Young Writers Society

         I'm sitting on the fire escape. It's cold, the rusty, red surface coated in a thin layer of ash that dyes my hands black. It creaks under the slight shift of my weight, wheezing and bouncing feet over the ground. I hold my breath and take a deep breath, inhaling the sweet orange cotton-candy flavor that eases out of the window in front of me. It sits ajar, something rarely done lately due to the smoke-poisoned air that hung low over the city like a gray blanket. I hastily shift my frayed, untied sneakers, hearing the creak of the fire-escape and the ladder shifting and banging against the tin-can side of the toe-shaped building. I hold my breath yet again, but there's no shift from inside, and I release my breath before peering through.

     The orange scent belongs to a girl, sitting on a patched blue beanbag, with her knees pulled tight against her chest and her reddish curls cascading in greasy waves down her back. Her cheeks are flushed and freckled, ash from factories caked under her chewed fingernails. Of course, she doesn't see me, because her eyes are glued to green-screened TV plastered against the far wall. I open my mouth and inhale, knuckles turning white as I grip the iron bar in front of me and lean forward, feeling her soul flood through me like warm water loosening my limbs, the sugary orange flavor coating itself onto my tongue. Then I stop, locking my jaw shut, because I know if I go on I will suck it all out, and I'm only allowed to taste it. Even then, Alex will scold me. 

   I'm about to turn away, spider-climb down the dangerously loose ladder onto the ground, when I hear the buzz of the TV change, and the all-too-familiar beep of a news broadcast alert, drilling a nail into my head. I lick my lips hastily, knowing what I will turn to see, and yet I turn around anyone and look again. The goofy kid cartoon has been replaced with a flow of white, block letters, something too quick to read, which is replaced with the snake-like, oh-so-sweet face of Piente Escam. With his oily black hair slicked back, and his wire-thin lips in an ugly, v-shaped smile, he looks as charming as ever.

"Hello, citizens. We must interrupt your show for our weekly warning broadcast. As you all know, Defects are hidden in every corner of the city, so make sure to keep your children safe and your valuables locked away!" His voice is oozing with fake optimism, like an elementary school teacher dealing with a class of 6-year-olds. "Don't worry, they are just kids, but they are a danger to themselves and society! Be aware of those you meet in the street, and know that soon the government will wipe this little rascals out and our city will be as safe and nice as always!" His teeth are the color of bleached bone as he smiles. "And remember our motto--Non decurrent, de Utopia!" 

     His gleaming eyes flicker over the screen and it goes neon green, a flashing, cancerous color that stays there just long enough to burn itself into my retinas before switching back to the show the orange-soul girl was watching. Instead of sitting to watch it, though, she stands, ordering the TV to switch off. I realize she's coming to close the window just in time.

  "Shit," I mutter, curling my scabbed, ash-painted fingers curling around an iron bar and I swing myself down, clinging like a desperate upside-down animal to the bottom. I hear the window shut, and the thick orange smell is cut off. I cling there for a moment, listening to the buzz of a drone overhead as it glides through the sky, before a click from my earpiece almost sends me dropping to the ground.

"Dylan!" Alex's voice rings through the piece, reverberating in my head. "Where the fuck are you?"

I wince at the tone of xer voice--xey must have seen the broadcast.

"Hanging upside down on a fire-escape," I confessed, wiggling my way to the ladder, which I pull down. It falls with an ear-piercing shriek, which Alex ignores.

"You saw the broadcast, right?" xey ask. 

"Yeah."

"It's getting worse," xey mutter, and I can practically here xim chewing at xer bottom lip nervously. "Apparently, we're 'dangerous to ourselves and society'." Xey sigh. "Get back to the base. I don't think it's safe for us to be out in the open, anymore. They'll be looking for us."

"They're always looking for us," I protest, sliding down the ladder and hitting the alleyway floor with a slap.

"Even more so. Just come back. Stay away from humans."

"Roofs?"

"No. Drones, remember?"

I sigh, pulling my hood over my messed-up, flyaway white hair. "Fine, fine. Is everyone back at Inferis?"

"Almost. You'll probably be one of the last. Be safe, okay? Promise."

"I promise."

"Good. Now go."

I can't help but laugh at xer sternness. Xer was rough, but it was tough-love, and I appreciated it. "Okay, see you soon."

    The earpiece clicks, and with my black hoodie pulled low over my head and my hands shoved deep into the pockets of my jeans, I slide out of the alleyway. Every molecule in my body seemed to vibrate as I stepped into the open, bouncing on the heels of my feet. The stink of souls that comes with open places clouds my nose, a mix of rich, flavorful foods and greasy, hot oils. It's never regular smells, I almost never smell those, it's all PEOPLE. Little kids with souls that smell like dripping, melting ice-cream cones and men slouched against damp, uneven iron openings that smell like urine and beer, but that's probably just their souls. Sometimes, there are tall women with glistening golden hair and slim, white dresses, with souls that smell like dead fish and salt, and old men with long, tangled beards and sad, black-hole eyes that smell like vast fields of flowers.

  I wade through the ocean of smells, trying as hard as possible to become invisible. Sometimes I can, when I try hard enough and reality flits away, and I flit away like a ghost, a soul. But it's hard, it seeps me of my strength, so I don't really do it a lot. 

  Still, people don't glance my way. Children with eyes that are still too innocent to understand the warning broadcasts reach their grubby hands my way, but slouched mothers with side-ways shawls and coal-caked hands drag them away, giving me the stink eye, like; "You could be a freak, stay away from my kid." Dogs with their ribs showing lift their heads as I pass, their doleful eyes following me. Dogs souls always smell like love, a rich, hearty smell, though most of the time it's very faint.

  Perxorbis is a large city, in fact, the only city possibly in the whole world. It's the year 2317, and we are unfortunate enough to be stuck on the only land mass surrounded by miles and miles of deep, dark ocean, and the land mass is covered in huffing, puffing factories that coat the whole damned place in ash. One side of the city is covered in what probably looks like red tombstones, or thumbs if you choose to not be so morbid. Red, rusty and dome-topped with wide windows and hobbit-house doors. Ash would cover it like black snow if it weren't for the drones that blow it up into the atmosphere instead. The other half is factory, squat iron buildings covered in thick tubes and pipes, belching sooty smoke into the air like great, immobile beasts packed with poor children and tired parents. Drones are constantly buzzing through the air, over-sized bugs patrolling the streets with their dead glassy screens.

   And in the middle, is the actual city. A circle of land packed full of tall, wiry buildings, tilted and spidery topped with flashing green screens and connected by snaking, crooked bridges and tunnels. I've never been there, in fact, most unfortunate souls who end up living in tombstone-houses and working in factories never get the chance to step foot into the oh-so-great Main City. We're stuck in the Factory District and the Housing District, stuck watching the sunset over the Main City night after night. It's a shame, really.

    Except, I suppose it isn't the only city. Perxorbis, I mean. Defects can't just live among them, in alleys, on roofs and in abandoned bars. That's way too out in the open.

   So, we live in Inferis, a place no one knows of, a place that's small yet packed full of Us.

   I pull a manhole away, opening into a tunnel heading straight down, a slimy monster gullet beckoning me in with it's empty air and damp smell. I slip in, engulfed in darkness which I welcome as the smell of souls cut away along with the light. 

  Into Inferis.