RP Residue

[Eerudorc]

Underneath the alleyways and once-busy intersections of Manhattan, they walk in a horde, shambling in a group not out of coincidence nor out of deliberate planning. They are not the only horde of poor ones wandering with soulless eyes, devoid of purpose; the shuffling of other footsteps echoes far in the distance. Now-yellowed scraps of newspaper from days long past just barely flutter in the air with each brief gush of wind that the shufflers create with their trance-steps, only to come to rest again on the bile-stained linoleum, creating the illusion of life, bright and beautiful- if only briefly. In other places, it is the rats that scurry across the feet of the shuffling souls,content to drag themselves across the hordes of lost souls if only to wind up in a situation no different from where they began: on one end of a vast group of people with no nourishment in sight or smell. There is no light in this cavern, and out of the blackness of the maw, an open drawer of pain, each station a folder, come cries; some of pain and others of carnal delight. The demons will scour the tunnels, and they will hunt for their quarry, perhaps being lucky enough to catch a fox of a human kind or other.

"I'm bored. It's been at least three weeks since the last time someone got eaten, and by God, if it doesn't happen soon, I'm going to make you eat each other." A low voice drones in the dark, reverberating through the pipes and metal, giving the speaker an omnipresent aura.

"Seriously though, have any of you ever tried thinking for 20 other people and yourself? Of course you haven't; none of you can think to begin with." And then silence, silence like death, sculpted by whispers, by the moans and stagnant cries of the shufflers, children all, praying to their Master.

...once again the ground is a table with a broken leg in changing positions, never still, jostling you any direction without warning and without pattern, propelling you to the ground- sudden paralysis as death comes to cloak and carry you, silence you and 'I don't know I must've fell down, when I woke up I was gone it was cinders all around my head was full of smoke' the sight of blood spurting from an artery with what perfect 1-2 rhythm, gray, dead trees, smooth gray and a whirlingrainoffrozensmoke... and then you wake up, jerk your face from the overflown sink, and breathe. Gasping for air, you come to, and you are back in the world with the dead bodies and the blie-soaked floors and forsomereasonyourheadhurtsyoucan'tquitethinkstraightwhycan'tyouthinkatallinfactwhoareyouyoudon'treallyrememberanyways but what you know is that the Master is here and that the Master needs to be served and taken care of and thisisn'twhoyouarewhywon'tyouwakeupyoujustwokeupyoutookintheairwhycan'tyouwakeup And then you can think again.

"Seriously, have any of you ever tried to think for 20 other and yourself? Of course not, you can't even think to begin with." The boy with the green eyes chides, eyes rolling back with a defeated sigh, acknowledging the apparent futility of even trying to reason with the living corpses.

"Master."

"You folks can talk? Four months and you just now tell me you can talk? What the hell is wrong with all of you?"

"What does Master want? We serve Master. Master is...Master is..."

"Lemme guess. Master is Master."

"Yes"