The Disillusioned Land

Chapter 1 - Into Illusion

I awaken and gaze at my dull apartment ceiling, the sound of loud machinery fills my ears from outside my window. I turn left to glance at the perpetrator of such a racket early in the morning, a man wearing a fedora stares back at me, he is holding a copy of the critically acclaimed novel '1984' written by George Orwell, and appears to be attempting to create an improvised explosive inside of a toaster oven.

"How goes the fishing season this time of year?" I ask the man.

"Fish got hands" he replies with a solemn expression "my buddy Eric got his throat ripped out by a trout twice the size of his arm, never stood a chance against the dreadful aquatic dweller."

"Yet another life lost to the art of fishing, I fear that it will not be the last this year."

"Indeed, in any case, a pleasant morning to you sir."

I nod my head in response and get off my bed, heading over to my washroom to freshen up for the day. I flick on the light switch and notice it has become dimmer than it was a week ago, I figure its fuel cells have started to run dry.

'What a minor inconvenience' I thought to myself, ever since that new energy company rolled in last month everyone has had to switch to them as a main power provider, despite their ludicrous prices compared to other competitors in their market. 'An efficient long lasting alternative power solution! Powered by newly developed eco-friendly FishTec Fuel Cell™ technology!' What absolute utter hogwash, the FishTec cells I purchased from them 2 months ago had already shown signs of failure, and a fellow from down the block had lost his leg after his FishTec cells exploded for an unknown reason.

FishTec employees covered up the incident as him purposefully tampering with the cells and injuring himself in an attempt to file a lawsuit against them, but I don't believe a single word about it. That man was laughably incompetent with technology, having broken 7 coffee makers, 2 refrigerators, 5 toasters, and 3 paper shredders in the span of 4 months; to claim that he had the intellectual capacity to cause a failure in a way that serves him with such new and foreign tech is a bold claim indeed, dare I say, a 'fishy' one. Or at least, that's what the homeless man near the local supermarket had told me.

Finishing that thought, I had gotten myself dressed and ready for the day ahead of me and stepped outside my apartment room. I take a step back as something large whizzes past me, turning to my left I spot 2 children giggling to each other with translucent wings sprouting out of their back.

Ah right, ever since Minako from a floor above mine had vanished after making some shady deals with some local youkai gangs, her apartment room had been squatted out by a bunch of fairies. The landlady is either completely ignorant of this or chooses to overlook it, as she hasn't contacted local law enforcement or even some wolf Tengu to kick them out of there. At the very least those fairies haven't been too disruptive to us living here, at worst they sent a fake pipe bomb to my door one time.

I took a few steps towards the two fairies and said to them "for fairies trying to hide away you two are doing an awful job by flying up and down these halls"

"Oh shut it mister! Us fairies can die of boredom, ya know? We're trying our hardest to live our best lives cooped up in here, what's a little racket every now and then?" the one wearing a purple dress spits back at me.

"Yeah, stop raining on our parade ya chump!" the one in blue follows up.

"Oh? And those grass fairies running amok outside don't concern you? Sure would be a shame if you folk were caught up in their war or whatever wouldn't it?" I reply in a sarcastic tone.

"Listen pal, we'd totally be down for being a part of that, but ever since little miss Hakurei decided that Gensokyo was too good for moonlight and put up that new barrier, us Lunars have become the laughing stock of all fairies!" the purple one barked back.

"Is that so?"

"Come on, let's stop wasting time with this smelly human and have fun somewhere else!" The blue fairy says to the other as the two of them fly away from me, I look where they went for a moment and sigh to myself. I walk into the main lobby and exit the building through the front door, as I step outside I stop to ponder for a moment:

Why the hell did I bother moving here to begin with?