Sanctum
Feculent waste, that's all there was down here in this shit hole forgotten by whatever gods or supreme creatures that forgot to wipe the human race from the remnants of this place. There are a few things that people are good at doing, killing themselves, reproducing like test rabbit, destroying the environment around them, and finding shiny pointless metals more important than food, oh, and surviving like rats, now that's not to say the human race is a species of rodent which are found in the foulest parts of earth, but they certainly get damn close at times. That doesn't matter too much, because here's one unlucky sewer scrubber, outside of the glorious walled civilization of Sanctuary, some pretentious fuck's call it by its full name, 'Sanctuary', some call it 'the tank' like the people are god damned gold fish, waiting for their flakes of food, but most, like the shit scrubber, call it Sanctum, and that is not where he is right now, right now he's in this shit end, to a degree literally, of what's left of Eastern Oakland, in sunny California. There was a time when it was actually just another City, part of a state which was part of something far bigger, but now, now it's just a place those within Sanctum call 'The barrens', everything that's not in the few Sanctums around the world is ultimately 'The barrens'. It isn't all that bad though, some people like living in a state of nature, where at one point a person may be gnawing on a bone that belonged to their beloved dog, Rex, the next some psychotic drugged up, or drunk, or just psychotic, blunt head could come careening out of nowhere and bash their brains across the barrens, at which point he would begin lapping it up like a dog. Of course those people that apparently claimed to "be waiting" for the state of nature to take over never realized how horrifically bad it would get, mother killing child to spare them, father murdering families, families in general resorting to mass executions and so forth, people really did have it better before, but then when things are going good, humans charge head first into the worse case scenario.
"Hey Ved, are you done cleaning the shit canals and opened the channels, or are you just having too much fun down there?" Sarcastic little welp, she did that though, she always knew how to push his buttons, those in headquarters, constantly monitoring the activity outside of Sanctuary Cal1, the clever name the architects gave it, were always reminding the "Conduit Engineers", a fancy name for shit scrubber, that their job was integral to the sustaining of Sanctum. Well it certainly didn't feel or look that way, day in and day out, some psycho blunt head would void his bowels, or collects all the fetid refuse, and dump it in the canals that provided water flow for a small percentage of the Sanctum inhabitants, most used the atmospheric recyclers for water and power was pure solar, but Ved and those like him were integral in some way, regardless of what they were doing, cleaning up after the blunt heads that were basically dogs with a slight language base.
"So what's going on, have you finally joined the blunt heads? Can I go home early now and take my mandatory 2 week psychological leave?"
Ved just laughed loudly and replied, "Why don't you come down here Nalia, and you can sift through all the left overs of our worse off brothers and sisters out there." He smiled a wicked smile under his exosuit, something he was sure she would see.
"Hah, no such chance, remember your the lucky one that gets to enjoy the barrens of old oakland, I just get to watch in my boring terminal at the dock site." Nalia imparted with the sarcasm almost causing Ved's ears to bleed, he hoped they would sometimes. He finished up the last of stabbing large piles of peaty, human waste, goodness from the canal, a brisk flow began to open up again, Ved sighed loudly, smiling while he did as he could almost hear Nalia lowering her volume in sudden frustration, and turned to retreat to the Sanctum return pod. Ved heard Nalia burst out in his ear bud receivers,
"Prepping for your return, pod chamber clear of contaminants, you are clear for return," Nalia adding in a hushed tone "Blunt headed channel sucker" to which Ved just chortled loudly in response entering the large oval like pod which closed quickly behind him with a loud hissing noise, all the putrescence from the barrens being quickly evacuated, for the safety of Sanctum. It wasn't like people couldn't breath the air, hell they could probably survive out there, but there's a certain sense of paranoia people develop when a 100 years go by without so much as a wave hello to the outside. After the religious conflict which ended in 1.9 billion dead, those already within the Sanctum just kind of stopped ringing the outside world, couldn't really blame them after the destruction that took place. Ved was at least grateful his ancestors had the rational thought of never succumbing to the hurricane that was religious zeal, and instead, like millions of others, chose Sanctum, and the rest is history, especially for those on the outside. As Ved ascended the sanctum conduit conveyor, he heard Nalia over speaker again,
"So Ved are we getting drinks after this or are you going to sulk in your apartment again like a dejected Prag" Ved saw the image of a possum, rat, with patterned tufts of hair and an overwhelming stench that made whomever see it almost gag, therefore Prag was an appropriate name.
"How about I drink myself until I can't tell which way is up, that sounds more enjoyable to me, but going out to pay for overpriced piss water, come on Nalia." Ved heard her sneer over the speakers and responded ruefully,
"Fine, drink yourself until you're a blunt headed cannibal, I'll actually be enjoying the outside air thank you very much." She clicked off, she wasn't really mad, she always did this when Ved refused to go out to some over priced bar that made it seem like a massive genocide never happened on the outside, but there was something about going out into the barrens which always was off putting for Ved. At that moment he suddenly cleared the massive steel wall that was the exterior of Sanctum and saw the magnificent and massive city, spanning all the way across the bay, and far over the mountains. His conduit conveyor pod had an open glass wall facing the Sanctum interior, no one wanted to see the other side, where the barrens were, the air defenses were in tight order today, one of the blunt heads thought it would be a great idea to try and scale the wall, poor bastard actually made it to the rim, but was incinerated immediately by drones, and even the dust was completely collected and deposited over the barricade. If they still held funerary rites in the barrens, Ved sure as shit hoped it was cremation. Sanctum was a magnificent display of desperate engineering and construction, but then impending war does that to people, and Ved was glad to be on the other side where the poor bastards died here of heart failure and old age, not having their heads smashed on rocks over a paltry amount of heroine or meth.
Ved just scoffed to himself as he stepped off the conduit conveyor pod, as the door slid and hissed shut behind him, he was glad to be on this side, but then no civilization was perfect, including that of the supposed "Perfect" Sanctum, there was enough bullshit and arrogance to cut a knife with, if it was a big fucking knife, but Ved breathed in the crisp air and set off towards his apartment, leaving the shit covered barrens behind him, and the blunt headed psycho's and addicts to scrape a living off old ruins of the war torn world. For some people, outside of Sanctum, succumbed to the harsh barrens, and some, some people planned to rise again, even if that meant taking on the powers far beyond their own, even that of Sanctum.
TBC
Well I hope that was at least interesting, got you reading my blog post maybe? If not well shit, I don't know what to say, constructive criticism is something I'm completely ok with, saying "It sucks" does not help me people. In any case if this is well recieved, I may make more, we'll see, for now I guess I'll call this "The Sanctum" arch, and we'll see where it goes. I certainly enjoy writing with more profanity, I get exhausted trying to keep my stories PC all the time and understanding of all people, sometimes I just want to be more edgy I guess. In any case, I hope everything, story and what I wrote before resonated with you, hey if not tell me why, leave a comment, if you're a silent nay sayer, well the beginning of this post was me bashing on you enough you soft spoken jackass! All in good fun people, well I'll still end this my customary way,
As always
till next post, roll your D20
Ryan
No comments:
Post a Comment