[BL] Daily Disposable Persona

67: The Sun God 06

The past few days were a free-for-all for the homeless people of New York.

The city was shrouded in unending night. Almost all of the people had gone. After a bit of shouting about human rights, the government had trawled through the streets and back alleys for a few days and evacuated the last group of inhabitants. Of course, due to various accidents, there were homeless people who didn't manage to be evacuated. Their only option was to remain in the city.

The streets that normally bustled with people were deserted. The Upper East Side, the symbol of the well-to-do, was abandoned. Luxury high-rises rose into the night sky like ghosts on silent guard. At a glance, there was no one at all on the Avenue of the Arts. The shops on both sides of Madison Avenue were closed and desolate.

When the United States rose to become a global hegemon, the city's status rose with it, becoming one of the world's financial centers.

Untold fortunes had been created here, but there was extreme disparity in the distribution of wealth.

In New York City, the gap between rich and poor was enormous. The wealthy drank afternoon tea on the Upper East Side while the homeless poor brawled in Brooklyn. White-collar workers lived in the more peaceful borough of Queens, commuting between these areas on a daily basis.

But now an unforeseen emergency had swept through the financial center. More than eight million people live in New York City alone. There wasn't time to evacuate them all in only five or six days.

The ones who were left behind were at the bottom of the pile.

Homeless people carried bags snatched from the mall and pushed shopping carts loaded with piles and piles of goods to their newly chosen houses.

They didn't dare go to Madison Avenue. Manhattan was under military control.

Indeed, in New York right now, aside from homeless people and some crazed believers who were eagerly looking forward to the apocalypse, only military forces remained. The homeless people didn't know exactly what the military was doing there. All they knew was that when they woke up, the rest of the city had packed up and gone. The homeless took over Brooklyn. They smashed through shop windows with hammers and took out the food. Other homeless people teamed up to steal money from banks, not realizing that banknotes had become worthless paper in New York.

This was the other reason the power supply in the city hadn't been cut off. It wasn't just to supply the military. It was the government's last act of mercy for the New Yorkers who remained.

"Hey, Sam, where you headed?"

A homeless man saw the youth who'd just walked out of a different clothing store. He shouted and waved his hand.

The teenager named Sam turned around. "I'm going to get new clothes!"

"Nice. There are some good clothes for people your age over on the first floor. Go around the corner and take a look." The homeless man smiled and shouted to him, pushing the cart in front of him as he left.

These people existed on the bottom of the social ladder. They didn't care if the world was going to end tomorrow. All they knew was that the people in the city had gone, but the supplies were still intact.

Just like Sam. Sam wasn't an American. His father was a migrant who was smuggled over the border from Mexico. After Sam's relatives died unexpectedly, he wasn't eligible for U.S. welfare benefits.

Children of migrants like him didn't have much education, which meant his options were limited. Either he could make a living in the flesh trade, or he could join a gang and run errands.