《Nupalo》 Welcome to Gresendon! The Pyramis, the Terra, the Gaia or simply Earth - a material realm enmeshed in the fabric of a hollow universe, a singular station in a cosmic vastness, breathing with life unique to its soil, governed by peculiar physical and logical laws. Earth, vivid and surreal, splintering the spectrum from the infrared to the ultraviolet, an entire spectrum of existence contained within this world''s crust. It is the year 1999 - the final gasp of the last century in the millennia''s endgame, the cusp of the new order''s march. Across its variegated surface, a sprawling 206 billion thinking beings maneuver in tandem, clinging to Earth''s skin like microscopic participants in some grand, terminal pageantry. A tremor, a tremor of collective unease, the whisper of a withering soul, reverberates across the colossal highways, the sky-thieving towers, the latticework of industrial veins, the brittle glass roofs, the tilling fields, and the swirling street brawls. It is a resonance, faint and electric, a pulse in the decaying metropolis: the beating heart of Old Igiris, once the fierce flower of World Revolution. In the wreckage of revolutionary fervor, the dreams of Var¨¢se de la Gren¨¦ and her cadre of stalwarts - communists, communards, varasists, socialists, and even the spectral, white-black r¨ºveurs - stand as ashes. The dream? A vision of overworld equality, communes of ordinary people woven into a seamless fabric of life without rupture: no exploiters, no monarchs, no divinities, no rulers. Just souls bound by equal rights, striving for mutual sustenance and relief. A utopia. It sounded, in theory, so pure, so utopian - a symphony of radical unity without hierarchy, without strife. But with each layer unraveled, the ideal proves evasive, elusive, slipping further into a harsh, unfiltered reality, glistening with all the complexity and contradictions of the human psyche. But, inevitably, a gnawing question lingers beneath: what is the nature of truth in all this? What, if anything, has been vindicated? And yet, the echoes rebound in response, unrelenting -who, precisely, demands an answer? Why disrupt the serene flow of ignorance with inquiry? Perhaps all remains as it should, or as it must, with or without truth shackled in hand. 9:32 PM. Here, on the withered lotus of Leftist ideals - Gresendon, heart of the Igirish Social Democratic Federation, the ISDF. Specifically, in the city¡¯s Southwestern veins, 31,671 meters distant from the Pivigirparl, or the PIP¡ªthe monolithic Pivotal Igirish Parliament - stands a crumbling, four-story relic from the 18th century, its face worn and hollow-eyed. On the third floor, overlooking an asphalt road washed in streetlight, a single human sprawls across a dust-caked floor. His mind writhes in storms of alcohol and blinding madness. He''s forgotten himself, willingly severed from the mind that binds. In this stagnant age of resignation, he has fashioned an escape, a daily plunge into oblivion. This man, under weak flow of photons from almost passed out light-bulb, sits hunched over a glass, fingers pressed together as though he performs makeshift prayer, but any god worth reaching is probably long gone from his life. Shadows dance on his face, drawn there by sleepless nights and the kind of regrets that settle into the skin like bruises. His eyes are distant, locked onto the amber liquid in front of him - the solitary oasis, both poison and salvation, waiting for him to make up his mind. The drink glows faintly in the dim light, casting ripples across the table, a microcosm of chaos in a glass. It''s not just a drink, it''s an answer, a question, and a judgment, all in one. He contemplates it with the weight of a man who has walked through fire and come out burned, but not purified. Somewhere in his gaze, there is a flicker of something almost like hope, but it is buried under layers of exhaustion and bitterness that he carries like an old wound. This is not a moment of decision - it''s a moment of surrender. He knows what comes next. It¡¯s been the same for nights, months, maybe years. The drink will hit his lips, burn down his throat, and take the edge off just enough to make the silence tolerable. Just enough to keep him going until the next glass, the next dawn, the next unresolved and worthless case for this damned cop. 11:03 AM. On a crisp, gleaming day in February - the final third of winter, brimming with fresh, green buds, snow-dusted and bare trees, figures of priceless beauty veiled in melancholic euphoria - the Pittwell Highway, or P2L, cuts through Old Gilliom like the smear of a Jimster''s blackberry gum on gunpowder. Here, the iron river of autocarriages and automobiles chokes the road, pressing onward with silent determination toward another day''s toil across the water. Their destination: Little Knight Island, wedged between the Grand Lucius Lewi¡¯s Channel and the dark sprawl of Dambo Lake. Within this island''s steel heart lies the NFC, the Northern Financial Center - known in hushed tones as Knight City or Night City. Here, towers overdose on sunlight, gleaming like lit fuses in the day, igniting the skyline with untamed brilliance. And at night, they