Game Over

Chapter 1

"Living In Hell On Earth"
January 1st, Monday

When most people talk about their cities they don't often mention the negatives. It is where they live after all and they could move if they wished. Yet when Oskar discusses his home city of Lincoln all he can mention is how they should never visit. The daunting, cold, mountainous grey walls pushed the city inwards and created shadows down onto the streets, forcing the people to expand upwards, or downwards. The lower you went the poorer and more devastating the homes became. Whole labyrinths of streets were spiraling underground, and vehicles and other noises made the city rumble as if the city was built atop a starving tiger. The underground was only meant for the poor. It was a constant mess of bodies laying on the ground and the pop of guns were acting as mere annoyances to the people who resided there. Drugs were being handed out like the flu during winter. To enter the hell hole you had to go through some odd portal looking thing as it beeped into your ears whenever you had any tiny chunk of metal on you. It was supposed to prevent guns and weapons making it into Old Lincoln but it somehow never stopped their entrance. Once you were there it was like you were trying to escape the Nine circles of hell and you started in 'Treachery'. You were nothing more than a duck frozen inside a pond. That doesn't mean the dark couldn't catch a glimpse of the brilliant sunlight seeping through the Earth itself. They say that high up, above the clouds, is where the important people sit. The celebrities and politicians who occasionally visit just to throw a few logs into the fire of hatred that boil down there. There were even rumors of the big wigs having small glass rectangular prisms that could be used to talk with anyone, anywhere. There were even rumors of large boxes that could show the world what we could only hear like a radio and a comic had some weird love child. Yet those technologies never appeared down here. Even if they did the owner of such a device vanished like frost on a cold fall morning. Oskar was the only one who knew what happened above land.

There were very few schools in Old Lincoln. There was one elementary school, one middle school, and two high schools. One for the delinquents and the other for the... Well, lesser delinquents. Oskar has never attended any of the highschools. Every year a professor would travel to Lesser Lincoln and pick five students with the highest marks, or the most promising. Oskar was not only the top of his class but also sparked some weird connection with the man and immediately became his understudy. Oskar is one of the very few people who get to leave Old Lincoln, other than the guard. But he has a curfew, he is only allowed to be outside of Old Lincoln from 9 am to 5 pm. No earlier and no later. As Oskar would say the above land was "An Overrated Landfill Of Uptight Nobodies Dreaming To Be Somebody." This was partly true. There were large palette shaped platforms that lead to larger and fancier homes, giving the poorer citizens a cloudy and dark place to live. Yet when the streets and roads spiraled upwards towards the taller and more fantastic buildings the platforms grew smaller and smaller. Once you made it to the top you couldn't even see the bottom of the city, the air was freezing and oxygen was practically nonexistent.

There are some very straightforward rules here, Don't snitch, Don't get caught, Don't look guilty, Don't draw any attention to yourself, Don't fuck with someone who could ruin your life, and Don't show emotions. Emotions meant you were weak, and the weak got hung up from the street lamps. Too bad Oskar broke every single one of those damn rules. Except one, and it was the biggest one. Don't mess with technology. Oskar never even thought about owning one is those rectangles or As the young man listened to the gunshots and watched the dark cloud of smoke cloud his roof his brain began to stir. What if he could fix everything he has ruined. He had no friends down here, he was the black sheep. Literally. He didn't look anything like the people down here. He was tall and lanky compared to the short and stout locals, he almost looked as if he was a skeleton with thin white skin draped on his bones. He has raven black hair that was darker than the night itself. Most residents had a sickly grey or muddy brown. There was also Oskar's eyes which were ironically innocent and childlike, but the strikes of pain and the unforgettable redness that engulfed his skin and the dark bags under his eyes ruined that facade. He looked as if this twenty-three-year-old man was crying since birth. Most dwellers had large brown eyes that were warm like a freshly made meal. The only similarity he had was those odd people was the cruel white of his skin and the soft pink that brightened his cheeks, knees, nose, and elbows, that made him look even sicker than he already did. Faint bruises dappled his knees and elbows from the constant thrusting he has to do when running from those he has angered.

Oskar slowly brought the long white cylinder up to his lips as he began to inhale, his lungs getting filled with a thick cloud of death ask his throat begins to scratch and ache with pain and he begins to cough heavily. Yet he doesn't rise from his bed. He stays still as small, clean, holes begin to protrude through his wall, followed by a small thing of metal falling against his floor. Then a loud bang that made his headache and spin but he just stayed silent as smoke began to spiral out from his nostrils. Getting shot at was fairly normal for his day to day life. With a shaky breath he took a final drag of his cigarette and placed it on the sheets of his bed, which was calmly resting on the floor. The scent of smoke immediately engraved his nostrils as the thin cotton vanished into smithereens. It's not like he needed the small warmth the sheets gave him. The underground was dark, damp, and humid. You were never cold down here and in the summer it was even worse. It wasn't even the fact that it was underground. It was mostly because of all the factories, smoke, and the millions of people crammed into one small location with very few vents leading out into the world. They were all in a sauna and stuck there forever. Once the gunshots slowed Oskar began to move at the pace of a freshman walking through the halls. He slowly glided off his bed and lazily pulled on his Jean's and an oversized button up shirt. With about as much excitement as a funeral he tucked his shirt into his pants and pulled a beanie to hide his rats nest called hair. His apartment was a mess. Smoke stained the roof and there were plenty of unknown substances splattered against his wall. He assumed blood but wouldn't be surprised if it was something else. There were gunshot holes that made his walls look like swiss cheese and an abundance of clothes that replaced his worn out carpet. There was a small floor to ceiling mirror in the corner of the room and that was about it. He didn't really have a kitchen or bathroom, mainly because he was on the scummy side of town and the other tenants just basically lived at work. Oskar stared at himself in the mirror, pulling at the dark bags under his eyes and grunting. Today would be the first day he went outside since the accident. And of course it had to be a Monday.

"New year new me... if it is even new years" Oskar softly muttered to himself. He really hadn't been paying attention and just took an educated guess since, for once, the popping outside his grey home was fireworks and not guns. As he pushed through his thin plywood door he was immediately met by two dark holes and a long barrel.