Stereo Blast Volume 1 [MxM]

Chapter 2.4

Tike’s voice echoed in Ryan’s head, following him down and dark and cold streets of the district. He edged closer to the border, close enough that he could be pulled back by police if he was seen. He stayed in the shadows as much as he could, avoiding the lights which seemed to be everywhere he looked. The pink and blue lights, some purple and green, made the city feel more special that it was. It was a floating mass of trash in a body of water next to all the other districts. Even if he’d never left Mason, never saw the rest of the world, he couldn’t believe this was the best there could be in the world. Nio was a promise no one was ever going to see and the Neutral Zone was a gated community that was full of inbred feds up to their knees in civilian blood.

The government was corrupt as it always had been. But outside this shitty country, he could sense a better world out there. It wouldn’t be for just him. It would be for Taylor, Logan, and all those that were pushed into a box because it suited those with the power. They would do anything to keep what they had, to keep the minority on a leash, even if it meant a mass g******e.

That’s what happened in Nitro. No one talked about it anymore. The government won’t even acknowledge it when they give screenings at the available television centers. For the first couple of years, he thought his memories were the problem. Perhaps he remembered things differently because of how f****d up his parents were. Maybe he was the product of such mental abuse that it had twisted his mind.

It would explain other things. It would explain why he was who he was.

That was only the simpler option. It was a way out for him to pretend there wasn’t all bad in the world or in Mason. The truth was worse though.

The fires had been started by the Eastcliffs. They were a means for them to escape the Wolves and retreat back to their havens. The government had been called in to disrupt the ongoing fire exchange between the Eastcliffs and the Wolves, to stop them from breaking into a full-on war between the two districts. They put out the fires, stopped the fighting as they had said they would.

But Nitro District was seen as a retaliating force. The Eastcliffs, civilians, and anyone in range were subject to the Mason military.

Everyone, including children, were ordered to be terminated.

These streets, every single one of them, were caked in blood. From before the Rising, before there was a Mason, and now as he raced towards his future. There was never a moment in his short life where he wasn’t followed by the rivers of red. Every instant there was a bleeding wound and there was a reminder where he’d come from.

Huddled in the filthy bathtub, he’d heard his mother gunned down outside their shack of a house. They didn’t bother to look inside. They didn’t care if one slipped through their fingers. They cared about killing the most in the shortest amount of time because taking lives was just another thing they had to do.

The time between his mother’s scream and the silence following the feds’ voices, was an eternity. He was crippled by his own fear, his hands shaking and his face wet with tears. The dress he wore, caked in dirt and his own blood by the hands of his father, burned into his memory. The flowered print was ugly. He hated it.

He hated it more for what it represented. It was an item of fear and weakness.

He’d stared down at that dress for hours. His mind had been shot, a blank slate, with nothing but the daunting thought that they might be coming back for him. As the hours went by, he waiting for the silence to be broken. It never did.

There was a part of him that never broke away from that night. It was stuck on replay and it would come back to him when he least expected it to. He found his mother face down in front of their house. She’d been shot in the back and kicked down the stairs. Her shirt had been torn apart carelessly. Two more shots. Both in her head.

They might have stayed longer if she were pretty. They might have done anything to her if she hadn’t f****d up her body with meth and whatever was available on the street.

His dad never came back. And alone in that house, he waited for death to come take him.

He wonders now if he should have died along with everyone else. Things would have been easier. He could have died with nothing tying him to this world, with nothing that would make him want to stay. Taylor might have been a blessing, but he was also a curse upon his soul. By showing him better, he’d become addicted to the idea of it. There was something better than this.

Ryan stopped. He was at the very edge of the two districts. In front of him, the river that separated almost half of the land was blocked off by two large railings. He grabbed it firmly with both hands and leaned out.

The large river was miles wide. There was only one bridge that connected the districts and it was here, where he stood.

He saw them. A group of fifteen to twenty were cut into two groups. He recognized the colors of their jackets, glowing in the city lights. Blue and pink, the Wolves. Green, the Eastcliffs. They stood opposite one another in a range that looked like two sides of a war. Ryan took in a deep breath, his hands tightening around the railing. The metal had eroded over time and the chips in the coating bit into his palms. He couldn’t look away from the scene.

He’d been too late.