Amidst the silent streets of New York City, a buzzing noise could be heard intruding upon the crumbling alleyway. In the middle of rows of collapsed townhouses, a modest record shop stood daintily.
The record shop had somehow survived through four apocalypse events and remained in this desolated place like a lotus blooming in the mud. Uncaring of the world around, colorful paintings remained on the storefront. A glorious poster of a musician playing an electric guitar rested proudly behind the counter, a thin layer of dust could not hide the bright flame that burned vigorously behind the musician. Empty wooden shelves lay randomly on the floor, miscellaneous of old CD discs mingled with splinters of wood created an inhospitable atmosphere for the store. A single tripod lamp stood on two and a half legs, cobweb hung from its head to the wall; skewed to the right, it looked like one of the abominations borne from the consolidation of black crystals.
“Click!” The sound of someone flicking the light switch rung from inside the shop. Then another, and another, disrupted the quiet stagnation in the dead corner of the world.
“It’s not working.” The wistful tone belongs to a girl that was more mature than what her voice had suggested. Her mouth pressed into a thin line, the only indication of displeasure on her otherwise nonchalant face. Her eyes shined a ghostly color, her pale skin lacked any definition or blood veins that a normal human would have. Her hair, a starry night made up of silky strings of darkness that glittered alluringly on her pale skin. Hung tightly on her tall but petite frame was a glossy black dress made of black crystals. The majestic dress covered the girl’s body like a black waterfall, billowing around her like water vapor. The dress looked like an iron corset decorated with black crystals from head to toe; and despite looking like it weighed even more than a full-plate armor, the skirt floated softly in the air, never touching the ground.
With a small sigh, the girl gave up on flipping the light switch and turned her head to the origin of this dalliance.
The girl was on a mission, an important one, to find her lost home. It was when she walked past a particular big clearing that lacked the perpetually present of crumbling buildings, cracked streets, and floating black crystals that she heard a buzzing noise. Curious by the peculiar sound, the girl decided on a side adventure. Which had led her to this monotonous corner of New York, inside an equally mundane record store. But it was colorful, at least when not covered by layers of dust.
Flipping the light switch was a foolish action; the girl knew that electricity had gone extinct ever since the first dark fall, something about the black fog blocking the magnetic field. But it was worth the try, she had never seen an intact light switch before. Not like the inlanders would need any light. If the first Dark Condensation officially evolved any human who could survive the transformation, the two Dark Falls served to improve the inadequate human anatomy. These improvements included needing less food, water, sunlight, and oxygen, sharper hearing, sight, sense of smell and taste, denser bone density, and immunity to many earthly diseases. One of these improvements granted the inlanders the ability to see in the dark, eliminating the need for light. In the years living as an outlander, she had never traveled into the upper-class sections, which is the only section to have a light switch. She had heard people talk of it, old people who couldn’t even lift a coal block on even ground.
“It was a nice surprise.” The girl thought, happy to have seen a light switch for the first time. Even if it was a little underwhelming.
The buzzing noise increased its frequency as if reminding the girl of her purpose for coming to this relic of a store. The girl walked over to the counter, lay beneath the crooked ledge, right under the flaming musician was an old radio.
The girl picked up the rectangular box, spun it around and checked how did such a thing and was still speaking after more than a decade of gathering dust. Strangely enough, the thing still looked pristine, at least when compared to the store, the city, or the world at large. After wiped out the dust, the metal underneath still looked better to wear than possibly anything else in this city, a circle controller with faded digits for switching channels, a few sliders for volume, a button for speaker, and a crooked antenna for receiving and sending signal. The girl had seen one before, in old magazines that her mother had used to teach her and *** the language. She learned about its purpose from her mother but had never seen a real one before. She had always been curious about the technologies of the lost world, fancied about riding in a car or flying on an airplane. Not that she would need those things anymore ever since she learned how to use her psy-mind. She could now travel any distance faster than anything the technologies of the lost world could accomplish, albeit with a little risk of losing her mind in the process.
“But the radio is different.” The girl thought to herself. The radio was a device used to connect people, communicate, and send out messages from far away. It was not something the girl could do with her power, or could she? The girl didn’t know since she never had a chance to test it. It wasn’t like she could try to project her thoughts directly into other outlanders’ minds without exposing her identity. More than that, the only two people she had ever wanted to talk to no longer existed.
“What a charming little device.” The girl murmured. In her opinion, the radio was a device to connect people, an instrument of unity.
The girl had heard of “the phone”, a little device even smaller than the radio, and two people could use it to talk to each other over a long distance. Her mother had said that people of the lost world preferred the phone over the radio since they could also listen to music, watch videos, play games on a smartphone, and the radio only played recorded sections. But to a girl who didn’t understand the concept of music, video, or gaming, those are just extra perks that came with communicating using the phone. She believed that the radio was a superior device that brought more people together. She knew how difficult it was to communicate when living in an underground subway station. It was difficult to gather all members for the weekly meeting, and impossible to know the status of scouting teams that went to the surface looking for supply. How easy it would be if they had two radios back then, to keep everyone updated on the situation.
