door itself torn away to reveal nothing, the room
was pitch black but the stench coming from it made even the tunnel dwellers
gag.
"All yer's, dis
un' 'ere's mine."
"Soun's gud." The
man with the mangled face nodded, his hulking frame lumbered into the
pitch-blackness and was seeming enveloped by the absoluteness of it. It was
minutes before her came back out, "Ain' nofing ere!" He shouted, his mouth
spewing forth a combination of spit and blood, his meaty fist came into contact
with the skinless mans face, knocking him away from the corpse and nocking it
aside. A pile of maggot-like things spilled out from its exposed back, the
three other tunnel-dwellers fell to their knees, grabbing at the corpse-worms.
"Y'fukin cheat!"
the man with the ruined face throttled the skinless tunnel dweller; his massive
frame overpowered the stunt-legged mutant. "Fink you can drag us 'ere and
'spect us to be fien wif nuffin?" He roared. "Gonna make you pay fer dis!" The
approximation of a sneer crossed his face, the thick hands of the man with no
grabbed at the Skinless man's arms, and he pulled.
...
The girl stared
vacant eyed down at the hatch, she didn't react when the screaming began and
the wet sounds of flesh being ripped from the still living echoed out of the
entrance to the macabre room. She licked at her lips and tried to pry the last
pieces of human flesh from in-between her fang like teeth, failing at that she
felt her way through the darkness until she reached the familiar coldness of
the tunnel wall. She sat her naked body against it, her world silent save for
the wet smacks from the hatch, and dark save for the small column of light
shooting up towards the ceiling, illuminating patches of the massive air vents
that used to push air through these tunnels and shelters.
That's when she
saw the shape moving inside one of them.
She froze,
reflexively. Her body stiffening as she traced the shadow stepping over the air
vents, quiet it was. Not a single sound as it paused beneath one of the vents
leading into the tunnel.
A single claw
peeled back the metal grating barring its way. A shape detached itself from the
cavern roof, falling back into shadow, the would-be girl sat in silence,
unmoving and uncaring as the eternal underground night seemed to reject this
beast within it's midst, as if reality itself wanted to deny it's presence. yet
it wouldn't let them go. It was a misshapen thing, given the echo of it's
presence, the slumping gaited crawl that dragged it along the ground, malformed
bones parodied into motion by a cruel birth
Maybe she got
lucky, or that the sounds of slaughter and gluttony emanating from the portal
below drew its attention away from her, or perhaps it just didn't care.
Whatever the reason, the shape in the darkness crawled its way closer to the
gleaming portal of light.
A massive,
inhuman hand gripped the ledge down into the room, pallid, white skin marred
black by decay.
The screaming soon came
after. The child stood, staring down into the room, the walls stained in blood
and broken bone, the sound of dragging echoed up to her as the last mangled
body was pulled out of her view. She
turned numbly, hand against the smooth rock wall she led herself back down,
deeper into the pits.