Cores

episode one: cores

Thousands of years ago humanity collapsed, just like that almost everything was gone. It was nothing but our fault. My father once said, "humanities greed leads to its near extinction." Humanity discovered the power of the cores. The cores were the world's first cleanest and strongest energy source. A small piece of a core could power a whole building and a whole core, well that could give life to a whole city the size of Tokyo. The world ended when we took advantage of the cores, no one told me how it ended in detail but that's pretty much all I know. All major forms of tech were disabled, at one point even the cores didn't work either. Cores became extremely rare and worthwhile. People fight steal and kill for them. I live alone on the outer part of a trashy pretty much dead city, I hunt and bring in small animals in the swamps outside the town close to home, a girl gotta support herself somehow. Every week I go to Kagami's tavern to bring in what I hunted and he gives me cash as a reward. The Tavern was packed today, well packed for how big this place is, I handed Kagami my prey he handed me a pouch of coins. I poked around in it, it was significantly smaller than usual. I asked Kagami "This it? This will barely cover food for the week." he responded with " You've brought in the same few animals for the past few years now Pen, the values are bound to decline." "What do you want me to do then?" He leaned in closer and whispered "You could always sell that you know what." he leaned back and kept talking " It could make you enough dough to leave this place and go somewhere. I hear there's also a city west... real nice, well nicer than this dump." I gave him a look " Nah I'm good, this is where I grew up Kagami I can't just leave for no reason." "Think about it please." "For the last time, I'm not selling my core!" I might have stated that a little too loud. Shortly after I left and made sure I wasn't tailed. Before my dad left he told me to protect his core, when I was younger it was so dim and didn't work I was always confused about how one of these somehow ended the world. However until recently, it's been glowing much brighter with a saturated teal color, the crazy thing is that it's also been calling to me. My dad always told me to never touch it though, that the core would bring nothing but suffering and pain when you do. So I've just resisted for a while. I got home and looked around, nothing seemed to touch or out of place just yet. After a little while, I lifted the floorboard and grabbed a bag with the core inside of it. I opened it just to make sure everything was fine, I grabbed a cloth to pick it up since I couldn't directly touch it. I was about to pick it up until a heard a boom outside. I looked through the little peepholes in my walls and it was a few men with advanced cool-looking lasers, they looked like one of the guys from Kagami's tavern along with a few others, one of them banging my door down. I quickly put the core into my bag and went out the secret exit I had made a few years ago just in case, when I got outside there were already two guys sitting there waiting for me. One of them overpowered me, grabbed me by my arm, and brought me out front of his boss. The guy that took me by the arm asked "This her?", the other guy from the tavern said, " Yea looks like it." " Why would a little runt like this have a core?" "Hell if I know. Could be lying but if she does we'd have a major payday." He walked over towards me and knelt to my level " So girly we don't wanna rough you up any more than we already did. Sorry bout that by the way, so mind telling us where the core is?" I looked at my bag for a split second, "In there? Ah, I see." He tried going for it, I squirmed a bit and yelled " Go to hell!" he grabbed the bag and smirked, " Been there for a while." He opened it up and grabbed the core. A few seconds later there was a shriek from him, the energy of the core was melting his hand. He dropped the core and the rest of the men went to go check on him, there was a split-second opening, I was wondering do I risk it and pick up the core? What if I get hurt too? I was taking too long and the moment was ending I wasn't thinking and grabbed the core. One of the men ran after me the other two were aiming their guns at me ready to fire. It was weird I was holding the core for a good few seconds and I wasn't burning it felt really warm like a fresh bath. The man caught up to me and tackled me, I screamed " Get off of me!" and pushed him, he went flying a few feet. Confused I got back up. The boss yelled fire towards. his men and they started shooting but by then I was pretty far away, I didn't have many places to go to so I did the one thing I could and went to Kagami's place. I waited a little while for him to get home, when he got there he freaked seeing me. I swiftly told him what happened, he seemed surprisingly calm. "So what do you think?" I asked him. "well Penny I think you're in deep shit. That's why I told you to sell the damn thing!" "I'm sorry I can't it's one of the few things I own." " Well, I can't do much to help you. You for sure can't stay here with those guys after you and you also have little money to leave this dump." "Why can't you just give me some cash Kagami? I need this." "Nuh-uh. Pen I'm a trader at heart you want something I need something in return, I sure as hell don't do loans. If you had something worth the price of that core you'd easily have enough to leave this place." This was an extremely tough situation, do I sell my core? This thing belonged to my dad and I wanna also figure out what happened earlier I couldn't possibly give it to him. Thinking a bit harder I leaned back on his couch. Something sharp hit my back, I took it out and it was a small handgun, probably from one of those men who were after me. I set it on the table, Kagami picked it up and said " What's this?" " Don't know pretty sure it's from one of those guys that were after me. I must've picked it up by accident." " Would you be willing to sell it?" " I mean it doesn't mean much to me, why is it worth a lot?" " Hell yeah, this thing could be worth a pretty Penny. Sorry, no pun intended. This thing looks extremely high tech the guys after you must've been pretty damn dangerous." "Would it be worth as much as a core?" " Mmm a little less, but still very expensive. Hell, these things even got a fragment in it." " A what?" " Nevermind, how about tomorrow we set up a little deal at my cavern before we open so those men won't be there. You could even sleep here, see who says the good old Kagami cant be a nice guy." A few hours later I fell asleep on his couch, which was extremely hard my back was scrambled the next morning. When we were done negotiating terms Kagami asked " So Pen where do you plan on going?" " Well, I dunno I hear there is a nice city out west." " Haha, very funny. Well a few words of wisdom, if you wanna keep that damn thing shits gonna get much worse for you. Do you still wanna keep going even if there's suffering on the road ahead?" " I have to..." " Well I always help out my friends here... a little leaving gift." He gave me a card "What's this?" "Well if you're planning on going west I used to know a person there. She studies cores and I feel she'd be of great help towards you." I smiled and gave him a last hug. Then I left, core in possession going to do what it feels like I was meant for.