FFM16: NOIR BEES.
Virtue stepped through the battered chain link fence. Nothing on this side of the fallout had been given much thought in recent years, except for the disapproving looks of little old ladies, and the addition of guard dogs patrolling the area. It had been easy for Virtue to slip around the hellhounds on patrol- a little cayenne to cover her trail and no one was the wiser.
She made a point of being as quiet as possible. This side of the fallout, the impact site where the first angels landed after the end of Hope's Rebellion, was now overrun. The magic that such a place held was violent, tearing across whomever stayed too long and turning them into ghastly beings. She had witnessed it, the breaking of bones into shards, the molding of flesh like clay.
Kevin had been a sales associate, a well-dressed kitsue on Algacrypt's payroll. He sold slips of people, with or without personality, to anyone who could pay the going rate. Now, Virtue had known Kevin before, she had taken his inventory and rehabilitated them. Returned them to their own timelines, sans memories for reasons Virtue was not okay disclosing. He has spent too much time in the fallout zone, and was the first to go.
Kinsley was in the mists of making his weekly delivery of oddities to Uncle Rashomon's, and he was completely behind schedule. Cutting though the fallout zone was forbidden, but Kinsley could see Uncle Rashomon's on the other side, and really, it would be so much quicker. He was the second victim.
Stories turned into legends, and no one minded the fallout zone. Posters of the disappeared were plastered over empty storefronts. Funding was cut to the zone-- the police force's budget was removed for chasing people around at random, and staring down gloomy alleyways in a threatening manner.
Virtue had been sent on a mission, to see one Kevin, known for his nicotine addiction and a bizarre striped coat. On her way back, she needed to locate the remains of Kinsley, last known to have been tossed away by a prostitute for not paying the agreed pricing.
Really, Virtue might have been debating actually looking for Kinsley. He sounded it like an asshole to her, and Virtue was not planning to risk her life on whatever was in here on assholes.
And then, she saw them. Nothing could have prepared her for the bees.
Comments