Uproot and Uplift

Shacktown was a lawless land.

More befittingly, it was a garbage dump for humans.

The lowest of the low. One would be hard pressed to find a human settlement worse than it.

The Inner cities deemed the vermin of Shacktown 'unfit' to partake in the resources of a social society.

Despite their untouchable status, those inside Shacktown were trapped in the kingdom and its towering walls.

The Kingdom's residents believed that the weakened barrier was more than enough mercy for those of the lowest caste. Those who were banished, yet remained inside, held against their will.

For there wasn't a substance more valuable than life.

One such rat of the Shacks was Jett.

He was a teenager, around 16 years old he guessed, though he had lost count.

He had long, shaggy brown hair, hazel eyes, a thin frame, and above-average looks for Shacktown, though that didn't say much.

With the Shacktown streets devoid of any people, Jett decided to brighten up his sad existence with…

…a walk through the desolate mud avenue of Shacktown.

Typically his survival-honed pragmatism would never allow him to undergo such a reckless and unprofitable endeavor.

Though at this point, Jett saw little reason to be so protective of his life. He felt compelled to explore, looking to nourish his empty being.

From a distance, he gazed upon the checkpoint keeping Shacktown isolated. There were no guards, and the metal gate was entirely shut.

Pure enmity was all he felt. The gate stood as a monument to a torturous and oppressive life, as opposed to its ostensible symbol of protection.

Perhaps, if he were on the other side of the gate, he would feel different.

But that wasn't Jett's reality. And it may never be.

The present-day was common, yet special. Special enough that the outlaws, barbarians, criminals, or otherwise innocent of low birth, were forced to respect.

Turning back around, Jett began his lap.

In the open air, Jett's feet dug deep into the wet, muddy avenue. He held himself high, whistling a whimmed hymn, kicking up the mud as he strutted.

To be such an open and unguarded target in a den of hyenas would only court death for nothing in return. Jett was not great with math nor was he a businessman, but he always liked to think in exchanges and probability.

But today, that threat of death was nothing but a calculated risk. No one was out on the streets. No one but Jett.

The roadside looked like a chaotic painting made by a reckless child. Ramshackle huts, and stalls made from materials of varying absurdity, bone, and vile filth littered Jett's vision.

On one side of town were massive, dark grey walls that encompassed not just Shacktown, but the rest of the Reformed Kingdom of Strata Valley. They brought down massive shadows onto the town, despite the sky being encompassed in clouds.

Above the walls, the dome-shaped barrier looked like a white glass pane, blending in with the rapidly intruding mist that poured over the walls and slowly sunk onto the streets like a noiseless flood.

Jett continued his solo march of liberation until he inevitably saw another person.

It was one extraordinarily slim, naked, old man, his neck bent to directly stare at the sky.

His outstretched hands attempted to envelop the sky upon which he gazed, a wicked and raspy cackle reverberating through the empty town.

Laughter echoed through the white mist.

"Fate! Oh, my dear mistress, you have come! Rid me of this place! Take me to your dominion! Please grant me your benevolence…"

The sickly man continued a long spree of crazed rambling.

'Old bastard must have broken.'

Perhaps it was the duty of the older generations to stomp on the enjoyment of youth. With the appearance of the crazed old man, Jett's parade was demolished and his mood soured. It was about time to get going anyway.

Though, Jett wondered if he would ever live long enough to break like that. Maybe he'd break soon. He couldn't exactly articulate why he hadn't broken or given up by now.

All he had done was survive. Nothing else. Perhaps it was the allure of life bestowing something of value upon him that kept him invested.

Leaving the old man to his desired fate, Jett turned off the main road casually, claustrophobically thrust onto a smaller muddy road.

The wind began to ramp up ominously, tossing Jett's filthy hair and robbing him of his heat. In Shacktown, even nature itself was a thief.

Jett quickly found his all-too-familiar source of salvation.

A pimple of earth. A mud mound with curvature pleasant to the eye. It secured a wooden vault hidden underneath. Despite being made of mud, its craftsmanship still dwarfed the rest of Shacktown's troglodyte artistry.

Jett wondered who made the Shacks. They were alien compared to everything else.

'Everyone wonders about that you idiot.'

There wasn't a real answer. Just a bunch of folklore nonsense.

The circular, wooden door that protruded from the earthen hill was still unlocked, though not for long.

Jett quickly entered and took a seat on the floor before the doors were finally shut.

***

"You wanna fucking die, roach?"

Jett had heard this all too many times throughout his life in Shacktown, but threats of violence were actually few inside the Shacks.

In a large, empty wooden room sat dozens of filthy men, women, and children, all relatively young; the old and feeble usually didn't survive.

The whole putrid-smelling wooden building viciously rumbled and shook, with everyone in silence aside from a few who yelled, which came out like whispers against the vicious rumbling of the Soul Storm. It drowned out most of the noise.

Shacktown was lawless, yes, but the miscreant residents upheld one tacit law: preserve the sanctity of the Shacks.

Despite being filled with mentally ill, broken, and otherwise terrible criminals, Shacktown residents understood that maintaining the Shack's integrity was in their own best interest.

The alternative was to be torn apart by the monstrous force outside, which battered the Shack; even the lowest of fools knew better than to cause chaos inside.

In Shacktown, the barrier was intentionally kept flimsy; the Kingdom did the absolute bare minimum for these people to survive.

To compensate, they would use the Shacks as safe havens from the frequent storms.

"I'm fucking talking to you." a hoarse boy's voice called out.

