Mineral Wars Chapter 2

A cold winter morning, the harsh and biting frost was eating away at the window of my dingy apartment, overlooking an abandoned street filled with nothing but waste and rotting bodies, left on the sidewalk to decompose. Lonely. I had always resented the old world government. Still, they were saints compared to the organisation that replaced it, an almost lightning-fast operation in which we people didn't even have time to contemplate or protest the change. In this new world, any and all forms of crime are brought to the same justice. An instant death sentence. The punishment was carried out by the leader of the world, who we simply called "King". King was an overseer of anything and everything - the very words which escaped his lips, although brief, were absolute. Society had become desensitised to the public death sentences as they had become such commonplace that even the piercing sound of a gunshot from King's gun no longer made people flinch. Crime rates had reduced nearly a hundredfold following these executions and in general, our lives were peaceful. And then the second punishment of god came.

Nobody knows where it came from, it seemingly appeared out of thin air but it spread like wildfire, almost as if it were a plague. A drug more addictive than any other had made its way into our peaceful yet broken existence and the effects of it were of an unprecedented level. I had barely walked a few steps from my apartment and I was greeted with the sight of two large, middle-aged men fighting in plain view of everyone. I thought to myself how stupid these men must be to commit a crime over what seemed to be nothing. And then I noticed something strange about one of the men. His limbs were almost spider-like in nature - spindly and bending in all the wrong angles. There was also the fact that his eyes looked glazed and had an unnatural, dark colour to them. It deeply unsettled me and yet I was transfixed, their fight had its own gravitational force and it pulled my vision close, I could've looked away if I wanted to but I didn't. Deep down I knew I wanted to see the outcome. Blood sprayed from one of their mouths - a deep gash taking form on his face and a crimson river had begun flowing from his now disfigured and ugly cheek. It took me a moment to realise but as I stood in that spot, paralysed half from fear, half from anticipation, a curious thought wandered into my mind. How did such a deep cut just form on his face? There was no weapon in sight but a seemingly critical wound had been inflicted upon his flesh. And then I saw it. The man with the erratic and spindly movements burst forwards and unleashed a torrent of savage attacks on the target in front of him. I could barely see it but, undoubtedly, it was there. the silhouette of a dagger, obscured by some sort of mirage so that only the sharpest of eyes could make it out. I watched, wide-eyed and mouth agape as the razor-sharp metal pierced through mortal flesh like a hot knife through butter. From the still-fresh cheek wound down to the heart, inflicted upon the man were a thousand slashes, raw and scarlet in colour. And just as soon as the final cut was placed upon him, his body unleashed a ruby fountain, raining down upon me. I staggered backwards in awe of what I had just witnessed, afraid of what the spindly man might do to me now that I was the lone human in the barren street. My only hope was for King's death penalty to kill him before he killed me. Then came the devastating effect of the drug, which would later be named "Distortion V", and what it showed me that day would remain in my mind for the rest of my life...