Ch:4-500 BD(Blood light era)

It's been officially 500 years since the first and only blood light occurrence. The world has changed a lot in the past 500 years, both economically and visually, the four major cities that ruled their territories for thousands of years, have become more self-sufficient and have demarcated their territories. They have become more suspicious of their neighbors.

These cities are- Jinyoso, Jinzai, jinkako, Jinshin. out of these four, Jinyoso and jinshin have had huge political unrest between them for thousands of years, but after the floodlight occurrence, their tensions have subsided, for the past 500 years, most of the cities have learned how to support their citizens on their own and how to protect themselves from the threat that are the blood mongers.

Jinyoso city, the largest city in the world also the most developed in terms of defense against blood mongers and also in terms of technological advancements, their city management system is top of the class with equal representation of both 'Powerless' humans and humans with powers.

Faith, powerless housing colony, JInyoso city protected region

"Hey, zess come, help me out with this," asked a man standing near a huge box with 'fragile written on it'

"I have to get this delivery in by today or I'll lose my job"

zess, who was busy sleeping on top of a rusty old vehicle lifted his head and looked at the man,

"Sheesh.....Simon, you know I am not even 18 yet right, yet you make me do all this work, you know someone might sue you for child labor" Zess spoke out while keeping his eyes shielded by the sun using his right arm and putting his head back down

"Sorry, but I'm no in the mood to help you today."

"Hey...hey now I pay you for all this right, so it evens out, and besides you are free almost all the time, you don't even go to your school anymore, so what's wrong with helping an old friend out and making a few bucks...hey??"

"If you don't, I'll call up the orphanage and tell them you bunk school almost every day...now we wouldn't want that now would we????"

Zess got up immediately and looked straight at Simon, with a disgusted look on his face.

"Ok..ok I'll help you out, but how much you paying??"

"For this box, it's about 20 kilos so I say for taking it all the way to the delivery spot, about ...5 dibs, whaddya say???

"I guess that'll get me a crispy chicken sandwich down an 'Urban Shak', yeah sure"

"but, How far is this......delivery spot???"

"not far, just a few blocks south of here out by 'hazard' colony, house no. 456 I guess....no... I'm pretty sure it's 465,"

"just deliver it to the front gate, but if you get it to the house, I'll give you extra 2 dibs.....good deal right"

"yeah that's a pretty good deal....too good I would say. but I don't  care really, where are the keys, lemme take the bike."

"Nah..Nah boy not yet, they'll kill me down at the orphanage if they came to know I gave you a bike,....heh... take the bicycle, I have already attached the cart to it, but you have to load it up though.

Zess grins at Simon trying to coax him into giving him the bike, but he doesn't  budge, so he gets off the bonnet of the car and picks up his light blue jacket, and puts it on his shoulder,

Simon looked down on his watch and it read 12:13 pm,

"Zess you gotta hurry, delivery is due at 12:30 and it's already about quarter past 12, c'mon get to it boy"

"k...k I'm going" Zess spoke out as he got up on his bicycle and brought the cart near the box to load it up.

"I'll help you zess". Simon said as he helped zess pick up the box and load it on the cart.

"it's gonna be tough cycling 20 kg's though...but I know you're the man for the job" Simon stated as gave Zess a pat on the back and gently pushed him towards the seat of the bicycle.

"It's nothing.....for me that is" Zess exclaimed in a joyous and confident tone.

He started peddling and slowly but surely gained some momentum and within a span of seconds, he was off, the pedals were hard to push though, as the 20 extra kg's were really making the bicycle heavy, but Zess had always been a strong kid, he was stronger than your average high school kid, but still he was weak when it came to one on one fights.

he rode past his orphanage and the departmental store in his colony and finally reached the main gate. he showed the guard his Id, it was one for the minors up to 18 years of age, it had the info about his current address inside 'faith' and also his name, age and his guardian's phone number. "where to now Zess, making a delivery again, you should be in school right now.....when will you learn boy??" asked the guard in a polite yet concerned tone.

"I'll do what I want to, Jack, you mind your own business" Zess replied sternly.

"ok...ok man....you sure you alright??"

"yeah, I am more than fine....now let me get out....I have to go to 'Hazard'

"Zess....be careful man, it's a powered colony, after all, they won't take too kindly on a boy from the powerless 'Faith' colony snooping around in their space"

"yeah...yeah...I know...I've been to many powered societies before jack, I'll be fine"

"yeah...but I've heard weird things about Hazard, just be careful, Sister Lara and the others are waiting for you remember that, don't do anything stupid"

"why,....why are you acting like my parent Jack!!! Just open the gate."

Jack silenced up and opened the gate to let Zess out but in his mind, he felt that it's not right to let Zess go to hazard on his own, 'what was Simon thinking' he thinks to himself 'letting him go to hazard alone like that.....he can't even defend himself that well....I just hope he makes it back safely.'

