Souls of Naradan

Prologue

As dark clouds clashed together thunder was produced, causing the skies to growl out indifferently at the wasted city below. A city ruled by the pure and untainted; humans. They were petty creatures who feared the unknown and anything they considered strange. They would even shun their own kind that possessed the least bit of difference if their exterior showed enough of it. But even nowadays, those who appeared normal and possessed a ‘freak’s gift’ or ‘demon magic’ were considered outsiders; trash of the world, a major eyesore.

The ‘Freaks’ were hunted, and when figured out, humans would report them and the men in uniform would come to exterminate or take them away. This was something every mutated reject in society looked out for. The government which presented themselves with the Golden Lion was their enemy. Many took to hiding from it because they thought nothing could be done to fight against it. The Lion was law and it could not be controlled or changed. Much like now, with the rain beginning to fall. No one could stop the polluted droplets leaking from dark clouds. Bodies ran across the streets to shelter themselves from the falling taint that licked the oily surface of filthy avenues.

Withering posters were stapled messily on vandalized bulletin walls. Its wet pages fluttered with the smoggy breeze created by cars and buses. The bold letters in dark weeping ink cried out, ‘Get rid of freaks to clean the streets!’ which was the world logo more or less even in crippled towns like Malahs. Corrupted with drugs, damaged welfare, and lack of law enforcement it wasn’t safe for even the taint to hide. A freak was capable of being spotted out where even the pure looked like walking oddities amongst the fog and filth. Watchers were always on the lookout; they were the Lion’s eyes and ears, and like vultures they looked on, through wind, rain and snow.

Still, all this did not prevent the cursed to live life. They lived it within the shadows and behind costumes that hid their deformities. They worked among humans, ate with them, some even spoke with them but only when it dealt with shady business such as paid sex or illegal drugs to name the basics… but those that lived by hiding and living as a human were the illegal ones.

There were others that lived as slaves or pets to a human master. When a human walked with an oddity the automatic title of “Owner” or “Master” was stamped at first glance. In the higher societies it was frowned upon more so than in this wasteland. It wasn’t strange in Malahs to see a human taking some bizarre looking thing to subways, restaurants, clubs, or work with collar and leash. In a hell like this it was beneficial to own a freak with some kind of skill. They could be used for business to fill starved pockets with cash, or even used as a bodyguard to keep away thieves; but even so there were those that opposed this and tried to convert owners to giving up their pets. Usually haters approached the freak’s owner and harassed them to showing legal documentations, or end up bragging about a new possible law that freaks won’t be allowed in certain local departments, or transportation methods. Those that tried to convert insisted that it was best to simply give up the cursed being to the labs, where the government would sometimes even pay you if the specimen was a rarity. The Golden Lion desperately wanted to rid the demons that plagued the streets… some more than others.