The Underground

Chapter 2: What Do You Mean There's A 4th Wall?

"Mishallin! Jackal!" Ugh... Why the old man insists on using our full names I'll never know, we both hate them. "Glad you could finally join us. Come, have a seat!"

Old Man Decher beckons me and Lin to where he sits on an old, hole-ridden carpet occupied by him and 3 others. Lin and I sit and close the partial circle the others had formed. At the center burns a wax candle, a rare commodity in any Omega city, much less Half-Life. The carpet too, ratty as it is. Decher always seems to have these things and nobody knows where he gets them, but nobody questions it either. All of us have benefited from Decher's generosity at one point or another.

"'Sup, Lin?" Taj flashes Lin an overbearing smile, which she rolls her eyes at, like always. Taj is the only other young member of our group; the others, Decher and Jonsel and Yorgen, have a combined age that's probably enough to rival the age of our underground society. Ages don't matter to Omega, nobody has a way of counting time so we don't bother with it.

Yet time seems to be a pressing matter to everybody here.

"Is everybody here yet?" croaks out Jonsel, a senile old lady who we all love.

"All here, Jonsie, you old hag." This response comes from Yorgen, who seems irritable but is actually very caring and makes fun of everybody jokingly. He calls me "the narrator", for obvious reasons.

"Damn right, it's obvious," Decher snaps at me. "Now quit your yapping, we've got things to do."

"Sorry," I mumble out. I look over and Lin is laughing at me, so I nudge her hard enough to make her bump into Yorgen on her left. I give him an apologetic glance then focus my attention on Decher, clearing my throat.

"Thank you, finally. Now, as you all know, today is the most important day in any of our lives."

"Only some of ours," Jonsel interjects. "Somebody deemed us old people not fit to go."

"Believe me, Jonsel. It's more important for you than you know."

"Why is it so important? I thought we were just going thrill seeking. Going to check out what it's actually like up top." I mean, what else would we be doing?

"Jack will you stop ruining the fun?" Lin is almost yelling at me; apparently I do this a lot. Under her breath she mumbles, "Hell yeah, you do."

"Knock it off lovebirds, this is serious." Decher is staring at us. Lin looks furious, so does Taj. Everybody thinks that Lin and I are in love. We aren't though. Well, she's not.

That earns me a punch in the arm from her and a menacing stare from Taj.

"Back on topic," Decher announces. "You three." He points at Lin, Taj, and I. "Gather your things while we finish the detail work. We can't get anything done with you here, all your youthful nonsense. Pack light, you won't want to carry a lot of weight with the climbing you'll be doing. Get going."

I stand up and offer Lin a hand, which she unsurprisingly doesn't take. I turn and offer that hand to Taj, but I get the same response. Shrugging, I walk out through the decaying excuse of a door and begin my way home to retrieve the pack I've been keeping ready for the past few weeks.