Devolution Short 1
The Awakening of Yinsum Chen
My name is Chen. Yinsum Chen. I’m an officer in the D13 PD. District 13 is a cold hard place, I’ve spent years here. 33 long hard years, 12 of those policing the streets.
I’m a detective now. For a while I went to live in Dodge City but, you know the saying the grass is greener on the other side? District 13 is in the lower middle sector of Edge City, one step up from the slums. Dodge in comparison is a fucking hole. A smaller more distorted version of Edge, but I’m not glad to be back. I don’t wish I were there either.
Its kind of one of those situations where, you just want to die. There is a lot of drug usage and crime here, driven by poverty and starvation, rioting is a frequent occurrence. That’s not my problem now though; it hasn’t been for two years. Since I became a detective.
My dad always said to me people rise and people fall, and that’s if their lucky. Now I understand what he meant. The drug users, the peddle pushers and the rest of the scum only get their kicks when their doing what their doing, and I cant blame them. You see it all around, despair, isolation, people who have given up on hope. There are around six million registered meat bags in the lower middle sectors, but more like twelve million crammed into every orifice. From every dark corner thousand eyes peer out at you. Full of venom, full of hate, and I understand. That’s not to say I approve or accept. In each and every one of us there is compassion, humanity, the ability to distinguish right from wrong they say. These people though, are inhuman. Fucking desolate.
Speaking of inhuman there was this kid in Dodge City; I’ll get on to why I ended up there in a moment. His face was covered in tattoos, his body clad in leather and his eyes appeared darker than dark. Not an empty kind of dark, no one is empty here, but filled with darkness. The thoughts no one should think, the dark places no mind should venture. He used to fill my mind, enter my dreams and rape my mind. To begin with I only ever caught a glimpse of him, from the corner of my eye, masked in the darkness with the thousand peering eyes. His always distinguishable from the rest. Like they were so dark they made the surrounding black seem white. I thought I was going mad until he started following me.
Atop a building staring down, on the highways on a black motor cycle, black coat stretching out behind him, even in the TV. Still in my dreams. What did he want with me? I kept asking myself. I’m not mad, just observant. I have to be in my line of work, but he was driving me to distraction, to desperation and into madness. I couldn’t focus, couldn’t eat, and couldn’t sleep.
You see, my dad was a cop, and provided for me and my mom. Brought me up well enough, he was into tradition and would teach me all he knew about our ancestry, which wasn’t a lot. More than most knew though. He used to tell me, before the earth was scorched and fell into ruin, before mankind had to live in atmosphere domes, our family lived in a place called Japan. I know it seems mad, people outside, breathing the air…
Japan was a great civilisation, leading the world with technological advances yet being steeped in tradition. There was honour among men and poverty wasn’t as abundant as it has since become. People came to our great island just to see what it was like. I’ve never seen the sea. Just like everyone else here, most have never even left the City. Outside is nothing but danger and waste. A hot scorching desert that stretches on as far as the mind can think, inhabited by the mutants. I mean, how do we even know the sea exists at all if no one has ever seen it. Just because of some reference in ancient text?
Anyway, when I was fifteen my dad was gunned down during a riot. My mom went to pieces and I was left to pick them up. I was lucky enough to get an education but like my dads teachings I found a lot of it irrelevant and hard to swallow so when I finished I followed in his footsteps, partly out of curiosity partly because I wanted to make a difference. If everyone wanted to make a difference this place might even be bearable. Like I was saying, I did that for 12 years until I was assigned to Dodge as a detective. Man, in these past 13 years I’ve seen things that would make your hair turn grey and your eyes liquefy. I’ve seen that as well. Then I got transferred back here, to Edge. For that I’m thankful.
The old is comfortable. What you know you can change, don’t get me wrong I’m all about change. That’s why I became a beat cop, to make a difference, but when the change is sudden it’s impossible to swallow. Some see my understanding as a weakness but it got me to where I am today. You can’t solve a problem without first knowing the cause. My observance has always lead me to believe that even knowing this place isn’t right, there’s something far worse beneath, and I was right.
For the first few months it was the same, being back. New job, new house but it felt the same. The place was familiar to me, but even that has since changed. My world has been turned upside down and it will never be the same again, and I’ll tell you why.
