The Burning City

Chapter 1: Two AM

It’s odd, the way the city is lit up at night, and small circles of neon crawl from the windows and dance, sometimes stopping to hit my face. But it’s a monster at heart, a terrible one, built on tired morals and primal impulse; urban decay rots the foundation, poisoning everything that grows in it, and slowly spreading to infect the lesser suburbs around it. Under the thin crust built by the lies of the upper class lays a metropolis riddled with anarchy. It’s decomposing from the bottom up, until eventually, it’ll crumble under itself, and fall in a manner more magnificent than the destruction of Rome. It is the ultimate allegory of Earth, and the last true sore from the depression, left untended to fester and turn green and sickly.

Even I have been left sickly, barricaded in my dark room, walls covered in crude renderings and schematics that while I most certainly etched into the plaster, seem almost unfamiliar to me. I was told by my doctor to live out the rest of my days in silence, and so I have, leaving the World outside my apartment to decompose, while I ponder a way to solve the problems of my beloved city. My mind isn’t as good as it was before, because of the illness, so my progress was somewhat slowed, however I think I have finally figured out the answer; the one, true solution to any dilemma.

In the great days of old, when a terrible creature had gone out of control, it became the job of any civilized man to destroy that beast. I feel now, that the only means of rescuing what little bit of society may be left in this hollowed ground is to destroy the beast that lurks within its heart. Perhaps I will take the freeway down into the ghettos of my fair city, under the tainted capital, and plant it in a dumpster. Or maybe I’ll strap it to my chest, and run into the center of ever-so-busy Main Street. Who knows? I certainly don’t. All I can be sure of is the burning righteousness, the purity my home will endure. And as the explosion rocks the very skeleton of the urban creature, I will know that I have done the right thing. In the great days of old, men destroyed beasts with sticks and clubs.

… I’ve built a bomb.