The sun was rising above the city as the day took the night's place. A few months ago Nabil would have now woken up and gotten ready for University, deciding which suit he would wear or how to style his hair or maybe decide where and who to study with in the evening.
Today he was torn between letting sleep take over or forcing himself to stay awake to keep an eye open for unwelcome guests. A weight on his right shoulder shifts, Ayianas head leaning on him as she was drifting to unconsciousness, slowly losing the battle to exhaustion rather than choosing safety. He didn't want to roll his eyes but he couldn’t stop himself. The person who was the reason for one of the most traumatic moments in his life slept peacefully while he kept watch, so they both wouldn't end up on the menu. Well, peaceful probably wasn’t the right word. She seemed tense and restless, even in her sleep. Good.
The moment Nabil saw Celeste last night, he was on his way back to where he came from and didn’t take a look back. He didn’t care what happened to Ayiana and he didn’t want to know what was happening to Celeste. He just wanted to be gone. Away from everything, away from this fucking good forsaken shithole. He wanted to go home. But he couldn’t and he knew. And it killed him.
Nabil didn't dare to close his eyes, too scared of not being able to open them again and too scared for the memories he may see in front of his inner eye. He lifted his head instead, absorbing his surroundings. Tall metal fences, surrounding the junkyard, dumpsters all over the place in varying sizes. In the distance you could see the tall buildings of Aethos, neon lights shining, even in the daylight. He felt his heart getting heavy at the sight and he decided that he was just done with this place.
The fighting for food everyday was just so draining and the hole in his stomach just never seemed to stop hurting. He has been here for only four months. Celeste with her sun kissed hair and a body, not modified with any Cyberware seemed odd to him. But she was the one who picked him up when he was alone under a bridge, right outside the city with a knife in hand and ready to end it all. She was the one who took him in with open arms and was with him when he completely lost himself to his pain and hatred and loneliness. She was the one who took him here to this damned junkyard and introduced him to Ayiana who once suffered a similar fate as him. Ayiana was extroverted and kind and welcomed Nabil with open arms, just as Celeste did. They showed him how to find food and tools to survive, hiding spots to sleep, warned him about the other people also living here, at which time the trucks came to dump all their garbage to pillage. He remembered the first time he saw how the people acted. It was something he has never seen before and an image he didn’t imagine he could ever get used to. A dozen people, acting like animals trying to find food or parts to repair their broken tech. Fights broke out, yelling and arguing, stealing right out of each other's pockets.
The food…rotten and mostly half eaten partially filled with insects eating their way through it.
Nabil was disgusted. Horrified. Scared. Ashamed.
Because he understood.
He had to gather all of his pride to not move forward and rip that man’s gloves, including a plastic bag, probably filled with food off. Only when his new two companions joined the gathering, he dared to follow. It didn’t even take him to touch anything laying around in that mess, but seeing all those hands pocketing things as if there was no tomorrow, with the possibility it was something he wanted- no , needed- send shockwaves through his body and brain and in that moment it was like a switch being pulled. He let loose. And he has tried to keep that memory out of his brain ever since. Burying it deep underneath all those other vicious and disgusting things he saw, even if it wasn’t one of the worst, no not even close. But he was part of it. He brought himself down on their level and he refused to accept that part of him defining his being and his soul.
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Fights and murders were nothing new here, that's why most of the others either kept to themselves or stayed in small groups like he did with Ayiana and Celeste.
Well Celeste wasn’t there for Nabil for too long. She left them after maybe three weeks, talking about some connections to a ripperdog she was trying to build to gain money and get them out of this misery. For a while she left and came back, sometimes for one day and other times for more but she never stayed too long. Ayiana and Nabil were able to fend for themselves, in hopes of Celeste achieving her goal for all of their benefit. But as time went by Nabil noticed. Oh he noticed alright.
First he saw the new chip slot behind her ear, fresh tech. He wasn’t sure what it was for exactly but he kept quiet, trusting her to not leave them behind. Maybe she needed it for a job or maybe it was a reward for a job well done? The thought was obviously ridiculous, no one in their right mind would give away free tech, especially not some low class ripperdoc Nabil guessed Celeste must have been in contact with. He just could not lose hope. But as time went by and Celeste disappeared for longer periods of time reappearing with newer and newer and more expensive implants and prosthetics, he could not hold it in anymore.
“No Nabil, how could you even say that? This is Celeste we are talking about!”
“Are you out of your mind? Celeste would never do that. We can trust her, I know it!”
“Again with this bullshit Nabil? Let it go! You have been here for only a few weeks, I’ve known her for years! Celeste has a good heart! She saved us!”
His frustration grew everyday, with both Celeste and Ayiana. The latters optimism was genuinely infuriating and the talks of Celeste, the oh so greatest didn’t stop. The name alone made him wanna rip the hair off his head and the fact that even Ayiana started to get quieter as time went on but still refused to even acknowledge that her oh so dear friend is behaving suspiciously would not come out of her mouth validated him. Nabil felt so alone and so right in his opinions about certain groups that only solidified when they came.
The Black Wires, a gang located south east in Aethos. Nabil knew only little of them before he came to the junkyard, mostly rumours, news articles and some statistics he found in his university's database. They were known for their rather outdated looks, refusing to upgrade themselves with any kind of Cyberwear and prefer to stay full human flesh. The only thing not natural about them were their tattoos, they are covered in black ink that’s supposed to look like blood veins. In Nabil's humble opinion they looked more like victims of some intense virus or disease rather than tough, but his opinion on this topic didn’t matter anyway.
When they showed up on the junkyard with their chainsaws and butcher knives, the people around here scattered like insects, hiding, not knowing what they wanted. They turned over every stone, looking for something but never talking to anyone else other than their own people. After a few hours, they left, but not for long. When they marched in here a couple of days later, they made themselves real comfortable and claimed the west part of the junkyard, the side furthest away from the city.
Celeste knew of them but didn’t say or do anything. Nabil confronted her once, but he got no answer, even though he knew that she must have known something.
As you can imagine, his frustration grew with every time he saw her. And when the Black Wires started to kill some people, leaving only some body parts of their victims behind, most understood what had happened. But they couldn't leave. They had nowhere to go. Aethos is only a one hour walk away but the citizens weren’t reacting too kindly to the homeless people wandering around and having no hesitation to shoot if someone did something they deemed suspicious or dangerous.
So they stayed, had to.
Ayiana and Nabil quickly moved to the east side, but had to risk going back every now and then, because the trucks loaded off their stuff near the Black Wires little camp. And now they were here. Leaning on a boulder, Ayiana sleeping at Nabil's side and him looking straight ahead at Aethos.
