The Other Side

Prologue

On Earth there was four continents, North, South, Major, and Minus. Each continent had a huge city which the people lived of the on the same ranking system. The way the system works depends on how long a Chain you have. A chain can grow from any part of your body, and in fact can become very long. The longer your chain the higher you are in society. The continent Minor, is the holding place for all low chains. Our protagonist, East is one of the low chains, in fact he has no chain at all. He has become very passive due to the reality which he lives. He has never known parents and has lived amongst other low chains constantly being mocked by high chains. He and his misfit friends have become emotionless for the most part, aside from all their interesting hobbies.

East:

Chapter One

The Dream

We always wonder. We wish to know the facts. Sometimes we don't believe the truth. We don't believe the inevitable fact that. We can't know everything. If knowledge is the key, then death is the doorway.

"There are two sides to my life, ones a dream, the other a reality, To define them I have to go to the other side."

East woke up screaming. He saw the same images. He sat on a tree. What were their names? Her name was? He sat up staring at the wall. It was still to early to go to Labor. He checked his reloj. Still time. He got up from his fluff and switched on the Tele.

"Get dressed!" moaned the Tele. East quickly turned it off. He looked toward the window and opened the blinds just enough to see that the blocks around him lie still. He reached for a pen and piece of paper from under his fluff.

Slowly a image began to scratch across the paper. A bell began to screech across the room. The Tele turned on and demanded East to go to Labor. Quickly he grabbed his sweater, beanie, and his headphones. He walked among a crowd that uniformly walked. All wore grey suits. Carefully East pulled his headphones over his head and turned them on. Music slowly began to buzz in his ears. Drowning out all noise, if there was any. The grey suits walked silently and without looking in any direction but toward the Labor.

"EAST!" a girl who had short blonde curls, her hands were covered by long striped gloves that stretched to her fore arm, her sky blue dress was long and danced while she moved, and her black shirt had a skull on it.

"Hey Roz, could ya let go of my neck I can't breathe!" Roz released her grip on East.

"You don't have labor today Roz. Why are you following me?" East stopped his trek and faced her.

"Because silly, we still have to plan our escape!" she pulled his beanie over his eyes. Then moved to the side while he tried to grab her.

"Wait over at the Musée. We can meet and discuss the plan. Where's Goggles?" I turned around half expecting him to pounce on me. Roz smiled a bit and said. "He's already there. Its majorly calor yo!" She hopped beside East and they started to walk. They reached a huge tunnel. East gazed at the wall.

"What is it East?" Roz stared at his wandering face.

"I know that wall."

Chapter 2

Other side

The earth around him was rotten. All but a few patches of dead grass and festering vegetation surrounded him. His backdrop was a building which used to house wounded animals strangely this building looked new, and even stranger than that it had three columns that bellowed a smog. There was three road which had cut into the patches of corroding vegetation.

He sat on a withering tree with the usual gang of nobodies. His hair was a shock of white, his skin a deep shade of tawny, a thin layer of muscles were etched into his figure. He was very solemn, with a devil may care attitude, and an air about him that suggested something knowledgeable about him. He chose his words very carefully.

"I am tired." he said. Yuko smiled. Yuko was a slender girl with a sharp tongue. She was concerned with everything she saw. Her eyes were almond shaped and glittered like very pale sapphires. Her skin was fair as snow. She had a very happy-go-lucky attitude, mostly, she always felt strongly about issues regarding morality.

"Then sleep, silly." Kana laughed. Kana was a small for his age. He had a fair complexion. He ha wide green eyes always gripped by excitement. His hair a deep copper went every-which way was longer on the side of his figure than his right. He was a very happy boy always with a smile or a hint of one. He didn't like his first name Dante it was too "fairy tale" he said. He never thought about the consequences of his actions he just went for what he perceived as right.

"Ya shoulda stayed home instead of gazing at nothingness with us." East nodded his head. He wished he could stay here all the time.

"What do you guys fear most?" East said. He was perplexed with the idea of fear. Infatuated with the idea that no one was without fear.

"I'm scared with a lot of things." Yuko seemed to be picking her words.

"I fear being all alone." Kana was looking at the doll he held. The three all held a doll they had made in childhood. Kana held a rabbit one of below par craftsmanship. Mainly because they had a short in materials and secondly because they had begun work on a whim. His rabbit held the name Ozzie.

"Why? You can never be alone unless you let yourself be." East had pondered Kana's situation. He couldn't figure the problem.

"I don't fear anything." East was angry at the thought of irrationality. He rose from his seat on the branch of the withered tree. A crow flew by. As it flew a cascade of feathers met East's hand. The crow was abruptly shot by a foreign body. East turned to Yuko and Kana. He smiled reached for his Kuma and, put his headphones on. Kana waved, then got up and walked toward another road.

"I fear you." whispered Yuko as she got up. Her doll Remy followed. She walked her path to her house.

