The City Called the Dimensional Cross Roads - Prologue

This is only half the prologue, lol.

My name is Aiden Archer. I was born without a middle name. It's not my intention to try and offend you, but if you get offended, that's your own problem; please, don't bother me with it. I have my own problems to deal with. I've always had them, and I'll continue to have them, because that's my awful luck, because that's how my world works.

 

I’m the co-founder, co-president, and one of In Diaboli Signature, Inc.’s only two members. My partner, Reagan, and I do odd jobs. We’ll take almost any commission that piques our interest, whether it’s finding your soul, rescuing your pet dragon from cannibals, or chopping down a possessed tree �" little things like that. We actually do divorce work, too �" weird, right?

 

There’s only Reagan and I on our ‘team’ at the moment. It's hard to audition new members when all the newbies around our age in the city are too frightened to come to interviews. However, I wouldn't make the mistake of underestimating us if I were you. We compensate for our lack of numbers through a steely determination and dedication to finishing any accepted commission from our clients. If someone gets in the way, halting us from finishing our accepted case, we'll deliver whatever idiot had the balls to do it to your doorstep dead or alive, but most likely dead.

 

Our main, and only, office is located in amongst the towers and skyscrapers of Miasma City's scenic, somewhat futuristic Northeast sector in the West District. No, we don’t have an office in a fancy, gleaming steel structure. Our office is located through an attic door, past the long, rectangular bar and leather booths, through the backroom, and up a flight of old, creaky wooden stairs.

 

Miasma City is my home, in a weird, disturbing kind of way. I have a job and friends here, along with enemies, teachers, and acquaintances. I wandered through these dangerous, neon-brightened streets with a group of classmates throughout my adolescence, and continue to walk them now that I have reached young adult status. These streets are gritty and dark, literally. And the only reason I wasn’t killed traipsing through these nightmare-filled alleys was thanks to the Twirling Lion mark on mine and my classmates’ uniforms, the mark that is now tattooed on my cheek. I wasn’t born here, no, but Miasma City is a place to call home. After all, I grew up here, turning from a crying kid to … whatever the hell I am now.

 

This city is unique in an assortment of ways. It has been called the cross roads of the multiverse, reality's alpha city, and the city where all paths meet; because, no matter what time, what galaxy, what universe, or what dimension you're from, there's always a way to visit Miasma City. Sometimes your visit is accidental; most times something purposely calls you here. Getting anywhere is easy, but leaving when you need or want to is the real problem.

 

Everyone knows about the strange disappearances, the odd occurrences that supposedly happened and happen in the Bermuda Triangle. We knew that countless people, along with their boats, submarines, or planes, had disappeared in the area, never to be heard from again, that fireballs have been seen shooting through the sky, occasionally catching sails on fire. We know that UFOs sometimes surface from the depths and shoot off into space at mind-boggling, seemingly impossible speeds. None of that stopped us though. I don't think anything could have stopped us. It turns out, those vanished people entered a doorway leading directly to the most diverse society in existence �" period.

 

The city is named Miasma City, Poison Coast. In a way, Miasma City is one with the Earth �" yet, at the same time, isn't. In another way, it is a part of Earth, like how a baby inside its mother is part of her; the only difference is Earth was formed around the place destined to become the city, the coast, not the other way around. Miasma City is the darkest, ugliest part of the planet, perpetuating the chaos lurking beneath society’s serenity. Earth and Miasma City are like the ocean. The Earth is the beautiful, glistening top layer, teeming with beauty and life. But, if you dive a bit deeper, down, down into the nooks and crannies, you'll discover strange creatures, disturbing monsters living in an inky, abyssal darkness. You’ll see a place where lightless nightmares are as lively as the surface inhabitants. The marine life living on the surface never pops over for a quick social call in the seas murky depths; they know better. And the creatures of the abyss don't swim adjacent to the surface; they have absolutely no need to.

