TCWGRF 1

On the outskirts of the city, District 28.

It was the final stop, where all sorts of waste flowing from the city center arrived, and where even the driest bread would reach only after all its moisture had been sucked out, turning it crumbly.

It was a place where the ‘citizens’, so envied by the people of the ‘Outside’, lived, but in reality, it was a haphazard gathering of those who barely resembled human beings and those who had lost the courage to resist due to the shabby shadows hanging on their shoulders.

Somewhere in that place. In a run-down house where one could barely tell day was breaking through a palm-sized window, a young man with haphazardly messy hair pushed his stiff body up from a plank that barely held the shape of a bed.

‘At least it doesn’t seem to be raining today.’

Outside the window, which he could only peer down at by straining on his tiptoes, a scene no different from usual unfolded.

The buildings, the streets. Everywhere his gaze touched was gray, with only a difference in how dark or light it was.

It was a monochrome festival, utterly devoid of nature’s colors, patched over and over with gray cement. Any other colors had surely been stolen by the city’s rulers, deep inside.

A week ago. Isaac, who had secretly infiltrated the city from the ‘Outside’, felt the same suffocating feeling now that he was a part of this place as he did when he had only watched it from afar.

‘Why was everyone so desperate to live in the city?’

Those born on the Outside instinctively yearned for the inner city they could not enter.

Specifically, they wanted things like soft butter to spread on bread, hot water that came out of a tap, fragrant shampoo, and soft fabrics. Furthermore, they dreamed of the everyday peace of not having to tremble in fear of dying from a minor illness.

The majority were people who would do anything to get inside, no matter what harsh conditions were attached, as long as they were allowed to live in the city.

The situation on the Outside could truly be called calamitous.

The city exploited the resources produced on the Outside and dumped its filth, yet it thought it had done its duty by magnanimously tossing out scraps of food. The areas surrounding the city were always filled with people suffering from a constant lack of food and medicine, and an overabundance of trash.

‘I heard there’s an ocean, grasslands, and even a desert if you go just a little farther away.’

If they could just shake off their lingering attachment to the city and turn their eyes elsewhere, they could enjoy a variety of landscapes.

Like the green of the forest, the blue of the sea, the yellow of the desert, and the red of the sky at sunset. Even though they said there were places where waves of color surged, why did they consider only the gray city beautiful, and love only this place?

Of course, he himself had only heard rumors and had not yet been to those places, but he could not understand. Between a wide world full of diverse colors and a suffocating rat hole that possessed nothing but gray, wouldn’t it be natural to choose the former?

After witnessing the city’s reality firsthand, that thought became even more solidified.

Life here, after just a few days, was enough to make him think the Outside was at least better. To put it nicely, it was no different from the Outside, and to put it bluntly, it was like a beggar’s life, like shit, like garbage.

The city center where the Party executives lived, or the districts with single-digit numbers, might be enjoying the abundance that the Outside expected or that the city’s rulers endlessly chattered about.

In any case, Isaac could not find a trace of satisfaction on the faces of the people in District 28; they were only filled with the unique anxiety of those whose freedom had been suppressed.

The food promised for distribution by the Party was terrible, and jobs were ridiculously scarce. They could not leave their own district without the Party’s permission, and even if they fell ill, they could not receive proper medical treatment. They were thankful if, at the moment of death, they could receive even a single painkiller of unknown origin.

A constant stench rose from the public housing area, which was directly connected to the sewers, and it was teeming with rats and insects. No one cared about their neighbors’ well-being or survival, to the point that they wouldn’t mind if a corpse that had been there for months was found in the house right next door.

The pain and dissatisfaction of a reality that could not be changed were forgotten through drugs, gambling, and prostitution that had trickled in from who knows where. These were illegal activities according to the Party, but it was fine as long as they were carried out secretly in unseen places. For some reason, unless it was a tip about the rebels, the crackdowns were merely a formality.

Thanks to the self-serving officers, he had been able to infiltrate safely without being caught, but the shock of first setting foot in this place was beyond words. It felt as if this was what despair would look like if it were solidified and shaped into a space.

At least the ‘Outside’ had freedom. While most moments were a struggle for survival, accompanied by a wearying poverty, and one had to take responsibility for the consequences, there was at least the minimum freedom to choose which direction one wanted to go and to leave.

The citizens Isaac had encountered over the past few days were like prisoners trapped in a gray prison, just waiting for the day they died. And they were death row inmates, without even a speck of hope that they would walk out alive.

Nevertheless, Isaac had a reason for coming to the city.

“Where in the world are you, Asel.”

Asel. His friend, his brother, and his only family, with whom he had spent his entire life. That boy was here, somewhere in this city.

*

‘Isaac, I’m definitely going to the city.’

Around sunset, when the arduous day’s work finally ended, Asel would squat on a hill, point in the direction of the city which wasn’t even visible from here, and say those words like a habit.

‘It’s impossible. How could you?’

The mission to infiltrate the city was a daunting task that required even the so-called chosen ‘comrades’ to risk their lives.

