DELTA

He shivers as he runs. It is cold, freezing but he doesn’t know whether it’s the cold or the fear of what’s coming behind him that makes him shiver. Trees everywhere, he keeps running, they keep running, there are six of them. They wear just shorts, nothing else, nothing even on their feet and they run, hearts pounding, terrified little children, the eldest of them barely seven years old, they run for their lives. Tearing through the forest after them are the men wearing black, the men wearing black have dogs, big savage hounds on the trail of six frightened children. He trips and falls, the others continue, he is alone. Within seconds a savage dog bears down on him ready to tear him apart, its handler too far back to try to stop it, the animal too crazed with bloodlust to be denied its prize. The dog angles its head in attack, mouth wide open, ready to tear the throat from its prey when a flash from the side blasts it from its feet and sends it hurtling towards a tree. The boy hears a sickening crunch and the animal is dead, he looks up to see one of the other children standing over him, the child stretches out a hand and he grabs it. On the inside of the child’s arm he sees a mark, Ω The mark is the last thing he sees.

His eyes open, he’s not sure if he was woken by his dream or from the cold, he’s not sure if he even feels the cold. He pulls a couple of threadbare blankets around him trying to warm up a bit. The dream races through his mind, a fragment of his past? He thinks so but can’t be entirely sure. He’s been living here now for about six months; ‘Below’ they call it, the rest of life’s discarded populous, the dregs of society. ‘Below’ is a city beneath a city, a living breathing underbelly of a world that chooses to ignore instead of assist, forget instead of acknowledge. He woke up here one morning, as the children were in his dream, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, nothing even on his feet. The cold and hunger quickly turning him into a thief, he found it easy, he was good at it. He had survived on his wits the past six months without any problem, the others left him alone, they seemed to sense that it was the safest thing to do. At first glance he was by no means extraordinary, he looked about seventeen years old, although his eyes perhaps told a different story. He was average height, average weight, dark hair, he looked healthy, in fact if he was cleaned up a bit he would probably fit in above ground with the privileged. What set him apart from the rest of the people Below was indeterminable, they just stayed away from him, maybe instinct for survival told them it was the safest option.

Today he decided he would go up to the city, he had seen all there was to see of this place, he had a desire to see for himself the place that he overheard the others describe, he felt a need to test himself, to challenge, to hunt. He felt an affinity with the people in this place, as if they were something like him, he didn’t want to take from them anymore. From what he heard those who lived above had plenty, it was time to take from them.

He walked the streets in his rags; the people of the city just ignored him, walked around him; looked straight through him. A couple of times he would make a sudden move towards them, he didn’t know why, instinct? He could sense their fear all around him, it made him feel powerful; it felt good. He tackled the problem of hunger first; he just walked into a Diner, ordered, ate and left. The staff just thought it better to leave him be, had the owner been there it would have been a different story. He had known that he should pay, he didn’t know how he knew because nothing like this existed in his memory; his brain just told him that he was doing the wrong thing.  When he left the Diner he walked around a bit more, taking everything in, nothing seemed to surprise him while at the same time it all felt as if it was a new experience. He decided he needed proper clothes; he knew exactly what he wanted, Cargo pants, boots, etc. He walked the streets until he found an Army Surplus store; he seemed to know exactly where to go. He put on the clothes as he found them in the store, stripping naked at one stage and noticing the mark on the inside of his arm Δ. Taking everything he needed and leaving his old clothes on the floor. He then approached the clerk who, off the top of his head came up with a price; “Call it a hundred.” He said; he just wanted him gone.

“I’ll take that knife.” He pointed to a black carbon fixed blade knife and leg holster on display under the glass counter.

“One fifty then, I’ll give you the knife when you pay me.” He tried to sound tough but it didn’t work.

“I don’t have money.” As he said it he just put his fist through the tempered glass and took the knife, he pulled up the leg of his newly acquired black pants and fixed the holster above his ankle as the clerk just stood back in shock. As he walked to the door he stopped and looked at himself in the mirror, he was dressed completely in black, an image flashed across his mind accompanied by a searing headache. He put his hand to his head and dropped to one knee. The image was of the men in black who chased him through his dreams. The headache only lasted a couple of seconds; he got to his feet again and went to leave.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the clerk had plucked up some courage and stood behind the counter with a gun pointed at his head. In a split second he sprang through the air like a cat and flattened the clerk. He took the gun and crushed it with his bare hands then walked back to the door,

“I'm going to find out who I am.”