 

The relationship between Miasma City and our meaningless, predominantly-blue marble is comparable to irrationality and violence in the minds of human beings. Lurking beneath the tranquil waters of the forefronts of our minds, barely out of our field of vision, keeping itself out of view like an intelligent and patient predator, is irrationality, violence, the city. When it does break the barrier, it does it swiftly, cautiously, and silently, partially piercing the surface waters, akin to the light gray dorsal fin of a great white shark stalking its prey through the choppy waters of the sea, and then, then it will attack, ripping and rending the flesh of its quarry �" you.

 

Yes, Miasma City has a fatal attraction to it, a powerful draw that reels you in like a fish on a hook falling for the anglers’ bait. Organisms from all over this universe and the next dozen have fallen victim to the city's bait, its sensual, lethal glamor. Reagan and I felt it, the draw, too. We felt it the second we read the note in the manila envelope someone had shoved under her pillow at the orphanage. Maybe fate hid the envelope. Maybe the perpetrator was destiny. What it was, I haven’t the foggiest, but it drew us to this city like moths to a flame. I don't know what would have happened if we had ignored the note, but I can say with the utmost certainty that we would have ended up in Miasma City regardless, one way or another. I can feel it.

Here you can find any fancy-tickling pleasure, any disgusting service that the general public frowns upon. It can be found in one of the storefronts here if you're willing to look. If you're a person whose become bored with everyday normal taboos, it's not hard to find something even filthier here. But, if you’re that type of person, I’m gonna have to tell you, friend to friend, get help, psychiatry, adopt a cat for Christ’s sake, just, for the love of God and all things holy, stop raping walruses. So…, with that being said, I’ll make like an American reject and move along, move along…. A person can feel the depravity and sin taking place in this sordid pigsty before getting halfway through whatever portal, tunnel, or gateway they used as an entrance. I know I could, but, just like breathing the dense, shadowy �" in more than one way �" fog adorning the city like a poisonous scarf, you get used to it. The skyline tries to hide the gigantic, densely-packed concrete jungle's true nature with buildings and skyscrapers that looked like they were ripped right out of a DC comic book about a futuristic, alien, yet, utopian city.

 

Heed my warning, that is, if you want to live. Remember, it's wise not to fall prey to the city's illusionary warm welcoming, its fantastical and science-fictional wonder. You weren’t just “feeling things” when you felt that ill-intent, that evil on your way in. The city is doing what every good predator does; it’s lulling you into a false sense of security. It'll stalk you for as long as necessary, it's patience never waning, as it waits for the autopsy picture-perfect moment to strike, and devour you, without drawing a drop of attention. Everything you want to believe in, and everything you don't can take form here �" I warn you, it might not be what you thought, but it will always be the truth. Everything you fear, you love meet up at strip clubs together down on Club Street to party the mist-filled night away. You better watch your back though; something could be searching for you. Believe me when I say, “If something wants to find you, it will. You can't run forever, or for more than four or five days, not in this place. Whatever catches wind of you and likes what it sees, likes what it smells, it’ll hunt you down without losing a bead of sweat, only letting you live to instill your external and internal organs with suffering’s supposedly tangy taste, letting you marinate in the flavor that only knowing your death is in another’s hands brings out of your meat. To me, and a lot of others, there’s nothing more frightening than having your life controlled by another. I hear that suffering isn’t the only condiment long pig eaters enjoy; fear is also a delectable spice that’ll liven �" can you say irony �" up any meal. And, I bet you, dollars to donuts, that thing, whatever it is, chasing you, has heard the same thing. At any moment it chooses, it’ll end you.

 

Basically, what I’m trying to say, the meaning behind this long-winded, rambling monologue is, actually, a few words. It’s one sole phrase you need to remember if’n you wanna survive: “When you set foot on this city’s soil, you're not in control of your life anymore.”

 

Keep what I told you in mind. Once again, my name is Aiden Archer. Welcome to my world, Poison Coast.

Author's Note

Aiden is nineteen.