Welcome to Coreline.
It was raining again.
It poured down like a waterfall. Neon sparkles danced off the impacted water sprinkles.
This wasn't the usual kind of rain. It was the kind Coreline called "a flush," a thick, chemical goo pumped straight from the climate ducts of the district's weathering systems. Rain in Coreline wasn't weather, it was policy. A system response, triggered when smog levels hit critical density.
They claimed it helped "push the haze down. Thin out the particles in the air" … Before they choked the mid-levels.
Bullshit, all it did was push it lower. Like turning an hourglass upside down…
Smearing the grime back into its old corners, just to look away until it crawled out again, like it had so many times before. Rain as policy was like emotion as command.
Yet somehow, it painted the streets with glimpses of hope, as if it made everything seem a little lighter. The city looked good in the Flush. Like it was trying to wash its sins clean, even if they never came off. The only things that ever came off were the blood stains on the walls, and even those returned, eventually.
It was a special city, stacked on top of itself, layer after layer, stretching in every direction, swallowing the horizon like a beast that never stops growing. It never slept. It feasted on its corruption until it choked on it. Spitting out the smog-filled air, pain and chaos boiling from within.
Progress here is built on concrete and blood. The future grows from the past, like a soul fertilizing the soil for a body.
The sky is a lie, at least for most of Coreline's population. A patchwork of platforms, suspended streets, and shiny ad signs glow in the distance, the closest thing to stars they'll ever experience.
Above it all, the so-called Great Nexus gleams, a district above the city where the rich breathe clean air and gaze down like gods. Their weaknesses, long compromised by high-tech bioelectronic upgrades, these beings, close to gods, are called Protogens. They walk among the elite, a glimpse into a future the rest of the city will never reach.
Below, in the other districts, the rest of Coreline resembles a maze of apartments, rusted pipes belching steam, and endless alleys. The further down you go, the more dangerous and broken it becomes. Dreams linger in the most rundown places of better housing, better payment, or simply making it through another day.
Down here, life isn't cheap. It's owed. You work. You owe. Or you disappear.
The streets pulse with the hum of electric billboards, their flickering glow painting ghostly figures on the cracked pavement. Holo-ads promise a brighter future through CoreCo innovation, but even their voices sound tired, skipping and glitching like they know the truth.
People move through the streets like ghosts, heads down, shoulders hunched, navigating around potholes and puddles of something you don't want to step in. Some drag themselves home from shifts that drained the last bit of their soul. Others linger in the alleys, sharp-eyed, waiting for the next sucker to fall into their game.
It's a destructive economy that feeds on itself, a machine built to crush and consume.
It's the kind of city where you keep your creds close in your pocket and your back even closer to the wall. The government, long privatized, led by the CorelinePTC, has been completely corrupt for decades.
And somewhere in the city... Someone was in deep trouble. Digging his hand deep into his pocket, he clenched a singular soaked cigarette.
He wanted to stop, but the urge was too strong to let go so easily, especially now. Shaking, he tried to light it.
Click. Click. Fwoosh.
The lighter hissed in protest, sparks snuffed out by the downpour until finally... a flame. He lit it. The fire gave him a moment of warmth, but it was a pale comparison, against the city's cold everlasting stare-down. And as quickly as it emerged, it faded out again.
The first inhale stung his throat, but the familiar burn steadied his trembling hands just enough to keep moving forward through the rain.
Water trickled from his coat; each step splashed into shallow puddles reflecting fragments of distant lights and concrete walls.
"I'll leave it here for now. Too dangerous to take it with me... it's not of much use since that damn file was missing on it and the corruption protocol will start soon..."
In anger, he threw a small plastic object at the opposite wall.
Crack.
It bounced off, breaking apart in a dim light, leaving behind a trail of shattered pieces now floating in a small puddle.
The surroundings matched the mood, dull concrete slicked with rain, flickering signage casting various lights reflected and bloomed by the rain in an almost artistic way. Steam rose from vents and broken pipes where warm exhaust escaped.
The misty air swallowed the sound, muffled even further by the hiss of rainfall.
Only the faint hum of the distant urban life managed to pierce through, it blended with the clattering, echoes of people talking, laughing, screaming, and phones ringing. Far in the background, trains and buses rushed by. Voices, muffled but clear enough to make out snippets,
"Anyway, I think I'm good for now... I have to be. For them."
He took a final deep puff from the cigarette, trying to shake off the unease that was creeping up his spine all day long. The thought of what was about to happen was gnawing at him.
His head sank low as he eyed a picture in his pocket depicting a happy family. The photo was soaked in mud, water, and dirt, just like his clothes. His gaze shifted back to the cigarette. Its ember flickered under the rain, burning dangerously close to his fingers.
He flicked the butt onto the wet ground, where at least five others already floated around, then he stomped it out with his heel. Splash.
The silence around him now felt more suffocating than before, broken only by the rain hammering against metal railings again.
Heavy boots splashed deliberately on the waterlogged concrete, drawing closer.
"What was that? I need to keep going... quick."
His thoughts turned to his family.
"The tracker's broken. There's no way they'll..."
He turned a corner and froze. A long, metallic barrel of a gun was pointed directly at him.
His breath caught in his throat. Time seemed to stand still. His mind raced, but his body was paralyzed.
He could smell the faint, dying scent of the cigarette still on the ground, barely giving off any smoke, its last breath curling into the rising vapor.
A shadowy outline of a person pressed the gun against his forehead.
Rain dripped from the gun onto the man's paw, down his soaked sleeve.
His last thoughts weren't fearful, but rational, like a quiet voice questioning reality itself.
"Was the path it took already sealed, or did it just land the way it did?"
"Either way… it couldn't change the outcome, even if it tried."
"So what use does an answer have, to a question that in itself won't change a damn thing?"
He could feel the cold metal and rusted edge of the barrel. He closed his eyes before a strange, yet familiar voice whispered:
"Syndicate above all."
BANG.
The sound of the gunshot cut through the storm like lightning splitting the dark.