On a cold winter morning, two people were making their way through the black slush that drowned a rundown street, piling high near the dirty walls of the cheap panel buildings that clung to each other, as if for warmth. The loud sound of their steps echoed in the dim twilight, making it seem as if a monster was chewing on rotten flesh.
Nephis glanced at the dirt covering her expensive boots, then smelled the air and grimaced. Adjusting the collar of her white coat, she then glanced at Sunny and asked:
"Why are we here, exactly?"
He shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged.
"Weren't you told to submerge yourself into how mundane humans live? Well, here we are. This is life, too."
He gestured at the ugly landscape that surrounded them and sighed.
After several years... Sunny was back in the outskirts.
'Brings back memories…'
In the aftermath of the collapse of old humanity, ravages of war and natural cataclysms made most of the planet uninhabitable. To exist in relative safety, people had to congregate in large cities like the one he had grown up in… the Northern Quadrant Siege Capital. Everywhere else was either drowned underwater or looked like a desert.
Of course, life persisted. Some trees and plants were still clinging to life. Large mammals mostly went extinct, but a few species of animals and insects had managed to adapt. However, the damage to most ecosystems was too severe. The earth turned barren, the water turned poisonous, and even the air itself was not safe to breathe anymore.
Luckily, humans had technology to help them survive. The city incorporated sophisticated water filtration systems, food distribution infrastructure and other means of keeping the population alive. It was surrounded by tall barrier walls that prevented excessive microdust, various toxins, stray remnants of weaponized bacteria, harmful radiation, and other hazards from getting into the air supply.
Sunny did not know much about how the barriers worked, but they were sufficiently effective in keeping the city in a bubble of breathable air. Of course, each district also possessed its own additional means of purifying the air even further.
The problem, however… was that the barriers were stationary, while the city was not. The human population across the planet had dropped, but here in NQSC, it was slowly growing. As a result, the city grew, too. It stretched further and further, both into the sky and underground. Of course, it also sprawled horizontally. Eventually, the city had outgrown the circle of barriers.
Hence, the outskirts appeared.
Although there were new barrier walls in construction, their completion required vast amounts of funding, human resources, and even more time. The colossal, skeletal frames of the barriers had loomed above the outskirts for as long as Sunny could remember, unfinished. With what he knew now, he doubted that they would ever be completed at all.
In any case, whole generations of people like him had already lived and died outside their protection. The air in the outskirts might not have been as bad as in the desolate wilderness beyond, but it was far from safe. Those who breathed it every day did not tend to enjoy good health or long lives.
It reeked.
Breathing in the familiar stench, Sunny struggled not to follow Neph's example and grimace. He had been accustomed to the smell for most of his life and never paid it much attention, but just a few years of sweet life in the Dream Realm and in the better parts of the city made it seem rather intense.
'What's the big deal… it's not that bad in winter, anyway…'
Just like the air, all other facets of life in the outskirts were barely suited for human life, as well. The buildings were straining to keep themselves together, clean water was scarce, most food came in the form of synthpaste rations provided by the government. Everything was dirty, worn out, and on the verge of collapse. The infrastructure barely functioned.
Theoretically, there was supposed to be a working transportation system with connections to the rest of the city, but in practice, it broke down and malfunctioned so often that getting anywhere with its help was hard. That was the reason why Sunny and Nephis were currently on foot.
He did not regret this turn of events, however, because that gave them the chance to get a good look at people who lived in the outskirts. Just like the slums themselves, the inhabitants looked decrepit. They were all frail, thin, and with unhealthy skin. The most striking difference was their height.
People who lived in the outskirts were much shorter than those who lived in the inner city, mostly due to malnourishment and sickness.
In short, they all looked similar to how Sunny had been before the First Nightmare.
Looking at them now, he couldn't help but think of his past. Only three years and a few months ago, he had left this place, thinking that he would never return. But Sunny was already a very different person. He saw the familiar sights differently, too.
'This is so strange…'
Sunny had always thought of himself as someone from the outskirts, but now, after traveling through several regions of the Dream Realm and building a life for himself in the city, Sunny suddenly understood that the outskirts were not a monolithic place.
They were actually vast and encompassed numerous different areas. He had only ever known and explored a small part of them. The only world he had known for most of his life was even smaller than he had thought.
How could it not be so? Sunny had never considered such things, but after his last conversation with Master Jet, he realized the true scope of it all. From what she had told him, there were somewhere between sixty and seventy million people living in the outskirts.
Twenty percent of the total population of the city existed in these unpleasant conditions, barely surviving as they were slowly ground to dust.
If the mass evacuation from Antarctica succeeded, that number was going to grow even further.
The outskirts… were much greater than Sunny had ever thought. More than that, every city that remained on Earth had its own version of them, even if the excess population of NQSC was by far the largest.
Thinking about all the struggle, misery, and desperate hope that surrounded him, Sunny sighed. People were people. Even in this pit, they found ways to adapt and find moments of happiness. They never lost their motivation to live and seek purpose. It's just that those moments were rare, and their lives were usually on the shorter side.
His family had not been unhappy, until it was destroyed. People more lucky than him could have a semblance of a decent life even in the outskirts, although their chances were slim.
Nephis grew silent, observing the inhabitants of the outskirts with her usual distant expression. However, there was a hint of emotion hiding deep in her eyes.
After a while, she turned to Sunny and asked:
"Are we here to just walk around?"
He looked forward, then shook his head.
"No. We came here for a reason…"