These were the three codes by which Rebel has lived his whole life. KEEP to yourself, PROTECT yourself, and REIMAGINE things. This had been his day-to-day mantra for the last twenty years. But everything changed today; He had not kept to himself.
The day started just like any other day for Rebel. His morning routine involved queuing in line at the feeding center for the free daily breakfast allocated to each citizen. There he received a spoonful of a weird green substance, and half a loaf of bread as hard as stone. It wasn’t much, but the green sludge would keep him full for the next 12 hours, and he could always use the hard bread as a weapon if he ever met any of the numerous gangs trotting about in the slums.
After he had eaten his poor excuse of a breakfast, he went back to his even sorrier excuse of an abode, and there he practiced a set of martial arts inherited from his parents. This set martial arts technique was the only thing Rebel had inherited from his parents, who were said to have died in the war. It was delivered, along with him to the doorstep of an orphanage.
Rebel always joked to himself that the only reason no one in the orphanage ever bothered to take the martial arts technique for themselves was because the technique was useless. There were actually no martial arts involved in the technique. All it involved were a series of breathing exercises and weird looking postures that looked as if one was practicing dancing the ballet. Not that Rebel knew what the ballet was, or what dancing it looked like. He had only heard someone describing the weird dancing style of the nobles in the inner city, and thought that it suspiciously sounded like the postures in his martial art technique.
After he had practiced for a sufficient amount of time, Rebel left the city walls in his full gear. The world outside the city wall was vastly different from the one inside. Inside the city wall, was one of the two last bastions of humanity, The Keep as it was called, A place where the social hierarchy was everything, and the poor and weak had no right whatsoever. While outside the wall was a land of chaos, marked with a telltale sign of war and destruction, a land filled with mutated beasts, cannibalistic scavengers, and worse, mutants. There were few records of mutants though, probably because very few who encountered them lived to tell the tale.
Rebel said a small prayer to whatever god that was listening, praying that he wouldn’t end up in the belly of a beast or over the campfire of some cannibals today. He hoped today would be a fruitful day, and he would be fortunate enough to find a piece of treasure or old world tech, which he could sell for some Versei. As with feeding, paying the rent for the lousy place he lived in, and settling the numerous gangs that came by to collect protection fees, he ran out of money quite quickly. He had to make some soon though, as his rent was due soon and he didn’t believe for a second that the cranky landlady would hesitate in throwing him out. Returning to the streets so soon wasn’t in his plans.
With the short rumination out of the way, Rebel set off into the ruins of the outside world, the beautiful and mysterious world where danger and fortune went hand in hand.
*****
Today was Rebel’s lucky day. The god of fortune must have heard his prayers, as he did not encounter any mutated beasts, and most importantly, he found a treasure. Granted, the treasure didn’t look like it could fetch him a lot of versei, but any little bit would count for him. The treasure he found was an old antique ring that looked like it was made with gold.
Rebel for the life of him, could not figure out why the nobles in the inner city would spend a lot of versei in purchasing any item made with gold, versei that could be better spent doing meaningful things like buying better gear and armor, buying a house, or even stocking up food for winter. He attributed it to the weird and impossible to understand nature of the rich. He wasn’t complaining though, as long as the money they wasted found their way to his pockets.
Rebel checked the time on his old and probably fifth-hand X-series smartlink, and found the time to be almost 6 PM. Time to go, he thought as the wasteland wasn’t a place one should be caught wandering after dark. Mutated beasts’ activity drastically increased at night, and Rebel wasn’t interested in a battle to death with a dog the size of an elephant, or a group of crazy monkeys. Besides he had made a good haul that day, and with that he made haste back to the city walls and the promise of security behind it.
An hour later, Rebel was within sight of the city gates, and could make out the outline of the peace keeper corps patrolling the walls. That was when he heard it, a low sound of people having an argument in the bushes off the path to the city walls.
He knew it was a dangerous thing to be curious, especially outside the city where rules did not apply. The most sensible thing to do in a situation like this would have been to walk even faster, but he decided to be stupid for the day. He crept low and made his way towards where he heard the voices.
A familiar scene unfolded to Rebel’s eyes; three men threateningly surrounding a weak-looking female, while chuckling knowingly to themselves. Anyone with half a brain would understand what the men’s intentions were. It also didn’t help that the female being surrounded was a beauty too. The men continued advancing towards the girl, while she was still rooted in her position, most likely in shock.
This was none of Rebel’s business and he decided to stay out of trouble. But just as he made to leave, the eyes of the girl being surrounded swiveled and locked on to him. He felt something flutter in him at that moment, and suddenly couldn’t bring himself to leave. He was conflicted for a moment, before his irrational side won and he decided to save the girl.
Now the question was ‘how?’ Rebel was confident in handling himself in a fight, but he would be delusional if he thought he could beat three grown men. So fighting was out of the option.
He stepped out of his hiding place and shouted towards the men, “Let the girl go and this is yours.” He held up the ring he had gotten from the ruins earlier, while sighing inwardly at how dumb he was acting.
The men turned around in shock at the abruptness of Rebel’s approach. They were visibly relieved when they saw that it was only Rebel. The relief quickly turned to greed when they saw the item in his hands. The man in the middle, probably their leader, stepped out.
“Nice ring you have there, kid. But what’s stopping us from taking both the ring and the girl?” The man asked, chuckling menacingly.
“Well you could indeed do that. Just know that while we talk, my teammates are reporting this to the corpies. I’m sure none of you would fancy a night in jail.” Rebel replied, trying to portray a positive appearance.
The leader hesitated at his words, staring intensely at his face, probably trying to determine if Rebel was bluffing.
“You’re lying.” The leader suddenly said.
“We’ll find out very soon, won’t we?” Rebel shrugged.
The two men had a little staring contest, before the leader took a step back. Rebel threw the ring towards him.
“Let’s go boys. A hero has come to save the damsel. Watch your back out here though kid, you never know what’s watching from the dark.” The leader led his group away while laughing.
Rebel watched them intently as they left, and only when he judged them to be a sufficient distance away did he turn to the girl he saved. “Let’s go quickly before they have a change of mind.”
The sun had almost set as Rebel’s group of two made their way through the gates of the city. And under the red sky, the series of events that would reshape The Keep and the world began.