blaze as neon pyres, bleeding holographic ads and technicolor dreams across the cityscape, the sprawling playground of multi-billionaire corporations, enmeshed in an endless vice-fueled carnival. During culmination and inception of each regular day of every person in Gresendon, the city looms above, a forest of glass and steel drenched in neon. Towers stretch into the night like monoliths, each one a testament to human ambition and the emptiness it leaves behind. Electric colors pulse across their facades, ads flickering and shifting in a more chaotic dance after fading of Sun and beneath distant stars, a riot of hollow promises - "Infinite Pleasure" and "Choose Better Fate With Option." Each slogan screams for attention, but there''s no soul behind these words, just an endless loop of consumerist gospel preached to the faithful fools. The streets below are shadows, lost in the glow of the skyline, swallowed by the light pouring from every screen and synthetic surface. Faceless figures march past without looking up, heads bowed to the soft and hard hum of machines that never sleep. Somewhere, music bleeds from a window - a low, synthetic beat, pulsing in sync with the lights, echoing the heartbeat of a city that''s too big, too fast, too empty and too fatal. Above, an image of a some nimenian woman''s face, smooth and flawless, stares out from the screen, her eyes piercing yet vacant - a goddess of the digital age, selling dreams that every fella want to believe in, but don''t actually do. This is the city''s bright and enlarging shadow, flashing between moments of silence and noise, truth and lie. And in the air hangs the bitter scent of ozone, radiation, scumbag, flesh and rain, a reminder that even in this neon jungle, something real, something raw, still waits, complimenting despondency who are already below the psychological scale mark "Meaningless", with addition of word "Shit". 2:54 PM. Extravagant cars like the Borgia Vaffele SM or the Soyka Elinka D-91, each worth more than a cool three million n¨²muses - lavish, glimmering beasts of privilege - prowl the streets, piloted by the disciples of capitalism, relentless exploiters of unofficial slaves in their endless chase for profit. Endloses Kapital, as the Balfostian varasist Bismuth Froidenger once scornfully observed. A militia autosedan - a Benfelgrich M-79, emblazoned with the number P0L1NTRN4679 - rumbles down Ismail Gasprinsky Boulevard. Inside: Lieutenant Glander "Black Rocky" Rockman, clad in his black cop jacket, gray jeans, and sneakers, alongside Sergeant Yukawa "Buffalboy" Karaotsi. Outside, the boulevard is lined with mastic and almond trees, their tender blossoms inching open, tasting the edge of spring. As they drive, Yukawa wipes down his Necromer 19-N "Southwood" revolver, its gleaming barrel etched in gold and silver filigree - a weapon befitting the lawmen of the Feral South, the Middle Reciprocent''s storied buffalboys. His cowboy hat - worn, cracked leather from the American Wild West - sits angled on his head, adding a rugged touch to his uniform. Not merely a fuzz, but a gunslinger bound by duty, he''s the judge and executioner, a lawman ready to take down any mobster or outlaw who dares to stand between him, his ideals, and his paycheck. 3:35 PM. Avenue after avenue of sleek, lavishly adorned restaurants, boutiques, jewelers, offices, and salons line the street - an opulent collection, as if each storefront were a page in some self-help tome for would-be billionaires, each one courting fortune, fame, and financial alchemy. Among them, Edwin Garbeck Finances stands: a flock of lame ducks masquerading as predators. Inside, on the 31st floor, a lone figure, Mikey, steps forward. He''s wrapped in a Korisoyen Bontung black suit, a green necktie, and a cheap, homemade xandzian sham-nickel wristwatch strapped to his wrist - a touch of ersatz glamour. His eyes meet the window - a towering, open slab of glass three meters wide, freshly scrubbed for the morning''s sun - and for a moment, he contemplates the fall. Down there, so far below, lies Barry Dalestone''s Street, calling like a dark whisper on the edge of the concrete void. Beneath the towering sprawl of highway CL-56, stretching southward from the capital''s core, lies the Lorrolindzone - LRIZ: Lord Roland¡¯s Industrial Zone, though now it''s barely that. More accurately, it''s the gutted shell of what was once industry, scarred by the Great Fucking Up during the Anti-Communist War, or the Third Great War - scars carved by the IU, the International Union, that coalition of democracy''s cultists, endlessly regurgitating doctrines of "freedom" for their own ends. Now, Lorrolindzone is an expressionist tableau of ruin, pockmarked with bullet-riddled holes - a testament to the brutal purge, the systematic drive to cleanse dissent. Bourgeoisie, monarchists, anarchists, communists - no creed was safe from the ideological maw. They purged them all, six million souls caught in the grinding gears of a system that devoured its own. 9:00 PM. The asphalted streets of Lorrolindzone fare better than the skeletal remains of its factories, where walls are tattooed with the frantic scrawls of minor