Ethan gulps down a glass of ice-cold water along with the pill Amber had given him. She held onto his limp swollen shoulder with both her hands while Ethan sat upright in the med bay.

“Does popping a shoulder back into its socket hurt?” asked Ethan with a concerning look on his face.

“Why? You scared you’re going to scream like a little girl?” teased Amber.

“No. In fact, I bet you’d scream too so you should be the last person to,” Ethan lets out a weak scream mid-sentence as his shoulder clicks into place. “You little shit! You just needed me distracted so you could pop my shoulder into place!”

Amber held her stomach, bent over in laughter, “You…Should’ve… heard… that scream… it was… priceless!” she managed to blurt out through her laughing fit.

“Laugh it off, jackass…” muttered Ethan as he got up and threw his coat over his shoulder. “I need to go. Sarah’s probably waiting for me at the station.”

“You’d best get going then. Also, try to avoid Breach. He’s recovering from the damage you caused to his ‘work of art’ apparently,” scoffed Amber.

With a casual salute, Ethan exited the Alliance base and materialized at the station. Waiting at the exit, as usual, was Sarah. She nervously watched the time as she awaited Ethan’s arrival. He took a slow jog down the main branch after exiting the elevator.

“Sorry, I’m late. Boss had some stuff he needed me to do,” Ethan lied. Four months of keeping his daily life a secret from Sarah had given him ample time to come up with his many excuses for being late or not showing up at all.

Sarah pulled out an apple for herself and threw one over to Ethan. She mumbled something out of her full mouth that Ethan translated to ‘let’s go’. As they exited the building, they took a walk down the route they would usually take to get home. Ethan heard a crunching noise mixed with the periodic beeping of a crane. A wall came crashing down a few hundred meters in front of Ethan and Sarah as the construction workers began to demolish a row of buildings.

“They’re demolishing the entire avenue? We have to go through the main road to get home now,” mumbled Ethan as he threw his hands up in the air in frustration. After the trip down the mountain today, Ethan needed a soft bed.

“It’ll take an extra half hour to get home. Nothing much, honestly. It’ll be a change of scenery.” she replied, optimistic as ever.

It’s not the time I’m most worried about, he thought.

The two turned the corner and joined the main road. Possibly the most polarized area in Durban when it came to wealth and status. It was a true reflection of the state of the world. On one side were dilapidated shacks made from corrugated iron and barely stable cement blocks. The place had a stench recognizable from two blocks away. Clothes were hung over the flimsy walls to dry, and the ground was littered with garbage.

The sidewalk was barely paved. The air was constantly filled with sand and dirt. A lone satellite dish in the middle of the settlement attracted most of the inhabitants leaving the rest of the settlement abandoned and lifeless. To a deaf person who couldn’t hear the people, the area would have looked like a wasteland.

On the other side, however, the mansions of the rich lit up the night sky like a Christmas tree. The gardens were well-groomed, and the bushes neatly cut. The existence of a garden alone was a status symbol considering how precious plant life was in the city.

The rich side of the road looked like a strip out of paradise while the poor side looked like a pit scooped out of hell. The rich, however, were eager to usurp the land of the poor. They wanted nothing to do with the ‘greedy, money-hungry looters’.

Ethan spotted a pauper walking up to a mansion on the sidewalk. He was wearing tattered, burnt clothes that looked like they hadn’t been washed in months. His body was malnourished, and he barely had any flesh on him. He hugged his stomach as it roared like a bear. It demanded food. Not out of lust or lavishness but out of necessity and survival. Ethan quickened his pace ever so slightly on the opposite side of the road.

“Hey, Ethan! Wait up!” shouted Sarah. Ethan didn’t hear her. He was focused on that man.

If you were anything short of stinking rich, you wouldn’t dare walk on the pavement of their mansion, Ethan thought.

The white door opened, and a middle-aged man dressed in his pajamas greeted the pauper. The man in the tattered clothing spots behind the rich man, a loaded pistol ready with a finger on the trigger. The nuclear power cell glowed like a lamp in the barrel. The faint humming was something all too familiar to both parties.

He gulps, “Excuse me, sir. Can I have some food? I don’t have any to eat tonight.”

The rich man, though only slightly taller than the pauper, looked down at him with eyes of disgust and hatred. The war had polarized the rich and the poor. The rich became miserly, and the poor became violent out of desperation. The wealth and status gap spread and animosity rose like a bubbling pot.

“We don’t have any,” the richer of the two said without a hint of compassion in his voice. “None for people like you.”

The pauper nearly cracked a grin when he saw the table behind the man filled with food. Not an inch of the tablecloth was devoid of a platter or a drink. He stood still as the night, and Ethan began to move from a fast walk to an all-out sprint towards the mansion.

“You had better leave my doorstep right now or I’ll blow your brains off for trespassing,” he threatened.

Walk away, walk away. Please, for the love of God, walk away… prayed Ethan. He began to pant. Not out of exhaustion but out of panic. Adrenaline rushed through his veins. He made eye contact with the man in the mansion.

The pauper took a step forward to protest, “Please sir, I don’t mean any trouble, just so-“

“Don’t take another step, you bastard! Don’t you dare come in my house, you filthy murderer!”

The man drew his pistol. Ethan darted across the street oblivious to the cars approaching him. The drivers slammed their hooters waking the entire neighborhood from their mundane routine. Ethan didn’t stop. The man caught Ethan darting towards him.

“Get the hell out of my house! You and your company!” he screamed pointing the gun at Ethan. The man’s eyes flared with rage. The pauper raised his hands to cover his face. For a moment time stood still in Ethan’s mind.

Did I just escalate the conflict? Would it have calmed down if I didn’t start running? His mind whirled.

Ethan’s eyes widened with shock as the nuclear-powered pistol bullet left the barrel. The gun cracked like thunder and the bullet flew straight through the skull of the pauper. His brains scattered across the spotless, shining sidewalk. A gaping hole so wide, Ethan could see the shooter through the pauper’s head, dripping with blood. Sarah screamed from the other side of the road, but Ethan didn’t turn around.

“Leave! I’ve got enough bullets for you as well!” shouted the man.

Ethan clenched his fists, “You can’t kill me. I’m not on your property. I’m on the sidewalk.”

“You’ll be on my property when the police find you.”

He was right. It didn’t matter whether Ethan could be killed or not. Even if the mansion owner was convicted, a judge can always use a fat sum of money and Ethan could bet his own ass that man had enough to satisfy the judge.

He released his fists even though his anger still was boiling. But that wasn’t all that infuriated him. The neighbors of the house and the poor people across the street looked upon the event with blank faces as if completely undisturbed. Just how many of these happen in the world for people to be so numb to this? He questioned. What was the point of peace if in the neighborhoods there was still war?

“My apologies, sir. I’ll leave,” said Ethan under his breath afraid that if he said it too loudly, his action would speak for him.

The man shut the door with a thud. Soon enough, the rest of the street returned to their houses as if it was just another day of the week. Ethan crossed the street, still jarred by what he’d seen. He couldn’t quite speak, nor could he think. Had he not been awoken from his thoughts he’d have walked into the barbed fence.

Ethan caught the sight of an object that brought him to reality. Sarah’s apple, barely touched, lay on the ground and her boots had left marks on the sand.

“Sarah?” Ethan screamed. “Sarah!?”

He had thought Sarah screamed because of the murder. That’s why he didn’t turn around. His heart, which had barely had a break to rest, began to beat quicker. He rushed down the nearest alleyway and found two men dressed just like the pauper, armed with knives, holding Sarah tightly by the neck.