Chapter 3

Kuma The Panda

The sun slowly crept into the sky as Yuko woke up. Yuko lived alone, as did everyone in Minor being as they were abandoned by anyone who had slightly more chain than they did. Her house was very neat. She kept everything in it's place and was very persnickety about the placement of anything she owned. Everything she had held a pleasant iridescence. She was proud of her sense of savoir-faire. Her sleeping quarters was filed with sketches of many things. She loved to draw, paint or anything artful but, she never did well when it came to the pen.

"Remy?" Her cat purred at his calling. He was a effigy of a character from Alice's Adventure's In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. The effigy of the Cheshire Cat. He was very similar to the cat of Carroll's story, he had a very broad smile with wide eyes and small beady eyes. He had wear and tear from his years. He had life unlike Kuma and Ozzie, he was given life force by a strange high chain.

"To the withered tree then miss?" he was very polite and peculiar. Yuko smiled and hugged Remy.

"I'm going to get ready first and draw you again." Remy was her favourite subject for her art. She took a pencil and a paper from a cubby and plopped next to a window that always stood ajar. Remy jumped toward the window and basked in the meager light. She sat there and drew Remy. Someone rapped on the door.

"Yeah?" She did not move. No answer.

"What?" She turned her head. No answer.

"I'm coming." Yuko was intrigued by the strange knocking. She raced past her bed and through her hall way. The door was a very fine wooden door. The pattern was of flowers tracing the edges. The center held a mirror, above the mirror was the eye hole. She placed her at toward the piece. Nobody was there. She reached for the hand crafted brass handle. She slowly turned the handle. A doll crept in.

"You have to save East! It is coming! They are using him! His memory is true!" The doll looked something like...

"Kuma?" she looked at him more closely. "KUMA! He has chain now?"

"What? Chain? Come with me!" Kuma grabbed her hand. How odd was the vexing doll! In height it only reached her waist, with a bright red patch covering its right eye.

"East finished you?" murmured Yuko. She couldn't understand why he was alive.

"What? I barely know East." Kuma turned around and stared at Yuko. They paused.

"Do you know me?" Kuma asked very awkwardly. He was confused. She is very strange and familiar.

"East made you. He said he would give you life as soon as he was going to cure the world." She became very somber. He stared at her intensely

"East? The boy who knocked me over and followed me to my block? He couldn't make a panda!" He scoffed at the idea that he was made by East. They continued on, walking through the crumbling city, staring at the burnt sky.

Chapter 4

The City

East stared at the wall carefully. He had moved away from the crowd and crept toward it. The wall was made of bricks carefully placed, and new. At the center of the brick wall was a metal tube, the big enough to fit some people. Roz stared at him for a while, then pushed him.

"Enough gazing at the magical tube! You have to get some rest!"

"What about labor?"

"It is over! So go and sleep."

"The meeting?"

"We already had it."

"Uh, ok."

East started to walk back to his block. He looked behind him to see if Roz was following him. She wasn't. He ran over to Central. Central was the center of the city. The city was divided into five quadrants, north sector which was were labor was located, the south sector which was strictly residential, the west sector which was where the It and his workers lived, central, which housed all of what was left of the arts, and block sector which had the housing for all workers.

East started to reach the Musée, the safe house for all major art before Lesser Pangea came into existence. He was walking toward the huge building which in itself was art. It inspiration was of the Parthenon, the main temple of the goddess Athena, built around 427 B.C., The building held music, movies, paintings, literature, anything considered art. To the right of this colossus there was a beautiful garden, it held a plethora of botanical beauty. He walked past the garden and entered the building. His hand brushed against the giant marble pillars that held an intricate design. There was a spiraling dragon, heading downward toward a seraph. The seraphs held open the door made of gold and brass. He reached for the hawk's head doorknob and turned it haphazardly. And he stalked into the large building. The entrance hall was very clean looking, The walls were bare except the Directions to the several different floors.

He walked carefully in the bleach clean entrance and turned to look at the directions for the literature center. He brought his finger up against the page and scrolled down. And he rested it on the scrawling of the word "books" He walked up to the stairs. Turning his headphones on he began his trek down four flights of stairs. He was not tired from this trek because he ventured this path often. He had reached the sea of shelves. This hall held the last copies of almost every book ever written. In this hall East had read most of the great writers. He walked along the first shelf and traced some of its patterns. He looked up just before a book fell from the very top of the shelf. He picked up the book. It was entitled "The City" He opened it.

On the front page was a very detailed map of the city which East occupied, Urbis. He scratched his head. How can there be a book made about Urbis? Writing was banned along time ago, and noone ever tried t break a law before. He turned to the second page, and started reading, "The City".

Chapter 5

More to It

East was quietly sitting on his knot of the tree. Pondering the existence of his dream. Why was it so real? Why did he have a book in his hand when he woke up. He flipped through the pages, a paper fell out.

If this reaches my dream,

I have came to realize that there are to realities, and after much deliberation I have decided to try and contact myself, if you have received this paper please respond. Leave your response in this book.

East