gangsters, half-baked anarchists, or just the unthinking dregs. Industry here lags behind other First World centers, limited to services, tech trinkets, transport, construction supplies, pharmaceuticals, pulp, sex-toys, and an array of private, weaponized security outlets like Hogitonari , Desmontmall, Promobazaar, and Val?nijerro. The South-East of Gresendon, however, is more akin to a sprawling slum: heaps of commercial detritus, waste of the masses, and traces of radioactive sludge fouling the drying riverbed of Samuel Ambrasiusis''s River - its sheen worse than any oil spill. Even so, Gresendon South-East persists, barely outpacing ruin, with slim odds of evading the prowl of pedophilic predators, homosexual gang rapists, and other nightmares invited into its hidden corners. Through these streets, Laceren "Lacey" Monica Egzuperrie walks, alone. She''s wrapped in a secondhand Solek 7Z hood, bremenese khaki military pants loose and frayed, relics of a better era, and worn Caiphas black-toed boots. Her ears are blocked by the relentless riffs of Flight Towards Hyperthyroid Moon, spun by Emperor and Joker, the punk rock ghosts of Gresendon, who once raged through the late ''60s and ''70s until the communist regime''s collapse turned them to dust and faded memories. Colton Deadlove - Red King - the lead vocalist and steel guitarist, is still her idol, the eternal anti-hero she¡¯s clung to. As she meanders down 3rd Heiligie Rosenrot Avenue, she sidesteps the shadows of strangers, as though her fear detector is jammed on high alert. Her attempts to project positivity and fun glimmer in her gray eyes, yet the shadows of past traumas distort those efforts, transforming them into a haunting reminder of failure. She finally slips into Brailstone Park, where snow-dusted trees and spindly, bare bushes - some even bearing hints of early spring blossoms - offer a patch of quiet against the urban decay. She finds a bench, red-painted and covered in the scribbles of a thousand faceless hands, and sits, breathing in the rare, fresh scent on the wind. It¡¯s a haven, a moment of calm in an unforgiving city. But her solitude shatters as Sergeant Yukawa "Buffalboy" Karaotsi bounds onto the bench beside her, his energy an intrusion on the park''s eerie calm. He tosses her a casual "how-d''u-do," but her music is roaring too loud for her to catch it. Undeterred, he reaches out, slips one headphone from her ear, and gets a taste of the raw chords of her favorite song. She shoots him a grin, playfully snatching his cowboy hat and plopping it atop her own head. Rather than challenge her, he just stares, wide-eyed, at her rare flash of happiness, caught off guard by this anomaly - a fleeting, intimate spark in the city''s endless gray. It doesn''t matter if others see them as love-drunk fools; here, for once, joy breaks through. The Old Igirish Fireflies - fluorescent street lamps still buzzing with dim, organic light - cast their wan glow over the lost souls of the night: the drinkers, junkies, gamblers, and the life-weary souls who¡¯ve long since emptied their veins of hope. Below, the untouched drainage channels and twisting, skeletal tunnels have become the resting place of countless dead dreamers and failed revolutionaries, their bodies rotting into festering, half-alive revenants, feeding carnivorous parasites in the shadows. Through these decaying catacombs, smugglers and dealers slip, lurking in the dark to make their profit off the abandoned, pushing everything from zandagarian heroin and assault rifles to the so-called apples of immortality - just the sort of false magic you''d find in some vapid vampire romance, peddled to teenage girls, lonelyhearts, weary mothers, perverts, and every other lost soul seeking escape in the their fantasies. Looking up to the expanse of blue sky, pierced with wisps of cloud and flocks of birds returning from warmer equatorial realms, you see the white silhouettes of airships against the brightness - civilian, commercial, touristic, and military alike, gliding like dark stars in a sunlit night. Higher up, faint sparks of spaceships flash, tracing paths beyond the atmosphere, headed for worlds across the Sonnesystem: Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares, Demeter, Zeus, Cronos, Ouranos, Poseidon, Hades, Rhea, Dionysus, and Eris. Sonnesystem, our Solar System - one of many lost children in the great galaxy, known to us as the Archipelago or Alerh¨¢bille. In all its emptiness, Paradise remains unfound. So humanity reaches further, eyes locked on the distant stars, seeking something more in this endless, borderless universe. Maybe out there lies Paradise, or maybe only Hell - a terrible fate for not only us but for all that crawls and breathes within the spark of life. 8:20 PM. An ancient oak stands sentinel on the beach beside Funny Mabel''s pier - a hollowed amusement boardwalk that hasn''t heard laughter or music for twenty-five long years. An old hobo-weathered amigo in a half-torn, dingy anpaluokian poncho that clashes with his iefronian skin and sharp, sapphire eyes - wanders along the rotting planks, his steps laced with a faded nostalgia as he gazes at the coaster and rides, each choked with ginger-red rust. His gray hair, wild and ancient, flutters in the warm southern breeze. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. At the pier''s edge, leaning against the peeling white aluminium fence, he stares out toward Dambo Lake. There, the Fortuna Wheel lies drowned - a rusted skeleton on the lakebed, brought low by an errant airstrike some thirty years back. Its fate, a cruel irony, is submerged in murky depths, entangled in algae and flotsam, alongside corpses and broken things - Fortuna, its promise of luck and joy lost in the deep. Its shape is like a broken memory, summoning waves of nostalgia, melancholy, happiness, innocence, pain, sorrow, and despair - a ghostly relic that whispers to the lost, like that one cop who once drifted to the edge of sanity in a house of shadows, staring into the World''s End. 10:48 PM. A teeming crowd of journalists, medics, and militia officers has gathered around Gorgeous Martina''s Roundabout, where storefronts display the glittering names of "High and Modern Fashion" brands: Primo, Korisoyen, Trab?tatif, Alizebus, VIJK, Grand P¨¦urie, UXU, Mapa Yoji, Stomira¨¹gh. Posters plastered across these storefronts showcase the latest stars, Anna Kne?inya and Garry Ferguson, in the much-hyped premiere of Mortal Hearts, directed by Noremuare Diolla - the auteur notorious for packing his films with erotic fan-service, critics brushing off Back to Her and Time We Leave as little more than "artistic pornographic indulgences." But all eyes are drawn to the wreckage of two vehicles - a lorry and a pickup - rammed into Senator Jordan Wembley''s Fountain. First, there''s a battered Benfelgrich M-86 AV pickup, number 7D0NA2CRG718, bearing the logo of a white skull with triangular eyes on its side doors, accompanied by the words Los H¨¦roes de Met Howard. This gang, made up largely of Orkoids and Ogroids - descendants of enslaved Monkradians shipped over during the League of Empires'' Great Oz Experiment - was founded by Met Howard Caprialdis, a labor leader turned underground folk hero, a "white revolutionary" in his own words. The second vehicle, a Nenky C-90 lorry, number AU88LK4T195X, displays the emblem of the Anti Kuso Yaro Domo - a bloody hand gripping a katana. AKYD, founded by nimeian laborers, brought its own signature weapon, a Puchkov¡¯s ''48 machine gun, mounted in the back container. The gunmen, sprawled lifeless on the asphalt, become the empty husks of media sensation, feeding the press yet again. The idea of international unity, once the communist vision of an overworld commonwealth, has instead bred a patchwork of micro and macro gangs - each with its own infamous leaders: Alejandro Howard of the Heroes of Met Howard; Hella of the Lokists of Igrisheim; Min Baek Wong of the Mundeok Disciples; Sir Arthur Scorpovesler of Emperor Eugene''s Sacred Knights; Gobero Kolubabei of the Funky Junky Boys; Dobrinyev Nikita of the Three Godunovians; Anjankar Sinkh of A-Company; Konida Emomota of Anti-Assholes; Victoria Al Carmen of Regine; Petr Mrakovi? of Banging and Sweeping; Fayzulla Rakhmetdinson of the Sheranians - and the names go on. But only three groups rise above the others in power and infamy: AKYD''s yakuza, Regine''s mafia, and the cultish order of Emperor Eugene''s Sacred Knights. Their reach extends across the ISDF, weaving through all the Promovent nations - Igiris, Nebexia, Balfost, Hareltemia, Enpelsheim, Grotland, Moralphy, Antamare, Donamey, Gerandy, Paladr¨¹sy, Pestierland, Slovany, Avbaras, Ogsetoria, Bremen, Temer, Gorebogia, Yarmia, and Salvodaly - leaving their mark, a darker stamp of unity on the overworld, including Macrushikaske, Duano, Tenlem, Esvraly, Ado''Fenraah, Ughemer, Delwikham, Monkrad, America, Eurasia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, Arctica and many other distant continents and worlds. 4:45 AM. The skeletal remains of factories still rumble to life, claimed by prowlers seeking any trace of currency, machinery, drugs, or the leftovers abandoned after the Third Great War. It''s a lawless battleground, a place for gangs to settle scores or cut their "fair" trades, as officers float past like comets in the industrial gloom, sparing only an occasional glance. Tonight, two cops slow by a derelict corner shop called Bratan Luchezar. Lieutenant Brompton Dourslauey, cloaked in his winter gear, cap pulled low, slips from his Milly H-83 AV patrol autocarriage, marked with precinct symbols, to snag some beer and cigarettes after a punishing night shift. He''s worn to the bone, eager to wrap up before finally getting some sleep. Glander Rockman, his partner, sits drowsily in the cab, consciousness blinking on and off in a half-dream. Around the corner of the shop, two teenagers loiter by a flickering vending machine. Ellinessa "Commissar" Vordani Isabelle, clad in a Steiner Grimmer''s black jacket over a white shirt, black culottes, VIJK sneakers, and a weathered ushanka, scrawls anti-establishment phrases - "Capitalist Machine," "Shitting Middle Class," and "Terminate Bourgeoisie 101%" - across the machine''s side. Beside her, Tedomunth "Spieler" J?rvi Krivutz munches on a bag of tomato-flavored Kartoshishe chips, brushing snowflakes