“The outlanders are very fortunate.” The girl spoke in an absolute tone. The outlanders didn’t have a radio, but they had something called the speaker in its place. A system of these speakers was set up in every level of their floating city, and council members could talk to every outlander through these speakers. She was agape when she first heard voices coming out of these speakers, she thought it was the most convenient technology in the world. That was until she learned that it was one-way communication, and the speaker didn’t feel very desirable to the girl anymore. But it was still useful, being able to convey messages to everyone so efficiently. Fortunate, indeed.
The girl touched the circle controller and spun it around, checking if she could hear any voices. Unexpectedly, when spun all the way to the left, a sensible male voice came out of the radio. The girl was surprised, but more so delighted of the discovery. She brought her ear close to the radio, trying to make sense of what the male voice was saying.
“The Chrono Maria, the first ever artificial continent, developed by the UNNS has officially set off from bzzz, Lei Port, bzzz at, bzzz yesterday. Millions of people had present to witness this monumental moment in human his bzzz”. The broken voice of the male anchor echoed in the small and dusty space. It was almost nonsensical without any context to make sense of. But the girl was hanging on every word spoken on the radio like it was holy scripture. The fragmented voice continued.
“Humanity will prevail through the threat of the dark fall, we shall bzz our prestige bzz, bzz, … Had never fallen, and certainly not this time either.” The voice spoken in an increasingly disconnected speech, and slowly faded away.
The girl held her breath, not that she was breathing in the first place, and gripped the radio tightly to her ear, excitedly waiting for the voice to continue. But a long time later, the radio was still silent. When she almost reached out to adjust the channel, the broken male voice spoke up again.
“The council had passed the 11/13/SS law, officially splitting the Chro bzzz ria bzz, into separated islands. Madame Ge bzz, speaker of the council, responded to the press that the 11/13/SS law is the best compromise to the increasing violent activities due to segregation in races and cultures arising in the outer sections of the Chr bzz. Bzz, bzz, … It was a dark age for humanity. The dark fall has eliminated more than half of our population, devastated our civilizations, obliterated two continents, eradicated most species apart from human and marine life, and changed life on us forever. This is a time when humanity needs to stand united, to strengthen our bond, preserve our culture and origin, to protect our kin, our family. This is our battle for the survival of humanity. However, those Jacgro bastards have a different idea, they are vile people who want nothing more than total annihilation of humanity. Those degenerated bzz, violate our constitution, attack our honest neighbors, and spout nonsense about equality. Those rapists should be condemned to thirteen hells darker than even the dark fall. Without those bzz our United Chrono Council should still stand strong, united, not divided. Th bzz, bzz, …” The angry voice denounced the sins of a group of people, the girl didn’t know which since she was an inlander who knew nothing about outlanders’ history. Even during the years of living in a floating city, she had never heard about the Jacgro people. What had these people committed to be sentenced to such antagonism? The girl didn’t know, and she will likely never know the answer.
Before she could contemplate the meaning of what she had heard too deeply, the voice continued in an even more vulgar language.
“Fuck the Jacgros, fuck the Isrids, fuck the Mentos, and every other fucker who thinks that we are to blame for the second dark fall. Everyone knows that the Asgrads were the ones who designed the Chrono Maria, we are the savior, we saved all their fucking pitiful life, and what did they do to return the favors? They fucking destroy our home, piss on our constitution, bribe their way to the council using despicable means, and now they dared to blame us for the second dark fall. I can’t believe I am going to say this, but the Dark Cult was right, the Dark Gods were real and now they are passing their judgment to these secondary sub-human races that couldn’t even think like a five-year-old Jackgro. Mark my bzz, bzz … We, the Asgrads, shall bzz, and became new Gods of the Earth.”
The girl squeezed her eyes in response to the male anchor's maniacal speech. She wasn’t fond of vulgar language, and even more so with the way he spoke of humanity’s future. For the record, the second Dark Fall did not evolve any human, it just disposed of more unsuitable humans from the formula before the Dark Condensation did the finishing touch. Also didn’t the anchor say that the Chrono Maria was developed by the UNNS, which means the united nations of all existed human races, why had it suddenly become the Asgrads that designed the floating continent?
After listening to the radio, the girl's previously cheerful mood had been completely replaced by the bleak negativities.
“The radio should be used to connect people together, not to lament, or to ravish other people like this.” With a sullen face, the girl thought to the now silent radio. She had an unreasonable urge to alter reality to completely erase this hateful anchor from this dimension. However, she also knew that it would be impossible with only his voice as the catalyst for the attempt.
The girl put down the radio, stood up, and stared stagger at the rectangular metal box. She had previously planned to keep the radio, but now she just felt repulsed by it. After a while of contemplating, the girl walked away, through the skewed wooden front door of the record store. She stomped her feet a little too hard on the ground, leaving behind trails of cracked footprints on the already ruined alleyway. She kept on walking, without looking back.
Turned out the radio wasn’t so good after all.