There were those who went, but those who returned could be counted on one hand. The fact that no one ever came back, especially after their identity was discovered or after they were caught, clearly showed the difficulty of the mission.

There was no way that boy could do it, a boy who was prone to forgetting simple errands, and often wandered around wearing nothing but an old, baggy t-shirt someone had thrown away, forgetting to put on pants or shoes. He would probably be discovered and brutally killed before he could even set foot inside the city.

‘Why can’t I? I can just go with you.’

‘I hate the city. Just thinking about it feels suffocating.’

‘I don’t think I can go by myself….’

‘Right. So you shouldn’t go either. It’s dangerous.’

Unlike Isaac, who knew how to be content with his world, Asel, like many others, yearned for and craved the inner city.

He would joke that his biological parents might be citizens of the city, or say he wished he could live as a citizen for just one day.

Isaac, who had watched over Asel for a long time, had only thought lightly of it, that he was in the midst of an ardent, unrequited love for the city, just like most people born on the Outside.

Unrequited love was bound to end someday with disappointment and resignation, and if it was a puppy love, it was even more of a matter that would resolve itself naturally over time.

But that was a rash and complacent judgment. Just like how Isaac had heedlessly set foot in this city, chasing after that boy.

*

Whaaaaaaaaaa. A siren blared loudly, announcing the city’s morning and interrupting his descent into thought.

‘Ah, already!’

Even through the small window, he could see monochrome figures pouring out into the gray streets as if on cue.

They were all likely on their way to line up to receive their ration of tough bread from the Party and a bowl of water to wet their throats.

The precious day’s worth of food was never plentiful. One had to rush out as soon as the passage permit time began and diligently get in line to be able to secure a share for family members at home who had difficulty moving.

Isaac also hurried to leave, putting on the coat he had hung by the door and pulling a hat down low to cover his wild hair and his foreigner’s complexion as much as possible. Then, only after checking once more that the documents that would prove his identity during a random inspection were safely in his inner pocket, did he step outside.

‘It’s cold.’

Despite the chilly weather that made one instinctively pull their collar tight, people did not hasten their steps, but walked towards their destination in neat and orderly lines.

Was it because of the rain that had been falling for days? Today’s distribution line was particularly long.

Coughs burst forth from the throats of people living in similar-looking houses that offered no protection from the cold and damp. The coughing sounds, so persistent they made the listener’s own throat itch, ironically made the space feel more like a place where people lived than the usual silence.

“Distribution ends here.”

The bread sent from the Party ran out quickly, even before half of the people in line had received any.

The right thing to do would be to hurl insults at the rulers who had prepared an amount far too small for the population of District 28 and demand they give out more bread, but no such thing happened. Not a single person voiced a complaint; they simply turned their reluctant, heavy feet away.

Despite having come out relatively late, Isaac was just barely able to get his share of one piece of bread. It was because there were many more patients who had arrived late with staggering steps.

— To the citizens, delicious bread with plenty of butter, and ample, fresh water to quench their thirst!

A rock-like piece of bread, not much different from the Outside. Unlike the Party’s promise printed on a poster so faded one could not even guess its original color, there was no taste of butter, not even a hint of its scent. It was only natural, as it was a crude bread made solely for the purpose of filling one’s stomach.

Growl, his hungry stomach rumbled loudly. He had no appetite, but he had to eat to live. If he mixed a bite of the coarse bread with a sip of water and chewed for a long time, it would probably be somewhat edible.

Those who turned away without receiving their ration cast lingering, wistful glances at those holding bread, but no one readily shared what they had. In District 28, where only personal survival mattered, charity was a luxury.

“Cough, cough.”

An old man who had been coughing as if he were dying in the back of the line lingered, unable to leave easily, wandering the area empty-handed. If he kept that up and was caught by an ill-tempered officer, he could be singled out as a suspicious person or be beaten for no reason.

Isaac approached him without a word, broke the hard bread in two, and then handed him the larger of the two pieces.

The old man looked around cautiously before taking the bread, then broke that in half again, putting one half in his pocket and immediately shoving the other into his mouth. He probably had a family waiting for him at home.

Only after swallowing it down without even breathing, chewing with his sparse teeth, did the old man, in place of a thank you, whisper information that the other person would likely need the most right now.

“…You’re looking for a job, aren’t you?”

“Ah, I…”

A job. The person named ‘Joshua’, whose identity Isaac had stolen, had no decent job on paper.

Originally, the Party provided jobs to those who wanted them. With the small income earned from there, one could buy food or goods other than what was distributed, but jobs with decent pay or those that required expertise were taken by the preceding districts, leaving only trivial jobs that were life-threatening or physically demanding.

Even those were few and far between, so most people in District 28 were unemployed, which made it not strange that the young man named ‘Joshua’ was jobless.

After the distribution ended, people would once again line up amicably and head to the Party-run employment agency. Because if they were lucky, a ‘less life-threatening’ job would pop up every once in a while.

“If you want a job, don’t go to the employment agency. Go to the square’s bulletin board right now.”