from his shaggy blond hair. The blue glow of shop lights drips over them, bathing their acts in a halo of icy rebellion. Brompton, cigarette freshly pulled from a pack of Sch¨¹gessler, flicks a lazy ignition spell, sparking his tobacco to life. From the edge of his eye, he spots the two, caught like deer by the pale glow of the vending machine. Ellinessa and Ted, wide-eyed, bolt in a chaotic scramble from Bratan Luchezar, their laughter and fear mingling in the frosty air. Bemused, Brompton reads their graffiti and cracks a grin, savoring the irony. He ambles back to the patrol car, where Glander''s brown eyes, fully awake now, track the two sprinting figures. With a casual exhale of smoke, Brompton makes a dry remark about Glander¡¯s bald head catching snow, leaning into the easy camaraderie. Together, they settle back into the H-83 AV, blending once more into the midnight chill, disappearing through a maze of shadows and streetlamps as Gresendon''s icy streets pulse with the silent rhythms of the city''s restless souls. 4:18 PM: In the broken shell of 4th Resphile Dainwell Street, the ghost of the old Vering Jarkosa - known to most as VIJK, built by its founders Vermont Charles, Ingram Orlovsky, Jarmeck Farellton, and Kostra De Johanim - still lingers over the pharmacy district, a legacy of labs and factory floors fallen to decay. Amid the debris of the Pharprozone, or PPZ, young Lincoln Traison Guston prowls with sharp eyes and a reckless sense of mission: hunting down enemies of humanity - or maybe just a lost stash of amphetamines or that rare hit of pink opium, "For full perception, of course," as the old quote from King Warbour III goes. The distant growls of radogs creep closer, vibrating through the silence like the hum of some ravenous engine. Lincoln barely takes a breath, slipping through the wreckage, rewarded only by two lonely bottles of absolute vodka - more precisely- 99% pure spiritus, priced at 40 n¨²muses or good for about three hours of self-destruction in a club. His mind drifts to thoughts of a future beyond this ruin, but the thought is shattered by a crack, a flash - his spine burns as an Igkhar-6D - limersi transmissional pistol round slams into him. The shooter, a grizzled hobo vet hungry for the same forgotten treasures, watches Lincoln''s body fall. Life, the indifferent beast, grinds its weak underfoot, granting only the strong the right to survive - and survive by smashing those who don''t. Convulsing, Lincoln feels the threads of his world fray, unraveling piece by piece, a delicate cake collapsing under the weight of a banquet that never ends. 7:02 PM. Victor "Soentso" Ahtergellatine, clad in a worn Iefronian People''s Militia cape over his gendarmerie uniform, sprints and grabs hold of the magnetic monorail as it glides forward, streaked with graffiti as it rattles off toward Old Gilliom. Inside the car, five figures sit scattered across the seats: two grizzled men in gray and yellow-striped uniforms of IKL - International Kepler Logistics - clearly soused and half-slumped, a frail old woman clutching two parcels of groceries, and a young girl on the opposite end sporting a worn-out Moralphy martial cap, her sullen expression betraying her possible ties to Regine, the gang infamously led by Victoria Al Carmen. Toward the back of the car, a woman with a cropped blonde bob and unnervingly bright, almost alien-blue eyes holds a steady gaze on a student who glances her way, trying to decipher the peculiar look on her face. The mystery seems to linger on her odd headphones and a distant expression that dances between calm and haunting. As they pull into the faded grandeur of Jeak Astarius''s Train Station, the student disembarks - but so does that last figure, her footsteps firm and direct as she strides toward a new avenue, leaving only a trailing sense of intrigue in her wake. The student steps into Mark Schumacher''s Precinct, met by the smirking surprise of sergeant Silus McIntosh and lieutenant William "Kebab" Kabatus. Both snicker at the unexpected appearance, calling him "Mr. Soentso Detective" in a mocking, rhythmic unison that recalls the eerie cadence of Sisters Denis and Nised Broadey, who infamously met their end in a haze of pink opium and tainted bloodlines. Ignoring their laughter, the student makes his way to his locker, retrieving a ring of keys, though his eyes are drawn to an old, yellowed folder tucked between some cassette tapes and faded photographs. A peculiar, almost magnetic pull fixes his gaze on the worn edges of the folder. He mumbles to himself, lost in thought, as he slips the keys into his pocket. When he turns, he notices Martin Larryson - a man past his fifties - slouched in a chair nearby, sipping a can of Cordis Cola labeled "sugar-free," though everyone knows that''s a lie. Martin, face etched with the kind of sorrow that feels bottomless, barely acknowledges the student or his surroundings. It¡¯s as if he¡¯s caught in some far-off, desolate orbit, a drifting speck in the vast and indifferent void. 7:39 PM: In Tieu''Oel - better known as Tenoil, home of the Northern Ardian elves - lieutenant half-orkoid Morgan Hanvock leans back in his dark green Kikonura