Dimensions: Down - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - Abandoned



Dedicated to Blaine, may your strength and determination take you to where you want to be.

         Jace yelled and rocketed up in bed. His stomach convulsed almost immediately. He twisted to the side, reaching blindly for the trash bin by the side of his bed. Most of his small supper made it in.

Thank god for small favors.

He shook and wiped his mouth with a hand. The sweat coating his body chilled in the cool air, almost feeling good. His body flushed hot then cold as he hung his head over the side of the bed and panted.

“Fuck."

God, he hated these dreams.

He’d dreamed about bloodshed several times before. But watching somebody actually get cooked alive and eaten, “What the fuck?”

He rubbed at gritty eyes and his stubble, feeling like he’d been run over by the H -Trac. His head was throbbing and sharp aches shot down his neck, a steady pain pooling at the base of his head.

He shot almost a foot in the air as, right on cue, his alarm finally went off. It blared right next to his head, turning the headache into a splitting pain.

Goddamned thing. Jace slammed a hand blindly at it, clutching his head with the other. Why the hell couldn't you have gone off sooner!

His poor secondhand alarm clock crashed to the floor. The bottom cracked and ripped off, hanging by the cord a few inches above the wreckage.

Whatever. Jace winced and stood up carefully.

However, he felt a twinge of regret as he picked it up and trashed it. That was his second one this month. He’d have to buy another on the way home.

He stumbled to the bathroom.

His apartment was one big room with denim blue walls. The paint was cheap and already pealing, the walls dented from ill repair. The scared wood floors were dark and a tiny kitchen sat in one corner. There was a small faded green couch and dark coffee table he’d gotten secondhand near the front door. His bed sat in a nook facing the kitchen, his old computer stand acting as a nightstand. The door to the bathroom was between the “living room” and kitchen.

He swung by the refrigerator and grabbed one of the little bottles of orange juice he’d brought home from work yesterday. The aged fridge was mostly empty. Aside from the rice, cereal, and jars of expiring mayonnaise and hot sauce, almost all the food Jace had been able to get had been expired food from work.

Since the government had abandoned this district two years ago most grocery stores had been spottyily stocked at best. Only three gas stations were left and only the larger restaurants and business where still open.

Those businesses had been forced to make deals with the U.S. military in able to get what few shipments they could through. And with his small income Jace could only buy the basics and maybe splurge once or twice a month on something expensive like beef or eating out.

With no one else to turn to, the gangs had taken over. Despite the higher prices they charged they’d been able to get regular shipments in when no one else could.

They made deals with business owners, bought or started many stores and business people needed to survive, and gave jobs to anyone who asked. When many of the apartment building owners had abandoned their residents, turning their utilities off and abandoning them the same as the government, the gangs had bought the buildings. The rent was high but even Jace could find something affordable.

They even started a police force when crimes and looting went wild. They were made up of mostly residents who’d needed a job and suited the position. While they were forced to turn a blind eye to the gangs wrong-doings, they kept the peace and looked out for the residents well enough.

The only area the gangs didn’t rule was Uptown. It was largely a residential area with restaurants and entertainment centers. Most of its population had been retired or extremely wealthy. They were largely arrogant and considered themselves above the residents in the Lower Town.

Many of the old Uptown residents had joined together to form the Alliance. They pooled their wealth and resources and ran Uptown.

It still looked much the same as it did before. Clean streets and window fronts, all the street lights and lamps worked, manicured landscaping, and even decorations put up on holidays. Most of the restaurants, stores and even the movie theater were kept running exactly the same as before.

Whether through money or under-the-table deals with friends outside the blockade they’d been able to keep much the same life as before. They had their own private police force — stoic and obvious mercenaries brought in from who knew where. Jace often wondered how so many had made it past the barricades. They protected only the Uptown residents and enforced only one simple rule: the gangs stayed out of Uptown, and workers were allowed to pass between the Lower Town and Uptown in peace.

That was the only reason Jace hadn’t had to join a gang for a job. Two years ago he’d been in college, working part time at a coffee house in Uptown. It was a large enough chain and favorited enough amongst the residents that they’d managed to keep it open. The company sent them shipments weekly, most of which made it through, and paid them in cash hidden in those shipments. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to live on.

Jace twisted the top off the orange juice and gulped it all down in one go. He ignored the view outside the widow as the early morning sunlight warmed his skin.

When the dimensions had fallen, entire cities and parts of continents had been crushed by parts of the Ayakashi Territories that had fallen from their dimension into Earth’s. Millions of lives had been lost, governments and countries destroyed.

The mix of high rises, historical brownstones and houses, mansions, buildings, and parks now looked bleak and abandoned. Blackened, broken wreckage wreckage surrounded the tall white walls of the Ayakashi city of Warlord Ayakoma Akio, just three miles away. Many of the remaining parks had been turned into cemeteries for those whose bodies had been found or died in the coming months. None of the people who’d been in the areas where the Ayakashi Territories appeared had ever been found.

Jace hated it.

When the dimensions had Fallen, the U.S. government had almost immediately abandoned the city. They’d raised barricades and fences. Armed soldiers shot anyone attempting to cross. Sealing them inside for the “protection of the rest of America”.

Thankfully, Warlord Ayakoma Akio had no desire to rule or enslave the humans surrounding his Territory. Unlike most of his brethren, who’d immediately stomped out the human governments and killed or enslaved the surrounding populations — some even eating them like cattle —, he ignored them.

He’d been in polite if useless negotiations with the U.S. government since The Fall.

News reports showed the U.S. ambassadors and negotiators as inept idiots. Jace had to wonder how much of the U.S. government was left if these were the best they could send for negotiations.

Ayakoma always looked disinterested and remote.

Jace had seen his image a few times on the news. Pale hair and hard, angular features, he looked like a cold winter or river god in beautifully colored kimonos or hakamas and armor. He never interacted with humans outside the U.S.’ negotiators. Seeming to disdain them.

It was a blessing as much as a curse. Jace and the other city residents didn’t have to worry about being killed or eaten. But they’d also be left to starve or freeze to death before the American government opened the blockade to save them.