Thread: Cities of Dust (SugarPlumCoatedGun x Lotherio)

Slowly a cockroach scurried along the dirt strewn road, moving from crack to crack in the pavement, searching for sustenance. Its struggle for life uninterrupted by the cityscape that loomed overhead, in fact the city was unimportant all together to the cockroach. Nothing informed the roach it was there, no sounds of daily life, no cars rushing around to crush its life, no people. The only thing occurring naturally outside its search for food was a wind sweeping in from the once fertile lands outside the city itself. Now it only stirred the dust and debris. Then came the whining pitch of a motorcycle, this sent the cockroach up over a pile of debris into the hull of a hallowed car, back into the safety of its darkness. This action of the cockroach was similar to other bottom feeders that lived in the city. Those remnants of humanity that survived, not blessed to live but cursed to remain alive here in what was left of the city. Most of those worst off survived day to day living in the rags that they could find if they werent beat out to scavenging rights by one of the organized groups of individuals trying to rebuild a home for themselves. Those groups were little more than gangs or mobs, who used violence and worse to enforce their rights over the bottom feeders. When the whine of the motorcycle ripped through this part of the city, they too scurried into their makeshift dwellings in what remained of the buildings here some damaged, some abandoned. That whine echoed off the walls like a dying banshee. The sound went bouncing a moment or two off the architecture that remained only to be absorbed into the silence that remained of civilization. Like the dust in the wind, the motorcycle came quickly and left quickly. Most avoided it at their own peril, no one could trusty their fellow humans in this world of survival of the self. Jimmy preferred to be left alone just the same as he piloted the makeshift dirt bike past remains of cars, stripped down to their bar bones. He only slowed for rubble fallen off the buildings, to use his feet to help the bike climb and descend debris for personal safety. Today he wore his black leather jacket, but this far out from the old Westover he tended to remove the large patch with the WS logo that indicated his affiliation with the West Side Skeleton Crew. For more personnel safety, he also removed the purple threads that he wore about the jacket and pants as these were also indications of his gang. The only accessory he wore was the goggles, but this wasnt a fashion statement so much as a precaution to keep the dirt out of his eyes. Heaven forbid he gets something in his eyes no way could he trust anyone to get it out of there safely. Coming to an intersection, he skidded to a halt long enough to pull out the city map he had tucked into a pocket. It was ripped from a phone book and seemed to show ages of wear and tear despite only being taken out several months earlier. That merely showed how often he used the map. He should know the city by now, but with entire streets off limits or completely blocked, it was handy to keep on hand to find alternate routes. Locating his destination mentally on the map, he took a right and zipped off to find Target, his primary destination. The location was away from the turf lands but still within city limits, and this one was in a group of stores, with names like Staceys Prom, Staceys Bra Lingerie, Computer Rescue, Daves GameStop, Creative Memories, and Phils Gas N Go. When they had discovered this location looking through phonebooks, the hope was it was untouched by gang scavengers at the least. Maybe a personal stop for locals but nothing one of the groups had touched. There were some train tracks next to a drainage ditch a block or so away that he used for his final approach to dim the noise in case other scavenger groups were in the area and finally parked his bike under an overpass. His group had used gas can filters, a gas can strapped over the gas tank that slowly poured enough gas into the tank to keep their bikes running. Jimmy removed this and strapped it over his shoulder like a desert canteen before he left the bike and moved up to street level. The shops were a quaint location not far off from city suburbia and set up like something of a strip mall between buildings to look like a small town city center. The gas station was on the very end to allow vehicles to get to the pumps and Staceys two storefronts were deepest in, perhaps tucked away to feign some privacy for those shopping for lingerie. While he was going to scout the gas station for consumables and gas, Jimmy wanted to hit the other stores to see what he could salvage. As he came in from the street, he dropped his gas tanks and spare cans into a toppled trash receptacle before moving into the midst of the stores like a lone gunman entering a western town, the environment similar to other cities in his mind but the locale unknown. Keeping ears and eyes alert, he made his way towards the computer surplus store. Edit Added image link