Hiding in a darkened alleyway, I waited patiently with Talia at my side. She held her hand to my mouth, pressing down so hard that I couldn’t even separate my lips. A cold wind passed by, and the sound of something whooshing by the alley whistled in my ears. Panic rose up my throat, and if it weren’t for Talia holding my mouth shut, I would have shouted from the fear.
A couple seconds passed by. Talia tilted her head so her ear faced the sky. When she deemed the coast to be clear, she lowered her hand and I could finally breathe again.
“That’s fucking terrifying,” I said in between wheezy breaths.
Talia stood and I followed her lead. I grabbed onto her cloak since I couldn’t see her in the pitch-blackness of the alley. The only way for me to follow her was through touch, and that only slowed us down even further.
“Just keep your mouth shut when I tell you to and everything will turn out fine.”
We moved on from alleyway to alleyway, staying out of sight and mind of our pursuers. After five minutes had passed since Talia and I moved on, she grabbed my wrist and we fled into an alleyway. For several minutes, we’ve been making rough progress, going slow and steady as we traversed our way out of the Poorman district.
With her limp and me being nothing but a human, progress was agonizingly slow, and every time I would accidentally bump my foot against a can, my heart leaped into space. I was certain that Talia could see extremely well in the dark thanks to her cubbi eyes considering the fact I never heard her rustle anything once. The only noises I heard came from me stumbling like a blind man in a garbage pit.
The sound of someone snoring reached my ears, and I could just barely see the outline of a homeless person resting their head on a metal garbage bin. The smell of ammonia and sewage reeked from his clothing and body, and if I could see him, he would definitely look as if he just crawled out of one.
More garbage and homeless people began showing up the more we walked down the alley. Someone leaning up against a wall flung a beer bottle at us as we walked past. It shattered behind us, and the woman drunkenly complained about someone named “Makenzie.”
An orangish light illuminated from around the corner. My eyes thanked whatever the light was coming from, and I could finally see what I was walking around. Talia turned around the corner, and I followed her, and my eyes widened at what I saw.
We found ourselves in a massive parking lot. Abandoned cars sat in such horrid condition, that I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d been stationary for years. A fire raged in two cars, and a massive flock of homeless crowded around it, holding their hands to the only degree of light that the autumn season would allow.
I looked up and spotted where exactly this parking lot was. Talia had just led me to a massive abandoned factory, and we were at the warehouses at the moment. I knew what this factory was also. The memory of it rang out clear as day.
A few days since I turned thirteen and shakily entered my teenage years, the factory shut down for good. I couldn’t remember the name off the top of my head, but it apparently was one of those factories that would produce a wide array of sweets that would then be sent out to stores after leaving the warehouse.
Who owned the factory, I had no clue. What I did know was that Hannah’s old man worked here for some time before he got laid off and became an alcoholic. Apparently, he would bring a lot of different flavors of cookies home before shit went down and she became a part of my old friend group.
“Welcome to the village of the forgotten,” Talia said. She waved her hand for me to follow her, and it was not like I could just walk away. “How do you like it?”
Even though that question could be satisfied with a simple, it’s okay, I couldn’t for the life of me say that. A guy threw up some blood by the warehouse. A woman was paid a cigarette for her body. What’s more, was that the woman looked young enough that describing her as a “woman” felt wrong. There wasn’t a single aspect of life here that could be described as “okay.”
So I chose not to say anything at all.
“If you want to know, the way out of the Poorman district is just up ahead.” Talia pointed to a road that connected to the parking lot. “They won’t chase you there. At least, I think so.”
“And what happens if they do?” I ask.
“I’ll follow you from the alleys. If I see or hear them coming, I’ll protect you.”
“Cool, but first,” I fell against a wall and slid to my butt. My knees felt like jello and they shook like one too. My adrenaline kicked into overdrive during that ordeal, and as it left my system, the shock of it all weighed on my shoulders. “I nearly died, so can I get a bit of a break?”
I watched the distant fires and homeless with a sort of detachment. I’ve always known there was a massive population of these people, but to see it with my own eyes was nothing short of feeling like I entered a dream. My life could be summed up as shit, but looking at these people, I couldn’t help but feel like my own problems paled in comparison. At least I had a roof over my head. It’s not something I can say about them.
Talia rested next to me and looked at the crowd around the fire as well. The wind picked up, chilling the surface of my skin, and giving rise to goosebumps all along my arms. The only thing keeping me from freezing was the gentle flame that trailed its way from the burning pyre.
“Can I say something, from relative stranger to relative stranger,” I asked. Talia nodded her head and the damn holding back my frustration burst clean open. “It hadn’t even been half a year, and my life has turned into something I never could have imagined. Just a few months ago, I was masturbating in my room while playing porn games. The next, I got myself involved in so much shit, that I’d feel more at home in the sewers.
“I mean, I nearly died twice this year. I’ve seen another person die in front of my eyes because someone I thought I knew dangled them from her arms without a hint of emotion. I keep trying to bash those memories back like I’ve been doing all my life. Make up a new story. Rewrite it from scratch. Turn my life into a comedy. Do the same thing I’ve been doing and keep on running.
“But the more I run, the more I can’t help but look back and see my problems tearing at my ankles. I’ve tried to ignore them as I’ve done with everything else in my life, but I can’t keep running anymore. My legs have worn out ages ago, and even now, I can see myself in that dark hole, the blood of one of my friends coiling around my ankles, and my throat hoarse from my constant screaming.
