Blackout

This is Part 1 of this story – others will follow! I’ve also written two other stories, one a Firefly-universe retelling of the story of Jesse James called ‘The Ballad of Leroy Cobb’ and the other called ‘the Valley’ – the story of Kial Burrick, a young man coming to terms with himself, his identity and his purpose living on land in Serenity Valley, before, during and after the war; and I hope to clean them up and post them soon! I must admit I have only glanced at the Serenity Novelisation, so if there are any contradictions I apologise. Also, I’m a criminology student so I’m constantly looking at the really ugly side of humanity, and it’s been pointed out to me that I am not particularly shocked by ideas of terrorism, drug addiction, human trafficking, organ harvesting, prostitution, rape and murder. Sorry if you is…prolly shouldn’t read anything I write.

Oh, and Synth is a drug, also called Blood, Snot or Crimson. Think of it as modern day ice (meth)

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Part 1

A looming City stands to the East: a wall of buildings standing as an impenetrable fortress keeping those toward the sea from those beyond, the sky a lid of altostratus shaped with the cool peaks and billows, a box that defines the sea from the city. No other definitions were important, not day or night, certainly not the translucent gravity which was violated repeatedly not just by the thousands of Skybuses and Polairs and even the inexhaustible cascade of spaceships spilling from the sky, but the buildings, grasping hands, anthills, featureless cubes sparkling the darkness of the night.

When it rains it pours, this urban abyss of neon-on-metal, walls of concrete dotted with grates of steel and snaking fire escapes rusted and worn. Water streaks in serpentine smears down the building faces, grey soaked black. The ground is slicked and white from the street lamps burning bright in the dark night storm. Thunder echoes to the South, deep and unseen, water on the road surface a constant finger-light tattoo multiplied to deafeni