"I should go to the supermarket before it closes. We're out of tea, and Dad can't sleep without his beer either," he thought as he walked through the cold streets of the third borough.
He walked through those streets that were disfiguring and mutating from the great glass and concrete skyscrapers to just gray complexes full of signs of all kinds and walls covered in graffiti. It was all too obvious that beyond the second borough, they weren't even treated like people anymore.
"And to think that even though we moved to the sixth borough, we're still treated like scum."
Most districts are divided into several boroughs that blatantly segregate citizens. Only the wealthiest and most powerful can afford to live in those kilometer-long, pristine buildings in the city center and enjoy the luxuries and comforts that entails. In contrast, in the seventh borough of the seventeenth district, you only found the worst scum the world had to offer.
"What the hell?" "Seventeen Aces for a Type B synthetic meat wallet!" Strakh sneered, holding three days' wages in a single meat wallet. "I knew I should have gone shopping outside the Fourth Precinct."
"Everything here is really expensive," he thought as he returned the meat to the shelf.
"Move it, kid," a young woman said, taking a Type A+ synthetic meat wallet.
"Damn, that's half the monthly minimum wage!" Strakh thought, staring at the woman in astonishment. She couldn't have been more than three years older than him, and yet she was capable of spending that much money on meat.
"You're kidding me!" Strakh couldn't help but exclaim as he saw the woman take a second meat wallet. He quickly turned away, realizing his recklessness, trying to hide his blush.
"You're a rude little brat," the woman said before turning on her heel, her shopping basket under her arm. Strakh left the supermarket after buying only genetically modified fruits and vegetables and cheap beer. On his way home, night fell as he was still walking through the fifth borough. When he reached the checkpoint to enter the sixth borough and saw it teeming with factory workers from the fifth borough making their way back to their homes in the sixth, he knew it would take him at least an hour to cross.
"At the southern border there's the automated checkpoint; hardly anyone uses it since you have to pay a toll to pass, but it's my best option if I want to get there before nightfall." So Strakh walked to the southern crossing through the streets that connect to the steel factory, as deserted as ever, filled with robotic arms here and there slicing, bending, and moving all kinds of steel beams and pipes. Gray walls with lights that changed from red to green to indicate machine operation, safe passage for workers, and all sorts of things he never quite understood when he worked in those gloomy facilities.
"How awful," he thought as he watched the sparks and metal shavings fly out in their characteristic orange hue, which, rather than bringing back nostalgic memories of his old job, reminded him of how his friend Ned lost an arm when a saw detached from a robotic arm.
"I have to hurry," he muttered to himself, "lest a thief come out and kill me for a little food."
As he walked through those streets, he heard footsteps in the distance. He stopped abruptly and looked around in the darkness of the already fallen night.
"Damn it." A metallic sound echoed in the distance, like someone dragging a shovel or, more likely, a sharper object. Strakh started running toward the automated checkpoint, making sure to look back every now and then to make sure no one was following him. With his breath catching in his throat and his heart pounding in his chest with fear, he reached the checkpoint where, to his surprise and relief, he saw a handful of people there, all of whom were coming from work and wearing the characteristic blue uniforms of the face mask assemblers.
"Altered health status, medical attention recommended," said the voice on the monitor in Strakh's head. He passed through the automatic checkpoint, paying an Ace with his holographic wristband, and walked to his home, a small apartment in the best area you could find in the Sixth Precinct. A barely thirty-four square meter apartment, one of the most expensive in the area, with a similar place costing one hundred and twelve Aces in rent. His father had spent every last bit of his life savings to buy that place on the fifty-sixth floor of a housing complex less than two hundred meters from the fence that separated it from the Fifth Precinct.
"Where did I leave my access card?" Strakh wondered as he rummaged through his backpack in front of his apartment's magnetic door.
"Here it is!" he said, pulling the card out from inside a disposable synthetic noodle container he'd bought the day before during his break from working at the synthetic meat farms. He cautiously opened the door, searching for the sensor that activated the lights in the common area, which doubled as the living room, dining room, and kitchen if you were in a hurry.
