3 Chapter I A New World - Part 3

Locus moved at a steady pace throughout the empty gloomy streets of Northridge, Ave. It held trash littered everywhere, with trash bags piled on top of eachother in the corners of old steel buildings and broken street lights. The skyscrapers in the outward distances were completely destroyed with only the base of about three stories still standing, the glass was shot completely and only some glass remained in the corner of the hundreds of windows. Locus could see other skyscrapers in the farther distance still intact, but it was most likely unstable inside. He could feel the presence the Scars held in the city, he felt like he was being watched like a hawk about to sweep and grab its prey. The sky seemed always grey, never changing once to blue. A little drop of water splashed on his helmet's view, then more drops came down. The rain just pounced off his armor, it didn't bother him it seemed as it began to down pore. The rain was seeming constant all the time as everything was always wet, it was a depressing view to look at, to never look up at the sky and see the bright blue color or sunny sky again. The street was filthy with dirt, trash, and mud. The water didn't look too pleasing either, it had a texture of grey and unclean.

Further down the street, Locus scouted down an alleyway, it had steps going down and into an old tunnel, he was hoping the tunnel was an escape for him, but it held tons of grey water, maybe four or five feet at least built up over the past who knows how long. There must've been a drainage system all throughout the city working at one time, but over the years, it must've blocked mostly all of the drains. He theoretically could walk and swim through the water, but he was saving that as a last option.

He kept walking down the long street looking for the spaceship, he saw to his right an old catholic church, with the bell tower nearly destroyed. The bell that at one time was attached to the tower remained in front of the church. There was also a playground next to it, gated up with iron bars and boarded up of old oak wood. Locus noticed a loud screeching noise closeby, he hurried into the catholic church with the idea to hide and maybe find the spaceship nearby with the view from the old bell tower.

The entrance was blocked with boards of wood (Which was a recurring theme throughout the city) He saw a window was available to access, he climbed through it, and entered inside.

The many small shards of glass crunched under his feet as he lunged himself inside. He remained crouched for a quick minute unsure of whether Scar soldiers were inside or not. His first priority was search for the entrance hall. He was inside a hallway of sorts, one way going right and another going left, contacts of old red carpet were on the ground. Locus had to decide whether to go left or right. His decision was to go right.

At the end of the hallway were two tall entrance doors to enter the Sanctuary, but they were blocked with rubble.

Locus walked through the sanctuary inside, careful to not encounter the enemies. He peeked his head around the corner while hiding behind a wall and saw nothing but hundreds of pews and a massive organ in the back middle of the hexagon-like room. A tall statue of a man with long hair and medium sized beard. The statue was most definitely Jesus Christ. Locus wasn't a religious man he thought as he didn't need a reason to repent for what he did, the only thing he prayed for was to avenge those who fell before him and honor them with his sacrifice to end the Scars.

Locus saw a door in the back right corner, he decided to investigate. He found a spiral stair-case going up, he walked up carefully, he hoped the stairs wouldn't give in and break, he wasn't convinced of how stable it felt, everytime he climbed each step he could hear a creek and rusty noise immerse from below him.

Locus had reached the top safely, he could see the crowded city for miles, nothing of buildings upon buildings, roads upon roads, cars and more cars. The rain had turned more severe as it was down pouring and winds harshly blowing the rain. He searched and searched until he found the spaceship, his attention led him to a court-yard just a short distance and his eyes lit up with excitement and hope, "I found it!"

Excited to finally leave and find the rest of humanity in deep space he celebrated for a moment.

Out of instability, the bell tower's inevitable fall was beginning to fall apart. The ground under Locus broke and he fell from the tower at least twenty feet or more. He knocked his head on one of the building's concrete edges, scratching and tearing off his helmet.

He crashed on the ground hard. For a second, he was lying unconscious, he heard a bunch of noise in the background due to his hearing being temporarily damaged, he panicked and thought it was Scar soldiers. Dragging himself up, he barely supported himself to the direction of the courtyard.

As he was pulling himself to the courtyard, the ground under him was cracking and breaking apart from his very eyes. Before he knew it, it caved in under him and revealed a giant spherical sewer drain room. He fell down another twenty feet and landed hard on the dried ground. It was mucky, hard, and slimy from all the waste built up from the years. He ached even more bleeding internally inside. Scars above him went to investigate, they searched the room he caved in using bright red flashlights by the look of it.

Locus instantaneously heard rushing water coming from the walls, the water built up from within the walls must've broken through filling up the large circular room like a bowl. The drain under from him broke through and he was rapidly sucked away.

Locus was being tossed and turned around in multiple directions as he journeyed throughout the sewer pipes leading to an unknown destination. The spiraling and twisty turns made Locus feel dizzy almost knocking him unconscious. The mixed water caked his helmet's vision and speakers so he couldn't see or hear anything. He was slammed up against another pipe as the direction was a hard left, his body armor shredded and scratched itself and some pieces broke apart.

Locus exited out of the drainage pipe, along with the full throttle of mixed water outside of the city's open fields. He landed in a decent sized ditch with the other water as it journeyed down stream. He laid on the ground taking just a minute to recover and heal as much as he could.

About a couple of minutes healing and recovering, he dragged himself up from the ground. He could feel his body ache and hurt from all over from his eventful missteps. Unable to stand properly, he crawled from the ditch's depression and to the top to gain a better understanding of the landscape.

As he escaped from the ditch, he took a glance of the landscape around him, seeing the dreadful wasteland he was in. There was no longer green grass, tall trees, clean water, beautiful houses, or a clean sky to look at. Chicago's city looked a lot worse than the outside world. He clenched his fist swearing he'll kill every last one of the Scar creatures for what they did. He shifted his gaze behind him seeing the remaining dreadful city of Chicago.

He pulled himself up from the ground and began walking the dead open fields of Chicago.

Locus walked for miles, searching for any kind of survivors, everywhere he looked he saw the same theme, dreadfulness and destruction. Locus was starving, hurting inside, and wounded from the past. He felt like he was stuck in hell. Anger quickened from inside and questions popped without any meaning, "Why couldn't I have saved them? Why was it only me that disappeared! Why!" He shouted to himself, hoping that someone would hear him and help him.

He tripped on a piece of old brick and fell to the floor, he yelled in more pain, biting his lip to loosen the feeling. Locus raised his fist and punched the ground with a loud cry. He ripped off his helmet and chucked it away from him. Momentarily, that anger turned from hate to sorrow, he cried feeling hopeless. 'Why' was the only word he could repeat to himself until he mumbled it. He cried himself to the ground and fell unconscious.