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The Icon of Sin · InkandNeon | Speculative Fiction Stories

• 0:00
  welcome to Coral City the city of Second Chances
• 0:06
  ha ha
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  ah at least that's what the brochure said
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  city of Second Chances
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  a penal city those
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  lucky enough not to be forced into indentured servitude
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  thrown onto the mining colonies
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  wind up here in Coral City
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  a city of lies more like it's a strange beast
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  ever since I left
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  the comfort of the Queensland elevator
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  I've felt its uninviting embrace close behind me
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  unlike the others who stepped off that elevator
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  they had surrendered everything who they were before
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  stripped away before they delved into this new world
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  me well
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  I was thankful perhaps even naive
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  because for the first time in my life
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  I felt the wind in my sails
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  I felt confident
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  inside my pack a few ace and a small recorder
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  I was never much of a journalist
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  but I thought I could stop it
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  I thought I could bring down the companies
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  expose the truth
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  but the truth well
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  what even is the truth
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  this place is a clean slate waiting for everyone
• 1:32
  success can be found here
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  you can find it
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  I've seen enough expensive suits
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  pompous noses to know that that much is true
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  most of my first day I scoured Coral City
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  I was enthralled it's a pretty place
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  colourful lights but the colour
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  it serves as a reminder of the deadly
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  predatory nature of this place
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  the people of Coral City cling
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  like baby birds to the sides of a cliff desperate
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  they huddle its edge trying not to fall
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  and the precipice that they cling to
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  it overlooks what is known simply as the trench
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  it teems with life slithers with activity
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  beneath its smog filled clouds
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  you'll see the pale
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  fires of hundreds of burning foundries
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  you witness a city
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  where the spires reach out into the sky
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  like a necromancer's bony fingers
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  I've seen a grand cathedral untouched by time
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  the city street surrounding it empty
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  paved in an impossibly pale blue light
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  gunfire and screams echo across the air
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  they are as commonplace as the acidic rain
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  that constantly falls upon the city
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  you might walk down one side of the street
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  and have your augmentation stripped
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  your skin peeled with a perfect savage dentistry
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  but then on the other side of the road
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  just a few steps, across then on the other hand
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  you will be offered pleasures and ecstasy
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  no sane mind could imagine
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  it is the very icon of sin
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  now as I find myself upon my perch
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  ready to continue my duty
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  to find the truth for the people
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  I feel a gnawing at my mind
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  a fear grips my heart
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  when I look upon this corrupted place
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  the gangs that vie for control
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  a little more than proxies
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  the symptom of this place is corruption
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  there is no centralized power here in the Trenches
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  I look for a throne but I do not see one
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  this does not bring me any comfort
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  an uneasy order holds this place together
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  not like a gentle hand but a calloused
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  weighted grip upon the city's throat
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  forcing it to breathe little more than a rasp
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  the truth is there is no throne in the trenches
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  because there is another layer
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  another hell buried beneath this one
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  my name is Ink and I aim to broadcast the truth
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  I aim to be the voice
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  of those that might otherwise be forgotten
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  only ask that I live long enough to make a difference
• 4:35
  good night everyone and good luck