"Hm... enough of this misery. I need a barber," Deon muttered, slouched on a public bench with his elbows on his knees and his fingers tangled in his own hair.
The city moved around him in a restless blur. Commuters hurried past in tightly packed streams, their footsteps sharp against the pavement, their voices rising and fading beneath the morning hum of traffic. The air carried the usual faint stink of exhaust and damp stone.
"I have two days before orientation. And I have zero leads... this cannot stand," he continued, his anxiety and tension growing.
"Sorry, didn't mean to eavesdrop, but I heard your concern... you need a barber, right?" a voice broke through.
"I do, yes," Deon replied, glancing at the man beside him.
The man beside him looked disturbingly familiar in the most unfortunate way — same rough state, same scraggly look, same air of someone who had been dragged through the gutter and left there for a while. At a glance, they could have passed for brothers. Deon knew at once that the shared the same misfortune. His plight was understood. And there was indeed some solace in that.
"Follow me," suggested the shady man, whose filthy, crooked clothes and filthy, crooked hair mirrored Deon's almost exactly. The only difference was the beard on his face, though it only made him look worse, growing in unevenly and horribly patchy. "Truth be told, I wasn't expecting to find another brother in nearly the same plight as mine today," the disheveled man continued.
Deon quietly and nervously followed. Together they moved through the morning crowd like two escaped vagrants, shoulders slightly hunched, eyes darting across the street as though the city itself might recognize them and laugh. The two of them looked like a pair of bootleggers ready to peddle their wares, with shifty glances and shady gaits they traversed uneasily across the busy city streets on that fine morning.
"Wait... excuse me, you too?" Deon asked softly, almost whispering in his best attempt to draw least attention possible. Embarrassed to be seen, and afraid of being recognized.
"Yes, me too," the stranger answered. His voice carried the same awkward rhythm as Deon's, Embarrassment and fear sat heavy on both of their faces. "Forgive me, however, if I don't introduce myself. Given the circumstances, we're sure to run into each other at the academy anyway. Better not to know who's who."
Deon gave a short, relieved nod. "Yes. Fellow compatriot of circumstance, that shall be wise," he said, grateful for the man's discretion but also in his generosity in helping him out of his ailment. "Much thanking."
"No need. Just... if in the future you ever see an aspiring or new hunter in need, pay it forward."
"Hm. An idealist. The feeling is mutually shared, brother!" Deon replied.
The rest of the journey was rather silent. The man seemed to guide Deon back into the slum he had left sobbing and desperate. The only difference was the bright, unyielding wash of the morning. Everything was as grey as could be — all concrete and metal, with only the rare and occasional splash of paint or decoration, aside from the billboards, of course. Color was rare in Vrath, even in the more privileged sections of the city, so it was natural that the less fortunate areas would be downright desolate.
All the life and light that the slums had during the night when Deon was last there had been bleached by the white light of day. With each block, the city seemed to shed another layer of refinement. The sidewalks grew narrower, the pavement more cracked, the paint on the shopfronts older and peeling at the edges. Bright advertisements and tidy glass windows gave way to crooked signs, iron shutters, and storefronts crowded too close together. The area was downright dead.
But while it was nothing like the last time Deon had been there, the slums still showed signs of life. Laundry lines stretched between balconies overhead, swaying gently in the warm air.
The sounds changed too: fewer car horns, more distant shouting, more clattering metal, more life lived openly and a little roughly. Though no longer bustling, a few kids occasionally ran about, housewives were busy with chores and errands, and a few men sat around gambling with cards, some slouched and drunk.
At last, the stranger slowed beside a crooked little lane wedged between a tailor's stall and a repair shop with a flickering sign. Tucked into the narrow space was a shopfront that looked as if it had survived several decades out of sheer stubbornness. The sign above the door read:
**PROFFESSIONAL LOOKS MAXER**
The letters were bold, slightly faded, and just a little too proud of themselves. The window was dusty at the corners. As for the inside... it was exactly as one might have pictured: mirrors, some of them cracked, and chairs that surely had once been new and comfortable, long ago. The rest was filled with contraptions of all kinds. Nothing looked proper, from the scissors, Combs, Clippers to the bottles of unknown liquids. Metal devices with unexplained attachments. Many a few contraptions sat in the corners with the quiet menace of things designed by someone who no longer believed in mercy.
The shop he had entered had a distinct layout. First was the room he stepped into: a simple rectangular space, with the waiting lounge to the right against the wall and, to the left, what seemed to be the section where the shop could take three customers at a time. Or so it would seem — there was only one guy in the shop. But the true horror lay beyond, for there was a division in the rectangular space. Right across from where the "standard" area ended was something like a torture chamber.
The torture chamber had a bathtub, and attached to its end was what looked like a motor — the kind you would see on a motorboat. Except this one was grey, with thin aluminum sheets nailed and drilled onto it with no finishing whatsoever, along with a great many other unidentifiable contraptions.
"Hey, Max," he said. "Long time"
"Oh hey, You look unrecognizable" Replied the store keeper.
*Slam.*
Deon exited as soon as he entered, dragging the stranger out along with him. He was panting and gasping for air—not because he was tired, but because he was afraid.
"The hell, man!" Deon yelled, grabbing the stranger by the collar. His legs bent as Deon towered over him. "We were supposed to go see a fucking barber to get our mess fixed, and you brought me here to sell me off to that pervert!"
"But he is a barber! He's a great barber! Fact: he's the only barber with hunter clientele," the stranger replied.
"Barber?! He's a pervert! Have you seen the shop?"
"Trust me, he can fix us."
"That guy can't fix shit! He can't even fix himself! He looks like a fucking Oompa-Loompa who took the dark side, except somehow even more unhinged and crazy!"
"Relax. He's not a pervert. He's just a normal-ass dude with a peculiarity."
"That's called being a sexual deviant! And that's a disorder!"
*Cliiiieeeq.*
The cold, thin air rushed out of the shop as the door behind them swung open. Deon froze instantly.
"I'm so sorry for this," the stranger said, freeing himself from Deon's grip.
"Oh, it's quite alright. That's always their first reaction when coming here and meeting me," the man replied. "Besides, by the time I'm done with him… he'll understand just exactly how I am so loved by so many."
He continued, slipping his hands across Deon's torso—slow, cold crawls like a snake's.
"Haaah—let go of me, fiend!" Deon whispered in fear, trembling as the man's hands violated him. Shivering and frothing at the mouth, Deon passed out. The fear was too much for his brain to handle.
To Be Continued==>