Wayward Travellers

chap. vi

CW: Violence, gore, body horror, symptoms of nausea (minor), death.

.

.

The sound of clashing metal wasn't one that you were used to hearing. No, that honour went to the sound of flesh being torn apart by an electrically charged weapon.

You couldn't help but feel peeved as the blade of your weapon met the iridescent ones that were attached to the monster's shoulders; blocking you from harming its body and ripping it apart.

Its attacks were ferocious, filled to the brim with what you could only describe as resentment as it delivered attack after attack after attack; all the while it looked at you with a hatred that wasn't there the first time you encountered it. That didn't mean that you didn't recognize the hostility though. In fact, you'd even say that it was one that you held close to your heart when you first suffered a loss at W Corp; having to watch your dear friend be torn into pieces before being forced to watch the very monster who did it be brought back without consequence while your friend stayed dead.

"It's not fair!" You remember crying out while Meursault and Rodya held you back, preventing you from doing something reckless that would cost you your life. Though, at that moment, you were sure that you wanted to lose your life. "Why do they get to live but she doesn't?!"

Feathers, you thought, were important for a wing to have, as it would allow the bird to fly freely in the sky. A few losses are bound to happen as it is the way of life, but that never stops the bird from treating them preciously. In fact, you'd say that those losses make the bird treat its feathers even more preciously.

However, when a bird finds a way to replace those feathers without consequence and without limit, that bird becomes arrogant. The feathers will lose any value they had and become nothing more than a piece of rubbish. That bird will pluck out its feathers and use them however it wants; perhaps as a pen to communicate with another creature, a sacrifice so that another bird may fly freely, or simply because that feather looked ugly.

That was the truth of the Wings in the City. Human lives were that of a feather; fragile and without value thanks to the technological advancements.

It was always the same story, too. The Nests keeping the people living within ignorant before handing them over to their respective Wings if the people were good enough to qualify. That way, the Wings get an endless supply of feathers, making the older feathers as well as the newer ones have even less value than before.

Of course, some feathers would hurt too much to pluck out and get rid of. Meursault came to mind; his work ethic always being described as the most ideal one and one that other employees should strive for. That said, if something ever happened to Meursault, if that feather too close to the vein ever got infected with something, then he too would be ripped off and tossed aside like he had been a burden the entirety of his employment when that couldn't have been further from the truth.

Profit mattered more than lives; a customer's satisfaction more than the well-being of an employee.

The monster, you realize, was the silent fears of the employees of W Corp; afraid that they'd be abandoned in a timeless place and eventually turn into the monsters that the passengers of a W Corp train would turn into after spending thousands of years in that accursed dimension. Its eyes held hatred and resentment caused by the numerous losses it went through, and the countless deaths that it endured.

A manifestation of the fear created by the living, the dying and the dead.

How ironic that its fears finally happened; that two of your coworkers experienced the horror that your peers were too afraid to even mention.