As Zess got out of 'Faith' and peddled down the main road, buildings surrounded him from all sides as he rode down the road, he saw crowds of people on the sidewalks walking in a hurry, he saw many shops selling different things from smartphones to clothes, comics and stuff, it wasn't like he had never been out, in fact, he almost always was out of his colony, but, he lived in a protected zone, free from blood mongers, there were four such zones, one in each of the four prefectures, that's where most people resided but, to go to work l, like for any job, one had to go out into the unprotected zones in most cases, that's where the CDO(civilian defense organizations) operated.

These protected zones were not that large in size and covered only a fraction of the entire area of a prefecture, as these were zones where the blood mongers had never attacked ever in the history of the city, they also didn't run rampant in the unprotected zones, attacks there were more common, but the unprotected zone was also divided into 3 zones, red, green and yellow. The red zones were the most prone to attacks with the yellow zone coming second and almost close to none in the green zones. Zess always wanted to explore more of the cities but he studied in a Powerless school in the same protected zone, in the Eastern prefecture.

'if things out here are this good then what about outside.... in the actual city' he thought to himself as he always used to when he used to take walks around the protected zone.

while he was wondering about all this, he forgot about the delivery, he stopped his bike by the sidewalk, shook his head then took out his smartphone to look at the time , the moment he turned on the screen, he knew he had to rush as the virtual clock read 12:25, he just had 5 mins to deliver the package or he won't get paid, as this sunk in, he put his phone back in his pant's pocket and pedaled as quick as he could, and in about 2 minutes, he reached Hazard.

He reached the front gate, 

'if I can get it to the house, I'll get even more dibs, I should do that....heheh profit' he thought to himself as he got off his bicycle and showed the guard his Id, The guard looked at him disgusted as if he wasn't even worth letting into the colony, it was clear to zess that he didn't like him being there cause he was from a powerless colony but according to government orders, he couldn't turn him away if he had an id.

"Powerless from Faith...huh.....ok ok go in....you better not do anything fishy....Zess" said the guard looking at Zess's id.

"I won't...I assure you that" zess spoke trying to curb his natural outspoken and in-your-face tendencies.

Zess tried to remember the house number as he rode into the colony,

'456...no 465...noo I'm pretty sure it was 456' he assured himself as he pedaled further into the colony and looked at the house numbered boards to guide him, this society looked much more maintained and well equipped as compared to Faith, the houses looked almost like they were made for royalty, he couldn't even compare it to the small and congested flats in 'Faith' which also looked like they hadn't been painted for years, which was probably true.

after many turns and twists, he finally reached Block-d where flats 400-500 were, it was the block, farthest away from the gate.

he got off his bicycle and checked the time, "damm it's already 12:32...ahh I'll still try to get this in... I'm just 2 mins late I'm pretty sure the guy will understand".

He disconnected the cart from the bicycle and rolled it up to the houses, they were independent villas, unlike the 2 by 2 flats in Faith, he rolled the cart up through the driveway of 'House no: 456', he left the cart and picked up the box with all his might and brought it up to the porch and dropped it in front of the main door.

he rang the bell 'tring-tring', nobody opened the door

"your delivery for 'super assistant Robo v.23.0 is here' just sign here at the bottom'. " he shouted, but still, there was no reply.

he knocked hard on the door, he knocked about five times after which, someone opened the door.

it was a man, he opened the door about halfway, he was an adult, he had a weird scar across his face and had a rather shabby beard, his hair looked well kept though, he wasn't much taller than Zess.

"what is it...boy???" he spoke out in a rough and scratchy voice

Zess was agitated due to the almost 10 minutes that he had wasted knocking and ringing the bell, but he maintained his cool,

"Sir, it's your delivery of the Super assistant Robo v.23.0" Zess replied politely.

"Yeah, I didn't order it,....you must've got the wrong house," The man said rather confidently.

'oh!!! it must've been 465....damm i messed up' zess tried to remember.

"Sorry for the trouble sir, it must've been my fault" Zess apologized by bowing his head

"be more careful....." the man replied in an angry voice.

as zess raised his head up, he saw from between the man's fingers, what looked like the body of another man laid down with blood dripping from it.

Zess knew what he had seen but he got the courage to ask the man one last question that he now knew he should have asked in the first place.

The package said the name 'MR Mc'curty'. Zess knew he had to ask no matter what.

"So that means you are not Mr Mc'curty...right" Zess asked in a slow and trembling voice as the man was closing the door.

"No i am not but......" The man spoke out even slower, but then there was a moment of silence.

Zess felt that the man had deduced from his voice that he had seen the body, so without saying a word Zess turned around and tried to walk away....but just then the man swung open the door completely and pulled Zess into the house and locked the door.

"But he is.....heheh" the man said while keeping a good grip on Zess and holding his mouth shut and showing him the dead body of the man that Zess had seen.