"Dad? I brought vegetables for dinner and some grain beer," he said, hoping for a sign of life somewhere.
"He must have fallen asleep in the bedroom after finishing the beer." He kept trying the wall until he finally felt the sensor.
"Here you are, you little rascal," he thought before realizing it wasn't working.
"What day is it? We still have three days to pay the electricity bill."
"Damn state rats," he muttered as he put the things on the dining room table.
He glanced quickly at the sofa in the darkness of the apartment, trying to make out his father's silhouette, but he couldn't see anything in the darkness of a windowless apartment. He walked calmly to the bedroom and noticed the door was ajar.
"I'm home, Dad?" "I'm going in," he said, waiting for a response from the other side. He carefully slid the door open and caught a glimpse of a shadow lying on its side on the bed.
"I'm your son too," he thought before approaching the bed and trying to touch his father's back to wake him.
"Since Alkis disappeared, you haven't been the same." He placed his hand on his side, but there was no response, and then he heard the front door close.
"What the hell!" He carefully turned his father over to wake him, but when he did, he saw that his jaw was dislocated and blood was gushing from his stomach. He brought his hands to his mouth, fighting back the urge to vomit, and with teary eyes full of fear, he turned back to the entrance of the dark bedroom.
"I'm not alone, damn it. How is this possible? Where?" He hurriedly closed the bedroom door and pressed his ear to it, hoping to hear something. His fingers trembled with horror as he touched the bracelet on his wrist. On the holographic display, he selected the option to call the authorities. The light from the bracelet dimly illuminated the room, allowing him to see the trail of blood leading from his father's corpse to the door and continuing outside.
Then he heard erratic footsteps approaching rapidly from the other side of the door. He frantically dialed emergency services, and as soon as the line connected, a hand pierced the quarter-inch-thick metal door.
"17th Precinct, what is your emergency?" the voice boomed throughout the room as the young man ducked to avoid the hand reaching his head.
"I need help fast. I'm at the Sixth Precinct, in building four of block 11, apartment 4 on the 43rd floor. I need help. Someone broke into my apartment and..." That was all he managed to say before a hand grabbed his head and yanked him violently, trying to break down the door with the boy's body.
"Damn it, damn it, damn it."
"Young man, are you there, young man?"
Strakh struggled with the hand trying to pull him through the small hole it had managed to drill in the door, but the door gave way and he was flung along with it to the end of the hallway that led to the front door of the house. He hit the front door hard, his skull bleeding and some ribs broken. He gasped and whimpered in pain, clinging to a coat rack as best he could, and managed to stand while blood dripped from his head. He couldn't see whatever was attacking him inside the apartment, but he knew that if he didn't escape, he was dead.
"Is this how I'll die? What were the odds?" he wondered. It was true that around eleven people disappeared every day in District 17, but what were the chances that he would be one of those people who would die at the hands of one of those monsters? There must have been at least forty-seven million people in the district; it was ridiculous that he was one of those people who disappeared "mysteriously."
Leaning against the wall of the condominiums, he trudged along, trying to escape whatever was hunting him in the darkness. He gasped and breathed desperately, turning back to the main entrance of his home and saw a hand emerge.
The hand was monstrous, with long, razor-sharp nails and elongated, slightly hairy fingers. It moved as fast as it could, driven by fear. A howl came from the door, and when Strakh turned to see what was making it, he saw a beast, a monster. The creature had long, hairy arms with long, sharp claws, a face somewhere between human and canine, long legs as if a dog's paws had been adapted for walking upright, and a hunched back. The creature must have been almost two meters ten tall.
Filled with panic, Strakh screamed and cried for help, until the monster reached him and pierced Strakh's chest with its claws, lifting him high like a trophy while drinking the blood that gushed from his intestines out through his spine.
"I'm going to die." "I don't want to die."