Somne sportcarriage, a nimenian import with the unmistakable number SH360HKO922J. It¡¯s his day off, and Western Vinish Jazz-Rap hums from the Forma ATC Kaiser speakers, blending with the air thick from his Mordor The Furiousity cigarette. Between puffs, Hanvock lazily thumbs through his mobile teletiper, snapping photos of figures who¡¯ve caught his interest but not his urgency. Two students - a girl and a boy - pull up nearby in a vintage white Milly Phornet S autohatchback from the rakish ''70s, a car that, despite its years, still wears a bit of swagger. They step out, attire marking them as Steiner Grimmer''s Highschool sorts. The girl, Hildeg?rd "Bunny" Ines Loren, a balfostian human with blond hair bound in a neat bun, arches her green eyes behind a pair of Archer sunglasses. The boy, Rustin "Rusty" Vincent Claieve, an igirish half-elf with an athletic build and steely gray hair, sports a Tsin Shjen Boxing jacket that hints at his pastimes. The pair strolls into an old, two-story building housing QoI?rda Tre''Arun''s antique shop - a place nearly as old as its Ardian proprietor, who''s clocked over three centuries in the trade. They emerge precisely 28 minutes and 47 seconds later, carrying a Paladr¨¹sian-marked box between them, their faces lighting up with quick laughter and youthful ease as they pack it into the car¡¯s trunk. They head off toward the Alexander the Great underwater tunnel, but Hanvock, far from intrigued, sits back, savoring the drag of his cigarette and the rhythm of the music, enjoying this rare, unbothered holiday. The students slip out of sight, and he feels no compulsion to give chase - letting the moment settle over him like a slow, reluctant peace. 10:56 PM. Freya Fikret Ester, a twenty-two-year-old force of determined ambition, strides out of the State Steiner Grimmer''s Highschool - known simply as Steiner Grimmer, her workplace - and heads with purpose toward Catherine Daizy''s Street. Dressed in a crisp white shirt and black pants, she carries a brown handbag stuffed with essentials: makeup, a miniature mirror, a change of underwear, an intricately designed 25-millimeter military mini-yatagan adorned with Antamarian patterns, and her trusty Heiphelberg T-2 pocket pistol - the favored choice of legendary spies. This street, infamous among men for its red-light allure, reeks of the most debased vices, the smell of spermatozoa, lust, and moral decay wafting through the air, a scent that could be detected from Dormunshire to Carbulldam. Freya walks with a fierce resolve, driven by a thirst for vengeance that is forged from the pain of her life. It''s a realm where the rules of human decency, as ordained by God, have been tossed aside. She wonders if things could have been different - if the cycle of rape, corruption, war crimes, drugs, and the perpetual influx of rotten information could ever be broken. But deep down, she knows the answer: it can''t, and it won''t. Trailing her closely is Lenox "Eugene" Yuji Jasper, a young man with short black hair, dressed in a brown overcoat and eugenian long boots. His heart beats with a mixture of fear and affection, torn between what he wishes to do and the dread of what might follow. Anger ignites in his blue, youthful eyes, clouding his thoughts with visions of violence and vengeance. The filth and decay around him - the scum, the scunts, the dogs - fill him with disgust. He craves a genocide of the depraved, a transformation of this decayed world into something peaceful, leaving behind the nonsense that festers here. Across the road, obscured by a line of passing cars, a biker named Thomas "Rider" Fremont Junior grips his Lupedi R-76, the words "Not Lost and Damned" emblazoned across the back of his typical biker jacket. He observes Eugene with an unsettling intensity from behind the visor of his gray and white helmet. The hazel eyes that glimmer in the shadows of his helmet reveal a connection to the bare, unyielding soil - a witness to the chaos that surrounds them, waiting for the moment when all paths might converge. In the Far Eastern Gresendon, known ominously as Nuke Town, silence reigns - a haunting absence of the incessant clamor of transport, the bustling throngs of humanity, and the flickering lights of lampposts and buildings. The air is thick with darkness, wrapping the land in an oppressive void, a remnant of the global disaster that humanity inflicted upon itself. This is the Black Hole, more accurately designated as an MMCA: Major Military Crime Area - a derelict, extramarital offspring of the bloody wars and the catastrophic atomic bomb known as "Mars-239." Yet, amidst this desolation, a few remnants of the past cling to life. Eyewitnesses of the horrific incident still wander the shadows, their sanity frayed and battered. They call this forsaken territory simply "the Zone." Now, they inhabit the forgotten corners of society - psychiatric hospitals, jails, ditches, or hiding in the underground, where they serve as grotesque fertilizers for the twisted organisms that survive in this barren wasteland. Here, they are trapped in a limbo, echoes of a civilization that once thrived, now reduced to mere phantoms amid the ruins of their own making. 