The kid, from Dodge, he showed up here last week. At first just a glance, then a top a building, coat stretching out behind him, but something was different. His eyes still full of dark, there was vulnerability in them.
After 5 days of seeing him around the city I was sure he was following me. The amount of times I saw him couldn’t just be coincidence…
So I came home after work on the 5th day to find him in my living room. Sat down, as clear as day, smoking a cigarette.
‘Do you mind?’ He said
‘What?’
‘The smoke?’
‘Well yes I do, who are you?’ I replied
‘Who am I? You know who I am’
‘No, I don’t’
‘Yes, you do’
‘Ok then, what do you want?’
‘Good straight to the fucking point, I like that. What do you want Detective Chen?’
‘I want to know who the hell you are and why you’ve been following me you son of a bitch!’
‘Me? I am the nagging in the back of your head that won’t go away. Who are you Chen?’
‘You know my name… You have all the answers don’t you smart arse!’
‘No Chen. I don’t have all the answers, but some, yes I do’
‘Enlighten me’
‘I’m, how should I put it… different. To you at least.’
‘Damn right! You’re fucking crazy! You know I’m a cop don’t you? I could just shoot you right now!’
‘Go ahead Mr Chen, you can’t kill me. You can’t even fire a shot at me, let alone hit me.’
I reached for my gun but when I looked up he was gone. Just like that. I thought to myself did I imagine everything that had just happened? Strangely I slept well that night, and the two nights after. The third night though, I had the most vivid dream I had ever had. I was pursuing two dealers into an alley, in an area of the city I knew well. I was running for about 5 minuets until I realised… I was still in the alley. I wasn’t even tired, but couldn’t see the suspects. I turned around to make my way back to my car when I heard him.
‘You can’t kill me My Chen.’
I turned back around to see where the voice was coming from but it was too dark. I drew my gun and turned on the light mounted on the side and there he was, just standing there.
‘You! What are you doing here?’
‘Same as you Chen, trying to survive’
‘What do you want? Who are you?’
‘You still haven’t figured that out?’
‘I did a check on you’
‘But no record right?”
‘Yeah”
‘My name is Devlin Strider Mr Chen, maybe that will help.’
‘Help? What do you want?’
‘Help Chen, you’re the only one who can help me’
‘Help with what? Why me?’
‘All in good time, see you around Chen’
Then he did something… something weird, he jumped to the roof, from the ground. It was like three storeys. Then I woke up in a cold sweat. I was quite relieved; I thought I was going mad when I saw that. I mean it’s impossible, but not in a dream. The following morning I went to work as usual, a drug bust as usual, in a normal rundown warehouse, but… Everyone was dead. Shot, cut up, sliced in two. One of the other guys brought a letter to me.
‘Hey Chen, this was on one of the bodies nailed to the wall, hanging out of his mouth. It’s addressed to you.’
It said ‘Detective Chen’ and read;
‘Meet me tonight; you know where, you’ll get your answers. -Devlin’
I suddenly got a cold chill up my spine, Devlin Strider. That was a dream though, right? Against my better judgement that night I went to the alleyway from my dream and waited.
‘Thank you for coming Mr Chen. I knew you would.’
‘Devlin Strider right? But that was just a dream.’
‘What is a dream Mr Chen? Is it just somewhere in your mind, or is it an alternative reality, another plain of existence? Like a line that can be tapped.’
‘I… I don’t know.’
‘But you do Mr Chen, you just don’t know it yet, you want answers? You want to know why you lose me in the dark. Why I appear in your dreams? How I can leap buildings?’
‘That was just a dream’
‘Then how do I know about it? Do you want answers Mr Chen?’
I had a lump in my throat, this was just all too weird, but I needed to know I wasn’t insane.
‘Yes. Yes I do.’
‘Then come with me.’
He led me to a car, an old Pontiac GTO and we drove for nearly an hour. Into the slums and beyond. Into the city wastes. Id never been here before. He pulled up outside a building and led me inside. It was some club of some sort, loud music, and bright lights, full of people. People? These weren’t people! I don’t know what they were some looked normal, some… inhuman.
