Downside: Prologue (Rough Draft)

Prologue:

Before Jack opened his eyes he knew he was dead. He knew because he had caused it himself. He had put the gun in his mouth, tasted the metal of the barrel, the heaviness of the oil, the residue of old gun powder.

He knew he was dead because he had written the note. He had spent three long hours at his desk, ink spilling out of the tip of a fountain pen that had once belonged to his grandfather, scrawling a suicide note on loose leaf note book paper.

More than anything, he knew he was dead because he had cocked the gun. He had place it between his teeth and clamped them down behind the front sight. He had pulled the trigger, felt the shot resounding like a storm inside his head, felt the bullet cut upwards through the roof of his mouth, into his brain, and out the top of his head. For a brief second before the world went black, he had even felt the warm, soft mist of the blood as it fell across his face and the welcoming embrace of the quilt that covered his bed as his body fell backwards. What he did not know, however, was why there was no hole in his head.

Without opening his eyes, he knew that he had no idea where he was. It was raining for one, ice cold drops the size of quarters battering his body and adding to its weariness. For another, he could feel the sharp, hard bite of pavement against his skin.

Somewhere, someone was playing the blues. Long, mournful chords that mixed with the wind, blending into it until both became a single, formless being comprised of longing and heartbreak. It was the music for every broken heart, every scorned lover, and down on his luck vagrant played with such precise perfection it could have easily passed for the work of a classical master. It called to him, soothed him, comforted his weariness, even as the rain fell harder.

For a long moment Jack simply lay there, on the pavement, in the rain, letting the music enfold him. There was a strange comfort in the notes that he couldn't wrap his head around. It was as if the music spoke to him, pulling at the heart strings of some long forgotten memory that hung in the back of his head like a fog. Yet, it was all so eerily familiar. Not a song he had simply heard, but one that he knew. One that stopped just as suddenly as it had begun.

Jack opened his slowly, blinking once, twice, letting them adjust to the change in light. Colors shifted and swirled, drawing patterns in front of his eyes as his vision fought to clear itself from a countless time frame of dormancy and rainwater. He sat up, shaking his head, running a hand through his hair and began to assess his surroundings, trying to make some sense of the situation he now found himself in. Walls, higher than his eyes could see shot skywards, the brick tarnished with soot and dust, that turned the rain water that streamed over its counters into a thick, viscous substance. Overhead, a sky so muddy green with heavy clouds it could only be considered toxic threatened yet more rain from behind billowing plumes of industrial smoke. All around him, steam whistles, the ticking and grinding of gears, the thrum of pistons all seemed to hammer in a maddening, dissonant cacophony, no longer masked by the serpentine tones of the now forgotten blues.

Through the mouth of the alleyway, Jack could see both towers and factories, far taller than anything he had thought fathomable, lined with the sources of such noise. Pistons, larger than houses pumped constantly. Gears, easily the size of a high way rotary turned with precision regularity. Jet's of steam the length of football fields shot into the sky at dizzying and obscene angles. In the distance, tethered to some of the buildings he could see what could best be described as zeppelins of some fashion bouncing in swirling currents of air.

The sidewalks ahead of him bustled despite the rain, the people dressed in the garb of long forgotten factory workers and nobility meshed with devices and accessories he simply could not name. It was a myriad of corsets, goggles, workboots, petticoats, lace, leather, chainmail, and everything in between bathed in the sickly flames of oil burning streetlights. Cars the likes of which he had never seen pushed through the streets, splashing water beneath wheels long since out dated, steam pushed out of vented hoods in quick, whistling bursts.

He did what any man would do in this situation. He leaned against the wall and let the rain mask his tears. He cried for the life he had so easily given up, he cried in rage and confusion at this new, strange place he found himself in, and more than anything, he simply cried because he had no idea what else to do.