9:31 AM. In the Far Eastern Gresendon, known as Nuke Town, silence reigns supreme; the cacophony of transport, the bustle of people, and the glow of lampposts are mere memories buried beneath layers of desolation. This is a dark, hollow expanse, a testament to humanity''s own self-inflicted catastrophe - a Black Hole, more precisely categorized as an MMCA: Major Military Crime Area. Here lies the decaying husk of a place that once thrived, now merely the ghostly aftermath of a brutal war and the detonation of the atomic bomb known as "Mars-239." Within this forsaken territory, a few witnesses remain, those whose minds are trapped in the shadows of that fateful day. They refer to this cursed land simply as the Zone, a spectral remnant of their shattered lives. These souls now drift through the remnants of society, confined to psychiatric hospitals, locked away in jails, wallowing in ditches, or burrowed underground¡ªmerely organic fertilizers for the relentless cycle of decay that surrounds them. The echoes of their memories haunt the hollow landscape, where hope has long since withered, leaving only despair in its wake. 10:04 AM: Ash lingers above the charred earth and crumbled concrete, transforming the ground into a somber page from the 10th-grade Igirish history textbook, a stark reminder of calamity. In front of the sealed gates of sector 530GIL, two guards clad in dark red uniforms and white respirators lounge in a cramped booth, rifles Erich-90-IU resting idly in their hands as they delve into the pages of a science fiction novel. Their focus shatters when a disheveled middle-aged woman bursts into view, stumbling towards them, shrieking in egarenench, "Os gwelwch yn dda! Dewch yn ?l ataf, fy mhlant!" - her words laced with frantic desperation and clutching an explosive. Green-eyed rifleman Johan Naspater Brown, startled, grips his weapon tighter, his nerves fraying as he fires several shots, each one going wide of the mark. As the woman closes the distance, a panicked, hapless gun runner drops his book and bolts in a flurry of cowardice. Acting on instinct, the second guard, Huang Preston Dan, throws a punch, striking her with brutal force. She collapses, and crimson begins to seep from her wounds, mingling with scattered fragments of her brain on the cracked asphalt. As they cautiously approach her lifeless form, a grim realization dawns-the supposed explosive is nothing but a battered, half-torn teddy dragon, its blue buttons staring up from the carnage, a haunting relic of innocence amidst the horror of their surroundings. Destroyed truce "Greetings, Sir Laphey. How are you faring? Any memories stirring in there?" a voice echoes, syllables slow and careful, almost coaxing. "I¡­ I don''t know anything," he answers instinctively, then pauses to think. "Brilliant! Just brilliant!" the voice snaps back with the pace of a typewriter. "You''ve really gone and blown it, huh? Welcome to the endless void - your own never-ending purgatory of psychological self-torment." His mind races. "What happens now?" he manages to ask, voice laced with apprehension. "Disco inferno," comes a response, somewhere between sardonic and detached. "Silence. Only pure, perfect silence. No gossiping neighbors, no cynical coworkers, no fractured family ties. Just you, here." "Forget it. None of it matters. Nothing¡¯s happened, nothing''s happening, and nothing will happen. But you could exist beyond all of it, beyond time and space. Isn''t that something, cock star?" echoes a shadowy voice, dragging him into a spiral of surreal absurdity. "That¡­ almost makes sense," he mutters, though it doesn¡¯t. "What sense is there, really? Do you even want it - the surrender to fate?" chimes in a voice that feels like some jester of the afterlife. "Fate¡­ What''s my past?" He is helplessly drawn back into memories, feeling the weight of something nameless. "Burn those tapes memories, torch them," says the voice, laughing like a match to dry kindling. "Burn it all to rise beyond humanity - be ubermensch. There is no need for crawling back to rat''s life, and live in a life worse than laying hopelessly under plague infected villawhe of Nowheresville, in Lonesome Road near your resting castle." says Sire Old Personally With Honour Fucked Brain that he has won the just. "Do you know the chances of death after waking up and scornfully regard personality of yours?" it asks, because he is aware of what kind of shit is happening here. "It is sounds like menace rather than something good" he doesn''t want to perceive despair of sad and dismal reality that isn''t willed to embrace him. "You are our friend. Don''t behave yourself as a knight with shining plates, and who fucks every second princess and witch he meets. Kick out this materialistic life as materialistic garbage after staying in toilet." But idealism isn''t always the exit to sustainable life, but its stagnation. "I don''t want this. I want to return to¡­ them.'' He tries to remember those who might have mattered, but his mind finds only locked, forgotten names. "Who, exactly? Who still needs you? There¡¯s no one but us - your inner friends, the only ones who see you as you are!" the voice sneers. "And don''t bring God into it. God is nowhere, everywhere - but that¡¯s just between us, your inner circle." The mocking tone drills deeper. "Listen to me," it sneers. "The world''s forgotten you, even God. Better to embrace the void." ¡°No¡­ No, I don''t want this. Get out of my mind, you monsters!" His voice trembles, a hollow defiance. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. "Well, as you wish." Says as capitulating emperor. "But remember...." It begins with stupid trial to be mystery motherfucker. "All your choices are your..." Prehistoric brain rises its inner voice. "Fate. Shitpeddling fate, funky dick! Yeah...." Then silence comes with gradual steps, maybe annihilation of the civilization also. The silence returns, but this time it has weight, like the end of some decaying empire. Shadows coalesce, blending dark and light until a murky gray world forms in the void. Somewhere, a knight¡¯s voice breaks the stillness. "I''ve waited a long time for this - many summers, many winters," says the low voice. "Who¡­ are you? An angel here to take my life?" he asks, fear threading through him. "No. Something else entirely. Do you remember me? The shadow and face of your own soul¡­" The words feel like the taunt of an old memory just out of reach. "Shall we renew our contract?" Suddenly, in the middle of nonsense, the pine table appears as the first quark of the universe. Sheet, not shit, but jurisdiction-related sheet of contract appears also as Big Bang, but not as hamburger. The line of light illuminates the table and two chairs. He''s seated, staring across the table at a figure - a person with a dark hood, who slowly reveals her face, as the yarmoseck through the crowd of yarmian children in concentration kindergarten. After removing this mysterious hood, photons of light stream spreads on the face of this creature - woman, about middle thirties, with odd, and even weird, rufous hairs, small nose and gorgeous yellow eyes - why she seems to be abnormal? Her face appears to be familiar, but consciousness can''t reach to the depths of old good amygdala. Although her appearance seems to be pretty sexual, however, she is as hoe valiant - the peak of the stoicism. "Welcome," she says, her voice carrying a hint of operatic grandeur, a voice out of place here in the bleak void. "H-Hello. Thank you¡­ for the welcome." He stumbles over the words, trying to find his footing. "It must be confusing. You have questions, I''m sure." Her voice is warm but unwavering. "Please¡­ explain," he asks, almost in a whisper, like a sugar added to cacao igirish tea. "This is your Zone, a space between dream and reality. Think of it as a place between mind and matter." "Zone?" he echoes, heart racing. A small room begins to form around them, colorless yet saturated with some unspoken dread. A bed, a nightstand. A window, distant and veiled, calling to him. She steps forward, revealing herself in attire part gothic, part post-apocalyptic - a reminder of survival through chaos. "The Zone is a place in your mind, something of an unconscious world," she continues. "Think of it as a sanctuary between worlds. Does that make sense?" "Am I¡­ insane?" he tries to make light of it, but her unwavering gaze says otherwise. "This is no game," she says softly. "You¡¯re here because you have a task, Sir Laphey. A task that¡¯s significant not just for you, but for humanity." "What''s that?" "Contract." Only one word, but it is enough for him to understand. "Contract? Then what will happen if I sign this sheet." Level of craziness is in an excessive amount. "You have already signed." By saying these four words, absurd goes up in the his analysis of question: Whatda fuck is going on there? "Wait, what?" Surprise pistol shoots from the position of his tongue, feeling no taste, except ethanol. He shares his attention to the piece of contract. There is a sign written by blue inks: Sir Laphey. Stuporous anvil smached his mind. What is it? What''s fook with that? He can''t answer. What is the answer, if everything is forgotten and lies somewhere not here, but in the depths of the gray creature in the skull, more certainly, in the castle of overthrown the king of the consciousness. Panic gradually starts to conquer his nervous system with great pain of realisation of what sort of shit he come across. "You don''t need to panic. Everything is fine and there''s still a little, but chance, to improve your situation. Now, listen me. Firstly, my name is Marina. You can just call me Mari. Secondly, I came here to give you very important ordeal, which isn''t only significant for your life, but also all humanity. Finally, you can appear here when you will complete some challenges that your life could give you." "And if I¡¯m not interested?" he snaps, panic seeping in. "Do you even know how you came here?" she asks, eyes gleaming. He falters. "Because¡­ I chose life?" The words hurt more than he expects. "To wake up, to bring him back¡­ and take this." She reaches into her coat and hands him an old, worn headset. As he takes it, the paper contract bursts into blue flame, illuminating her face. "Don''t forget," she says, her final words laced with both gravity and warmth.