"Hmm?" Jett looked up as he chewed his nails, snapping out of a daze.

A large, square-like boy slightly older than Jett angrily glared at him, a few arm's length away, sitting crisscrossed.

"Give me my moss back before I kill you, fucker." he yelled with a slobbery drool, which sounded like a whisper.

"Why would I take your moss?" Jett yelled back.

"To eat it. That's what you do with moss," the boy slowly pulled out a shiv made of sharpened stone and wood. "Now give it back."

"I could just get my own damn moss after the storm you…" Jett looked around as the boy got on his knees and approached. Jett pointed toward a random person off to the side. "That guy right there, I saw him take your moss."

Along the wooden wall was a young man, somehow sleeping despite the raging storm shaking his entire body.

His face was covered in muck, soot, some amalgam of mud and filth. He radiated a certain tranquility foreign to the lawless land.

It was the closest thing to a Shacktown art piece; a statement about humanity's beauty persisting through a vicious storm in a hellish land.

Now on his knees, Jett backed up with his hands raised, one pointing at the sleeping boy, an awkward smile on his face.

Jett took a deep sigh of relief as the boy waddled over to the sleeper, knife in hand.

'That boy actually believed me? What a fool.'

Jett quickly returned to his previous nail-chewing stupor.

...

That was before he was interrupted once more.

"MURDER! MURDER IN THE SHACK!"

'What?'

Jett looked off to the side.

In the throat of the sleeping boy was a stone shiv.

Now awoken, the wide-eyed youth desperately clutched at his neck in a panic, dark blood seeping out of his hands.

His futile screams came out as disgusting gurgles.

The boy's eyes bulged with the purest form of fear, followed by a tired acceptance, and then a complete deprivement of life.

With all eyes now on the pair, the killer stood, pointing and shouting at Jett who sat right next to the fresh corpse.

"That brown-haired boy right there! I saw him commit murder! He did it!"

A mob of people rose. Unbridled bloodlust, greed, and savagery fueled their intense gazes.

There wasn't a more justified kill than a grown male breaking the one law of the lawless land.

Not that justification was of much importance.

Life was the most valuable commodity after all.

If given the opportunity, anyone would seize it in an instant.

'Oh shit.'

Bolting to his feet, Jett struck the killer square in the jaw, who tripped over another person, tumbling to the ground.

'The door!'

With a burst of speed, Jett maneuvered through the sitting crowd, circumnavigating the standing mob who began to surround him.

Swarms of hands reached out at Jett, taking hold of his legs and pulling him back.

Yet his momentum carried him through their weak holds.

He kicked the face of another pair of hands after his speed died, releasing their grip.

Jett finally reached the door, with older men and women alike quickly closing in behind him.

'I'll take the chance!'

Tossing the wooden bar aside and flinging the door open, Jett ran outside to safety.

No one followed…

Not that Jett could even tell.

Everything was entirely clouded with white wind, stained grey with debris.

In the next instant, the ear-piercing wind swept Jett off his feet and into the air.

Dirt flooded Jett's eyes as the wind began to toss him in every direction like a ragdoll.

Foreign air snaked its way through his nose and deep into his lungs. He could not hear, breathe, see, or scream.

'This is it.'

Flying in the endless and all-encompassing tornado, fate held all the cards.

Jett's life was now thrown up to chance.

It was greater than his previous chances of survival inside the Shack, albeit minuscule in scale.

Jett gritted his teeth, closing his mouth and eyes, with his arms and legs fully spread out in the hopes of something, anything.

The least life could do was to throw him a bone. Especially now, of all times.

He could feel his organs sloshing around, his body contorting to the brutal force of nature as he spun and spun.

'Damn this whole world! I just wanted to live a life better than an animal, and this is what you give me?'

Jett became lost in the storm. An odd burning sensation filled his innermost depths.

'I suppose it was my fault in the end. I underestimated human foolishness.'

Robbed of his senses, Jett was alone in the storm with nothing other than extreme pain to guide his conscious.

For the first time in his life, Jett let go of his primitive will to survive, surrendering to the powers at be.

***

You, who possessed nothing, shall acquire all.

The Whisper of Fate.

***

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Fate was unkind to the vermin of Shacktown.

Though maybe such a belief should be reevaluated.

Jett soon realized that he could still think, and move.

'Everything is quite… comfortable. Perhaps I should've died sooner.'

In his delirium, Jett guessed he had entered the afterlife.

But the afterlife was quite dark. Much darker than he had anticipated.

'Maybe it's purgatory? I never really did anything wrong. I killed only to survive. I promise, deities, I was only trying to live! Surely you would understand my plight?'

Then Jett opened his eyes.

A stone ceiling above. Below him, a thin, cloth cot.

'The afterlife is a little different than I imagined. Still, quite otherworldly…'

These delusions didn't last long. As Jett sat up in the cloth cot, he could feel a burning pain throughout his body.

'I actually lived through the Soul Storm... How?'

His torso was covered in bloodied bandages. But most importantly of all, he had real pants on. They covered even more wounds over his legs.

Standing up, Jett's bare feet touched the cold and coarse surface of the stone. Fortunately, he could still somewhat walk despite his injuries.

'Where am I?'

The cramped stone room had nothing but the cloth cot which he sat upon, as well as a hole in the corner.

On one side of the small room was lined with a metal-barred gate. Below the gate was a tray, with a wooden bowl of unknown slop.

Jett hobbled over, picking up the bowl, sniffing, inspecting, then downing it.

And with that, he had been convinced.

Jett had made it to the afterlife.