Aines—Southeast District
He Ao raised his head and looked at the dilapidated old building before him.
Its windows had been completely removed, leaving only lonely empty holes covered by tattered plastic sheets.
The Bearing Pillars supporting the old building were riddled with rotten pits, exposing the rusted steel bars within.
The exterior facade that had once decorated the building had long since fallen away, leaving only mottled traces to tell of its former splendor.
A huge, rust-covered Iron Gate was locked across the entrance on the first floor, but where the right side of the gate connected to the wall had been completely torn open, leaving only a gaping hole and a door hanging loose without support.
Bright sunlight poured down from the sky, but the towering skyscrapers beside it blocked most of it. Only a few frail rays followed the open gap and pierced the darkness of the old building.
Yet the light only reached a short distance beyond the door. The depths beyond remained shrouded in silent darkness.
Aines had many old buildings like this. Most had been built during the era of President Sewier and several presidents after him in the Federation's fifth century.
Over the past three centuries, these old buildings had been patched and repaired over and over, barely kept operational for the people inside who lacked the means to move.
But some old buildings, for one reason or another, had eventually been left with no one even to patch them up. They had become completely empty, leaving behind only decayed, battered shells full of holes.
The building before He Ao now was one of those old buildings.
And this old building was where Elian and his friends had lived in Aines, and where they had ultimately been killed.
Buzz—
He Ao raised his wristband