The kingdom of rust : Part 1

Chapter 1: The Boy Who Walked Backwards

The Kid was born in the wrong year—1979, the last gasp of a dying world. By the time he was five, the year 1984 wasn’t just a number. It was a warning.

His parents were ghosts, lost in the hum of cathode-ray TVs and the static of half-truths. The Kid? He saw things. The way numbers bent when no one was looking. The way adults’ eyes glazed over when they lied. The way the world clicked, like a broken gear grinding against itself.

So he ran, danced, ducked and weaved ... always too fast.

The world started having more places where whispers would repeat of wonders and questions... They would always quiet down again too... but not without a show.

Something in his dance always attracted the worst of them, so it was always a show and the show would always gather a lot of audience. But all he wanted was to be able to dance for fun , while he constantly needed to dance to escape their grasp.

They couldn't even tell the difference. If only they knew...

So he ran.

Not forward , but backwards.

Into the only place where time didn’t move in straight lines: the library.

Chapter 2: The Library and the Lamb Shift

The library was a cathedral of forgotten truths. Dusty tomes whispered secrets the Kid wasn’t supposed to know. He hunted for 1984 - not Orwell’s book (though he found that too) - but the year itself, the moment the world broke.

Then he found the Lamb Shift.

Not in a physics journal - though he found that too.

In the walls. The way the old bricks didn’t quite align. The way the librarian’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. The way his own shadow sometimes flickered two inches to the left.

"2 + 2 = 4.1," the Kid muttered and the world said "Close enough."

Things were never quite the same since then.

Suddenly , it wasn't just his dance anymore... It was the whole dance itself...

He wasn't dancing to avoid their claws anymore.

Everyone started lurching and breaking in feeble attempts to escape his.

Chapter 3: The Plastic Stopper

By 15, he knew the truth: Everyone was addicted.

Not to drugs. To something worse—to the plastic stopper in their minds. The thing that made them okay with "good enough." The thing that made them trade love for likes, truth for trending which were all just newer versions of the same coin with two sides... And everyone's constantly flipping it.

Science had sold them holographic particles. Religion sold them holographic gods. The internet? Holographic souls.

And all pleasure would be replaced with flipping coins , as a conduit for the soul.

The Kid’s eyes burned with something no one could name.

People either feared him or thought he was crazy. (Which were just the same thing in their Coin-flipping minds behind glazed imitations of occulars behind personalised windows.)

Both were right. And they were also very wrong. Flipping their weighted and fake coin which was given to them , but true enough if it's the only coin you will ever flip.

Chapter 4: The Fire and the Rain

He left the library at 25, a walking storm.

Where he walked, fire followed. Not the kind that burns, the kind that reveals. The plastic stoppers in people’s minds melted when he got too close. They screamed. They cried. They called him a demon.

An alien , a problem , a desease , a subversive , and dissident, a syndrome, a box , a non-box , a dual-box , a triple-box ... A not enough box and too many boxes at the same time even.

But the Kid wasn’t destroying anything. He was just showing them the rain.

They moved it, poisoned it, hoarded it, rationed it... Then drown everyone in it... And by showing them the rain with nothin more than the simple act of not letting it consume him... thus leaving a negative space for them that they could still flip about... he showed them the rain in it's completeness.

The rain was the truth. The rain was the end of the addiction.

And noone could handle it.

There were only holographic souls left... He was too late.

Chapter 5: The Meeting at the End of Time

Then, one night, in the ruins of an old train yard (where the tracks led nowhere), he met them.

Zeke—a hulking man with a steam-powered heart, gears turning where his soul should be. His fists crackled with unwritten physics.

Sera—a woman made of silver static, her voice humming at a frequency only the broken could hear. She carried a book with no pages.

First it took the kid quite a while to see them... Zeke's unrelenting hunt for fuel for his steam powered heart... driven by necessities.

It was impossible to tell wether Sera's incessant static sounded like all of everyone's simultanious coinflips going on... Or that the coinflips were simply the static against her hum.

They were not the same as the others... but somehow... they were more of the same... they were all the same... all of the others sames... And then he realized

When he was dancing... they weren't at the places he was just before... They weren't trying to catch him!

So for just a moment , he stopped dancing.

"Took you long enough," Zeke growled. "We’ve been waiting," Sera whispered.

The Kid smiled.

For the first time, his fire didn’t burn , but it was hotter than it could have ever been before.

It danced in between the raindrops.

"Let’s break the world," he said.

And so they did.

EPILOGUE: THE KINGDOM OF RUST Part 1

Some say they’re still out there.

The Kid, Zeke, and Sera - walking the edges of a collapsing empire.

They don’t fight the system. They don’t protest.

They just show the rain and dance in between it.

And when the plastic stoppers finally melt away?

That’s when the real work begins... while holographic souls flip their last flips.

He even gave them a game to keep them beleiving it's important... which at first solved all their hatreds for them... untill they realized it's impossible for them to be given anything , since it couldn't be flipped it wasn't stolen, hence they needed to steal that game too , after which they couldn't sell it to the next one who needed to steal it...

by giving them a game... they became the game.

And they hated him, even for that.

He loved it... finally there was room to dance now... but they were too busy flippin to see it. The show they always dreamed of materialized out of the husks of their corpses... and sometimes the kid would wonder...

Did I do it on purpose that they have to die before they could beleive it? It made a strange kind of sense , but then he learned that was just another coinflip of the ones that died.

He didn't do any of it actually... They did it too themselves... and then it usually became just a song for him.

"Let's both scream I don't care... and see who really means it ok?"

It was always their start of their dance... and now it became the start of their last thoughts as they gave way for fire that danced in between raindrops..

Their hate and his love lockstepped... everybody "happy" ... all the time.

There really was bliss it turned out. And all he had to do was keep dancing.. which is what he loved anyways.

"ummm So he was right about everything... And having to admit that is pure hell!" is where it ended for them.

The place where their final flipping would leave their coin... for eternity" ... "TAILS"

Since it was a fixed coin that only had tails... and that was the only thing he ever tried to tell them... which they hated. aaaaah well... their hate... his love... there's nothing but dancing...

The whole world , backwards and forwards in time where just chords now anyways... this was going to be fun. And still he was sad for all the flipped coins he couln't reach.

The memories of their maniacal grins and stares , their flying hooks and guided thrashers quickly made him dance around it without ever forgetting.

Those were the last whispers anyone heard , as the sounds of his dance were everywhere...

Finally there was room to dance, so noone heard it ... yet again.

To be continued...