The City: Welcome Home

This place was always dark, the City where we live. None of us were born into the City with its stony tress, wrought iron flowers and cement born flora. Eventually all pass into the City, but I've simply found the people who want to stay. Every day usy, productive, stressful, but fun, every even constant music pours from every speaker. Occasionally a few will partake in different activities, and some will break their routines for a taste of change. But the City has rules, rules that must be followed.

The people that reside in the City, that care for the City like flesh and blood, have not met yet. You see something terrible is about to happen to the world they built to be a sanctuary.

At the corner of 9Th and Main there is a theater. The Hourglass stands four stories tall, not necessarily looming, but proud and elegant, commanding the attention of all that pass. The blend of architecture call to most the idea of Greece's, Paris's, and London's love child, no quite sure whose it is. On the bottom floor is a set of offices lining the lobby, hidden behind trick doors and thick red walls. As director and owner of the Hourglass, Gabriel Dammel sits checking over the cast list. His office is nothing like that of conventional business men as it appears to be the back of a theater most of the room shadowed in darkness. Posters adorn the walls, made by past students, dancers immortalized in the City because of his skill, his vision. There's no one else in the theater at one in the morning as he reaches for his bottle of brandy, but withdraws when something out of place catches his eye.

James Alexander Michaels is running in a pair of white gogo boots and torn fishnets, his black mini skirt slightly riding up his long slender thighs with each stride. Some contruction works call out to him, "Hey baby!" Good thinks James Alexander and thanks his effeminate genes for the sixth time this week. It's one in the morning, but in the Razor Bubble its forever 11pm, hours more to party, the night still so young. But the tall, dark, and lovely tranny is broke, flying solo and tonight the bouncer is Samuel "Wasp" Jackson, who rarely works but enforces his fifties ideas on the guest list. For a minute he's disappointed, they were supposed to have a new DJ, but then he notices Carla Mendez, the most attractive tramp in all the City, chatting up the bouncer. With a short sprint, James Alexander slips in unseen, ready and willing to give his soul over to the music.

Margo Brown appears plain to most people, particularly boys. Instead of hanging out with other girls her age, young and hip 17, she spends her nights writing. Her second novel titled, "The Crushing of the Cage" is coming along in short bursts of inspiration that don't seem to last more than a page, is due on Friday. On this glorious Wednesday morning she looks out her apartment window, the City clearly visible. She can see the other girls having the time of their lives, losing their hearts to one night stands. Whatever Margo rolls her eyes and continues writing, I have a deadline to meet.

Across the street from the Razor Bubble, sits the faded blue apartment building. Mostly abandoned only the boldest tenants or the fresh and innocent newcomers of the City live there. In a tangle of limbs, smoke, and a half forgotten sheet, Lucinda Violet Williams wakes in a cold sweat. Another nightmare, another death she had to play witness to. A boy to her right wakes up for a moment, fighting sleep to cradle the now terrified girl. A second boy lights a cigarette, Camel no. 9, and goes to the window. Lucinda Violet sighs and tries to find her way back to the hallways of broken children; abandoned lovers and lost souls. The boy at the window takes a deep breath, "Luci, I have something to tell you."