“Just a few months ago, I lived like anyone else, but it’s like I find myself being the protagonist of a really fucked up story written by someone with something to prove. Reminds me of myself when I think about it that way.”
Talia didn’t speak in between my incoherent rant. Instead, she looked at me and smiled. Her ears were open to all my complaints about the life I found myself living in, and I couldn’t help but continue talking.
“So, what do I do? My legs are giving out, and I’m up to my neck in shit.”
Talia turned away from me and looked down toward her feet. She picked up a broken stick that was some inches away from her toe, and she drew something in the dust and dirt on the pavement. I looked at what she drew and it resembled something like a flag. Inside the rectangle were two pairs of poorly drawn wings, and above the wings was something that looked somewhat like a crown.
“On the island where my people live, it’s nothing all that special. It’s a remote island far away from any of the seven continents that inhabit the Earth. On that island is a massive city that takes up roughly ninety-eight percent of all the land on it. The only piece of nature there is a cliff that drops toward a rocky beach that’s covered up by the waves during the high tide season.
“I lived in that city for all my life, beating and being beaten back. I assume you know of our kind considering your lack of shock at me, so I can assume you know how we feed. Our biology ruled the way we lived for the hundreds of years we were on that island. We would copulate at least twice every day on the off chance we never go berserk. If we go berserk, it’s the harshest violation of the rules, and we’re punished for it.
“Only on rare occasions do we get executed. Instead, a far worse fate awaited us if we went berserk.” Talia looked up at me without making eye contact. “If you were born an incubus and went berserk, you would be sent off to a farm where you would be constantly kept on sanity's edge. The birthing rate for succubus and incubus are heavily skewed toward succubus. One out of every four cubbi born will be an incubus, and considering our biology, incubi don’t have much in the way of basic rights.
“On that farm, your job would be to bring succubus back from being berserk, supply semen for high-ranking officials when they get hungry, and to break in succubus who have reached puberty.”
I held up my hand. As much as I wanted to listen, something she said didn’t add up right from what Harmony had told me, and I needed some confirmation.
“I heard that cubbi start craving for sex once they hit eighteen,” I said.
Talia smiled, and it wasn’t the smile that gave me warmth inside. It was nothing short of a smile of pity.
“Whoever told you that lied to you to not frighten you. When puberty hits a cubbi, their body begins to reject traditional food, and transition into sex-based cravings. For incubus, it starts when they start producing semen, and for succubus, their periods will signify the change. I was an early bloomer so I had to get broken in much earlier than normal.”
My head became light as she told me the truth behind the horrors of what it meant to be born as a cubbi. My hands shook, not from the chill in the air, but from my overactive imagination wondering what kind of messed up society they lived in. I looked at my hands, and all I could see were the hands of a pampered doll.
“For succubus that go berserk, they are brought to the Queen’s palace. Once every month, a ship filled with rich human executives comes to claim a prize of their own. The Queen wants to please humans so that someday, they could forgive us of the sin of existing. Our bodies and minds are nothing but vessels so she can fulfill that dream of hers.
“I ran away from all of that. When I saw someone leaving by boat, I took my chance and hopped aboard without them noticing. I pushed them into the sea, so whether they’re alive or not, I can’t tell.”
“I have a question about that,” I interrupted her train of thought to ask. “Why are you keeping me alive? Much less, why are you telling me all this?”
Talia scrubbed out the flag from the pavement and began making random scribbles and markings that meant nothing in particular. At least I was sure they didn’t but I couldn’t be too careful with how things have been playing out lately.
“I’m keeping you alive because I don’t want to kill you. If I were to go berserk, that would be another story. As you can see, I wouldn’t want you dead when I’m thinking straight at least. As for why I’m telling you this, it’s to answer your question. What should you do?”
Talia grabbed my shoulder and squeezed hard enough that I could feel the blood in my veins stop swirling. I winced from the pain, but she didn’t let up one inch.
“Keep running. Ignore how awful your legs feel. Ignore every voice screaming in your head telling you this was a bad idea. Ignore everything and everyone and just keep running. The more you run, the more likely you’ll find what’ll give your life meaning.
“I’ll tell you what’ll happen when you quit running. Every mistake you made; every single person you could’ve saved; every time you bloodied your hands will catch up to you. When they catch up with you, you won’t be able to move again. Whatever dream it is that you wanted to chase. Whatever life it is that you wanted to live. You won’t be able to obtain it ever again. Keep running, and maybe someday you’ll find a comfortable meadow, where no one will be able to hurt you.
“You’ll find paradise if you keep running. A dreamy paradise that only exists when one looks in the back of their eyelids. Flowers can’t stop blooming in the warm spring sun, and a gentle breeze will rustle your hair. No cloud in the sky to block out the brilliance of the sun’s rays. You can finally rest and say to yourself, I lived the best I could.
“To do that you need to keep running. Don’t let anything, even yourself, stop you.”
I couldn’t see her face buried beneath the hood she covered herself with. In some respects, I didn’t want to see it. I was too afraid to see those eyes. So, I did what anyone else would do. I looked at the burning abandoned cars and the depressed crowd of ragged men and women.
Have they all been running too, I wondered. Or is the reason they’re around the fire because they stopped running. I didn’t want to ask.
I decided to just sit back and watch until I felt safe enough to stand and leave. Once I’ll stand, I’ll continue to run until I find that mythical paradise waiting for me on top of the mountain.
