Below it glows

chp 1

He had served his country, going to wars, doing operations others wouldn't dare do nor have the guts to do so. He lost many men, brothers and sisters due to the earth wars fighting over limited resources as their home planet continued to die more and more. 

A planet that once was rumored to be filled with vast forests and  clean waters and where humans could once live on Earth's lands without eco packs and masks glued to their face to filter clean air. 

Despite the Earth dying quickly, humans like a disease, cockroaches found a way to prolong their lives. Building even more cities but ones entirely of walls and filtration systems to pump filtered clean air into its halls and giant rooms. Levels were made with the rich being at the top and the poor to the bottom. 

  And still they all fought, they always were fighting and He was thrown into the fighting, a soldier, a commander, a colonel. Fighting for his country of endless mazes of filtration walls with small homes in them. All to be barely considered middle class.

He fucking hated it all. 

Quaritch breathed the filtered air from his mask as he stood outside the large doors of the city of walls he lived in. His shift was nearly over. He just had to carry on for another half hour and then he could go home, shower, put on clothes that weren't covered in toxic dust and ash and sit down with his fiancé. 

He huffed out the carbon from his lungs exhaling it out of the mask as he watched the wind pick up slinging dust and ash over the dead landscape. He could not fathom an Earth that was covered in plants and forests and even clean water, because even now as he walked the city's borders taking in the barren lands of dust and ash and the rivers of tar and slog it was an unbelievable thought. 

Paz liked keeping hologram screens around their unit playing simulations of what such a landscape would look like, having them even over their two windows that look out to the dead landscape to make it look like there was a vast forest with clean waterfalls instead. 

He wondered if she would even be home before him, her work was endless being an engineer she was always on call to fix some fucking thing. He admired her handiwork, she was one of the important workers in the cities, making sure the filtration system and environmental systems stayed on top notch standing at all times. Any time a filter leak happened she was called immediately, no matter the time of day or night. He sighed wondering what they had in storage to make a meal with, for if she wasnt there when he got home he would then shower and make them dinner. 

The thought of powdered meat and sustainable greens didn't appeal to his stomach not one bit, it brought back more anger. The upper classes actually enjoy the real shit. 

Real meat, real fresh greens and fruit. They got to eat meals he couldn't even imagine and it pissed him off. 

He should be able to buy real fucking food for himself and his fiancé. He should be able to enjoy basic fucking needs, why did those pansy bastards get too? He would love to see one of them suited up in protective suits, a mask glued to their face and trudge around in the hot dusty atmosphere their ancestors caused by sweating their balls off and coming home to eat powdered sustainable food. 

His ecopack beeped its warnings of needing cleaning and he forced a low growl before turning and walking back to the large doors slamming his keycard against its security panel allowing him into the sanitary station. He stood still as it sprayed off the toxic ash and dust from his body and vacuumed it out by exit shoots before allowing him to the next room where he could strip off the protective suit and gear. Sweat sheened on his skin as it was exposed to the cool filtered oxygen of the city. He breathed, feeling his lungs greedily accept the cooler 'cleaner' air as he watched his recruited replacements take their shifts leaving through the doors to the shitty atmosphere outside. He watched the doors open and close a dust storm brewing behind them.