Orion woke up once again to the soft voice of her alarm. It was once more time to go explore. Old Chicago was no different than always. She went around a couple of blocks kicking some dirty rusty cans on her way. Today she felt small looking up. Even with most of the buildings having crumpled to dust she could still see the structure of some of the old towers.
The roads looked gigantic. Broken down street lights flickered creating a background noise that could not be ignored. They gave off just enough light to see where to step.
The ground here was littered with trash and sharp objects. Orion was not worried too much. It would be painful to get stabbed by a nail, but nearly all wounds and disease could be cured.
Orion walked through the field of debris each step crunching something under her boots and made it to another block. She was a long way from her home and the bar now and still she had not spotted anything interesting.
She made it a point to get a good story before going to go see John. The alternative made Orion shiver. Not only did the scenery of the city make her feel small though, it reminded her how miserable she was alone.
She turned a corner and up ahead a young man walked. He was too far to make out clear details, but he looked as though he was hurrying somewhere as though he was hiding something.
The young man entered through a broken door to a dilapidated building. So Orion followed him as well. The building had a strange musty stench it reminded her of home but it was a smell that Orion could not recognize. She walked through a corridor with holes in the walls where windows used to be. there was no electricity in the building, but she could see a light at the end of the hallway. It looked like a phone's flashlight.
Suddenly Orion stopped in her track something was off she suddenly felt as though she was in danger and quickly turned around. The young man was standing there with a knife in his hands.
He was wearing a dark grey hoodie with some jeans, he was a beautiful brown eyed handsome man, but Orion could not see his mouth it was hidden behind a face mask.
"Please don't do this I-I have a family" A blatant lie, but maybe it could buy her enough time to grab a weapon.
"You look like a teenager what the hell are you talking about." He saw through her bluff way too quickly, but he understood now that she wasn't dangerous to him.
"I'm Marcus by the way." He offered her his hand to shake. Orion was confused, but quickly got her composure back.
"I'm Orion it's nice meeting you, but what are you doing in here?" As soon as Orion finished those words Marcus's face started shining. He looked exceptionally proud of himself as if he was a child.
"I found a shit ton of pre purge era books!" Orion was shocked this man was clearly insane books were everywhere and she'd never heard of a "Purge".
"The what now?" Orion figured she might as well go along and tell John about this later.
"Well a while back like a thousand ish years ago The Administration decided that art and culture should have standards so that society wouldn't degrade into a shit show with no values. That backfired sure, but it also made it so we lost thousands of years of history and culture after they decided that the works that did not fit the standards should be erased." He told all of this clearly itching to show Orion something.
Suddenly Marcus took Orion's hand and ran into a room. It had a weirdly placed rug in the middle of the room that smelled like dust and mold, which sickened Orion.
Marcus pushed the rug to the side showing a very big hole in the middle of an unfurnished room with a single rug in the middle. Orion almost laughed out loud at how badly this was "hidden".
They went down a ladder and it led them all the way to the basement. It appeared to be in a great condition, Marcus probably spent a lot of time here and needed it to be nice.
The ladder went down into the main room it was just a very normal living room. It led into four different rooms, but Marcus didn't let Orion any time to explore or take in the sights. They went to the closest room from the ladder.
There a library stood. It wasn't grandiose or anything. It was just a long room with a few bookshelves, but from the way Marcus looked at it. He seemed to look at the great library of Alexandria.
"This is my greatest find. I used to only find a couple of books every month from scavenging old buildings, but this was probably some collector's vault. I've been learning so much from these books." Even standing a few feet away without seeing his face Orion could tell he was drooling.
"You talked about something called the pre purge what was that?" Orion was curious maybe he wasn't as crazy as she thought he was.
"Well it's not that complicated I thought I explained it pretty well. The Administration dictated that some parts of our old cultures were against the common interests of the people and yadda yadda books were burnt by the millions and we fell back into a type of dark ages concerning culture at least. Everything else's goin' greaat." Marcus seemed to expect Orion to respond at this point he'd talked enough. He wasn't used to having this much human contact at once.
Orion however was confused she'd never heard of anything like this. Was The Administration hiding something from everyone? If so she had to say it. She had to come out and tell everyone.
"Why haven't you told anyone else then? What have you been doing here?" She sounded angry, but Marcus simply answered without giving it much thought.
"I like reading books I don't really need to "Liberate" the world." He seemed confused at her questions. After all most people he'd ever talked to about this had called him crazy and simply left him alone. He had no one to share his passion with or to discuss it with.