The smog

The Reverend Potter’s and the victims

The dark night was cold and distant in the Luxe desert with only the purple flames from the factory vents being the only visible signs of heat, it feels like a rising uptake of the nightly warrens. A damnable ritual that takes the luck from people you truly hated, a nightly sight these days.

The issue with hate is that it makes no sense, and it has both an inferiority and superiority complex. Hate comes from a fear of someone better will come along and ruin the myth of hate’s inherent superiority. This was what I found when I arrived in Luxe.

The people were passive aggressive, like the hot wind that blew on this otherwise chilled hilly desert. The people would look at me with a snarled visage, they had issues with everything I did. They nitpick everything I did, over-analysis as if he were somehow hiding something. I just wondered what I was thinking when I agreed to move here. I came here for the same reason as everybody else that came to the factory I worked for, a chance to turn my luck around.

But I feel the heat from their words, and I just wanted to grasp the cool metal from the ring of keys that are in my pocket. It is what I needed from how I was treated. I reminiscence from pleasant memories. Grass, soft lips, voluminous hair, the white lights.

The loud screeching of the city interrupted my quiet place. The high tin horns from cars, the high beams form that various lights emitted, and the shouting from the occasional upset driver.

The inside of my home was made with sound proofing, but things did not work as intended as the sound he wanted out was still bothering him, the sounds of the city. The city was corrupt, and I hated watching the police chief and the mayor play politics. The institution was the only thing making this land livable, but it is full of bad air. The air is so toxic that it is difficult to breathe.

The smog from the factories forms something that seems monstrous. It has such a large presence in my home that it goes from my front door to the second floor and even the basement. The tv’s screen went from a clear sheen to an ugly black stain. The books on his bookshelf were bleeding black sludge from the long-time exposure from the smog. The smog was a constant.

The smog’s origin was the overuse of the factory that existed in the center of section of the city that his small house in the hill. The factory made this overwise once inhospitable desert but while it was at one point necessary, it was, that “people” were still running it for their convenience. The cost of this action was that the smog was born and now everyone had this giant presence that has been dubbed “Reverend Potter.”

I arrived at my workplace, the birthplace of the smog. The very plan that I helped enacted was that I pressed a button when my boss ordered me to do so. If I knew what it would lead to, I would have never come here, let alone actually come here. The men and women of Luxe were standing around, waiting for their turns to use the vents. A haggard man was standing next to a velvet rope.

“Hey, Louie. How are the kids? Have they come back yet.” I asked.

“Nah, the situation at home is getting out of hand. The gravity of it has not hit me until now and I need to act now, or things will get worse. I was hoping that my employee’s benefits would include the right to use the vents. If not, I would not know what I could do about it.” Louie sighed.

Louie was clearly tired from the situation at home. He had been dealing with his daughter’s, Jerry, latest changes. Exposure from the smog was responsible for that. She had the usual features such as her skin had black stains all over her body, her teeth were dyed black, and she had severe breathing problems.

“Sounds like she needs all the luck she could get. He did not need anything from her entire life, the least I can do is wish her luck,” said the worried father.

“I wish you the best of luck and hope things turn out well. You never know how that luck will turn out,” I said.

He must not have heard me as he was not paying any more attention to me. The ticks from the rubble falling from the old factory’s walls were a sign that the vent was finally not in use and the only chance anyone could hear anything from the factory other than people’s conversations of their wants. I did not think people would be concerned about the sudden stop of the factory as the ceremony was filled with fireworks and the pushing of various kinds of oils and the bodies of the elderly.

The king was the one who implemented this plan after an old chemist discovered the usefulness of this practice and ever since the world has drastically changed. The people have greatly benefited from this change, but the issue comes from the growing cost of use of this ritual and the very people who benefit from it have gotten a taste of it and want far more than they should.

The factory men received Louie’s message and they took him from beneath the arms and were dragging him to the front of the line. The fires were starting up again and the people in line were backing away in fear. I saw the factory men as the monsters they truly were with soulless eyes and faces of indifference. I wanted to run in and take my co worker from their clutches as I knew nothing good even came when these men got involved in something. But no one could blame them as they were just following the orders of the smog.

Speaking of the smog, I saw it was growing bigger. The people in line starting staring at it in awe, some whispering what they would do when the formless creature would personally give them luck. I snorted as I knew that anytime the damned creature was more likely to ruin lives and cost people’s sanity just by existing.

Many people have horror stories about exposure and the bizarre events that follow when the smog has bless them with good luck but people are convinced that they should come and receive more of it.

Louie started shouting and I reacted on instinct and ran to him. Louie was now hitting one of the factory men on the chest but the other one stop him. Louie just a reserve look on his face. I ran close enough to see him more something but not close to stop him from hitting the factory man holding, which caught his captor by surprise and jumping into the vent.

The first time in known history to have ever happen. The Smog creature started screaming and howling. It started to change form as one its new hands slammed down on the bridge. Things have changed.