The Homeless Agenda

Chapter One

In a small and particularly dirty corner of the earth was a dust-covered city.

It was a secret city; some might even venture to call it enchanted, though those who dwelled there would tell you there was nothing magical about the raw sewage drain which flooded down the middle of the street pushing the giant rats into the river each night. Or the dead bodies, which floated limbless, often cannibalized down the center of the liquid defecation.

To me, enchanted always sounded a little too magical to describe the filth and destruction of Dante. Enchanted, sounds a little too much like a fairytale.

When I was very young eight or nine, the dead count accumulated by the hundreds every day. The old toothless women would sit in the streets hunched together in their black rags, weeping over the dead, glass jars empty at their knees.

I wandered alone looking for scraps at that time, homeless. As I walked I watched the women rocking back and forth against the pavement and a wave of empathy crossed me.

Perhaps, it wasn't empathy; perhaps it was only because I had never had a mother of my own. But whichever reason, I would go to them and sit at their feet. Trying to comfort best I could, and always singing softly the folk songs that my grandmother had taught me before she too succumbed to the plague.

The women often convinced themselves in their delusional that I was their daughter and would not let me leave their side for days. But some were calm enough to tell me stories, fairy tales, which had been handed-down for generations. These stories were filled with super-humans; God's, Fairies, Wizards and all other kinds of Heroic beings that could not die and powers which they used to help the sick recover from death.

My favorite of these stories was about an ordinary girl who was so beautiful that the prince asked her to marry him and rule their kingdom. Shortly after I heard it, I remember being told by a man in a dark blue uniform, that the Prince of Dante was assassinated and eaten by his son Ulrich. After hearing that, I was not too hopeful.

As time went on, and death prevailed over everything around me, I became obsessed with listening to stories. I wanted to hear every minute detail, and one day I even wanted to see happily ever after for myself. Although it really wasn't a thing I suppose that you could see.

I asked every woman I met on the street to tell me a story, and they were like a burning flame of hope to me. The stories were mostly the same, but always a little different, a new version with a different twist. It kept me sane and on my toes.

I began to truly believe that one day a prince would take me away on a white horse to a green pasture where we would live happily as was usually the story scenario. I was going slowly insane. I did not realize that grass did not exist in Dante, nor could ever exist among the putrid stench of constant decomposition.

In Dante, you'd be lucky to live past thirty-five years. The last thing you could ever expect was a sort of happy ending. If you were very lucky, you'd be the respectable sort to have a job, and not get eaten by your relatives.

Which is precisely why Dante was hidden away from the civilized beings before time even began. Dante has always been separate, ancient, undiscovered and undetectable by the civilized beings that dwell beside us. Despite the cloud of smog and dust, the city gives the appearance of all subtly, as unassuming as a sunny day.

No person of the modern world knew the tragedy that lay right under his or her fashionably tanned noses. Or of the potential havoc that was waiting to be unleashed if – god forbid- something went a fraction of an inch wrong, and they or shall I say we, were to escape our eternal imprisonment.

If one of us were to accidentally fall off the edge of the world…

No, the modern, civilized world had not a care.

I'm second drafting this story cause I always kind of liked it.... anyways... it is Much different now.... and the second chapter won't make sense if I haven't updated it yet.

You'll know if I have updated it.... if it says chapter two at the top.....other wise.. I'm soo sorry.... It will be up before you know it.