‘’I smell human” Bellowed a loud guy, he had no body hair and must have been about 7 foot tall. He had holes in his face were there shouldn’t have been holes. He walked up to me and grabbed me by the throat, lifted me straight off the ground with one arm. Devlin pulled out a staff and cracked his skull in half with it. Then two… vampires started to approach. I bent over clutching my neck coughing, and when I looked up Devlin had cut their heads off with two enormous blades now protruding out of either end of the staff.
‘The human is with me!’ Devlin shouted.
‘You hold no authority here dark one, your just like the rest of us,’ said a large worm like creature.
‘Wrong, I could gut this whole room before you could finish blinking Shara, want me to demonstrate?’ Replied Devlin.
‘N…No Shandin, you don’t have to show your power here but know this, there are a lot of demons in this city, and you can’t kill us all. You’ll wind up dead before too long.’
‘Kill you all? That’s a good idea,’ Devlin starred at the creature for a moment before helping me up.
I hadn’t noticed the music had stopped and everyone was staring at us. Devlin lead me to the bar and ordered two drinks. I was shaking profusely and was glad of the cool brown liquid. Whiskey.
‘You ok?’ He asked
‘What was that?’
‘Demons,’ he calmly replied whilst sipping from his glass.
‘WHAT!?’
‘You saw it with your own eyes. Demons.”
‘Demons?’
‘Yes demons. The stuff of legend or nightmares right? You always knew there wasn’t something right with the world and this is it.”
‘Demons?’
‘Yes, demons! Look I know this is a shock to you, but you wanted to know. You kind of knew anyway. I saw it in your eyes in Dodge.’
‘What are you doing here? What do you want?’
‘As I said before your help. Nothing more. I had to leave Dodge due to… circumstances. Now I need your help in this city.’
‘Like what?’
‘Information and somewhere to lay low for a while, us demons can’t exactly just go walking around you know’
‘I suppose. Then what? Kill me? Eat me maybe?’
‘No, not all demons are… like that. Look I will explain everything in time. First I need an ID card. You can get me one.’
‘Yes, but why should I help a… a demon? I can’t believe I just said that.’
‘Because I can help you, and I showed you the truth. I think you owe me. Did I not just end years of suffering and torture?’
‘I… look… Can we get out of here? I need some air.’
‘Sure I’ll take you home.’
I was still in shock. My world was destroyed, the bubble burst, and I was the only one who knew… I didn’t even notice we’d gotten back in the car and driven back to mine until…
‘Right, where here,’ said Devlin
I jumped.
‘Ok, erm, don’t expect me to thank you,’ I said shakily.
‘I don’t Mr Chen, see you around’
‘Devlin, call me Yin. I suppose you saved my life back there so I guess I owe you that much at least. As for the torture I don’t know what hurts most. The knowing or not knowing.’ I don’t know what drove me to say that, but I now felt a bond to this strange man next to me. Was he even a man?
‘Ok Yin. You’ll figure it out. They all do. Just remember, were not all evil blood suckers ok?’ He replied and with that drove away.
The following months following that night I saw Devlin about 7 or so times. He explained why humans don’t know so much about demons, and why we know about certain ones. He told me the story of the Los Vamperos, the hierarchy of demons and explained different types. He was a Shandin, which means shadow demon. I told him about my ancestors and the Ninjas. Maybe that’s why he came to me, there was a connection there. I helped him with various things but I haven’t seen or heard from him for a while. I know he’s out there though, and that one day we’ll meet again. The last thing he said to me was that we all have a destiny to fulfil and that mine was of great importance… My dad once said something similar, but I didn’t believe him either.
Now my world will never be the same again. Those thousand eyes are ever more apparent and now not only do I not know who they belong to, I don’t know what they belong to. Demons have been among us since mans inception, and we were as oblivious now as we were thousands of years ago. I just wish I had a time machine. I would go back to the year 2006 and tell them all that was going to happen, demon and human kind alike. Maybe I could change this world before it began branching off this way. All I know is that now, it’s too late. Although another part of me feels it’s only really just beginning and that this story isn’t over yet. Maybe I will see Devlin again, he’s a mysterious guy, doesn’t talk about his own past, only the future, I for one hope I see him again. I always have been overly curious.
Story 1 of 4: Taken from The Edge Chronicles – Paper back coming soon.
