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City Complex
New City of Macau

Hour 25:09

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High above the night market, Hsiao lies on his back along the roof ridge of the Old Palace building, Sethal his newfound companion sitting beside him, her feet dangling from the edge. Contrastive to his vague gaze the night market is in full swing.

Red lanterns, strung from roof to roof, cast a strange amber glow over everything. Vendors call out their offerings while friends and relatives stop in huddles to gossip. Little children run all over the streets once chasing each other and then knocking into an elder's leg, giggling as they get painted with mud and dust. A distinct sound of an instrument playing, which Hsiao guesses to be a traveling opera, adds up to the chattering of all types of humans down below. It seems like the whole city is out, meandering their way along streets narrowed by booths that have been set up, especially for the New Year. 

And from up above, under the red lanterns, this part of the city seems as though it is not of this world. It looks more like a strange red land where people laugh and joke and enjoy the moment to care a little less about tomorrow.

Hsiao stretches his limbs, greedily diving into the warmth radiating from the ceramic roof tiles. They have cozily burned during the daytime even with the little amount of sun that the Lands could afford.

The smell of grilled meat mixed with different types of pleasant fragrances like lavenders, roses, and cherry wine twisted teasingly through his nostrils. His eyes wander upon the stalls of pop-up shops down below.

He wonders how some things have not yet changed in this society. Even in a year like this, where people are literally living in the sky, spacecraft are being used as taxis and where there is not just one type of humans who bore all red blood but freaking three types, people still want to celebrate New Year the old way. Even after the whole world been re constructed, most of the cities and places are still known by their centuries old names.

Hsiao tries to remember his last New Year down the earth.

Was it the same?

Was he with his family like the one down the street next to the grill. Buying smoking chicken skewers. Some tiny beings run in circles around him, whom Hsiao assumes to be his kids, while a pretty lady dressed in all traditional giggles and tries to catch the little ones. Hsiao notices how the whole family has identical ivory hair that screams their sky-belonging identity. He guesses their eyes to be tinted with red and gold. Glowing in the shades of a burning evening sky.

Then his eyes lands on a guy with his fiancée, cuddling on the riverbank, embracing and savoring each other's warm presence. Said guy points at the sky lanterns diving into the veil of darkness, over the only river flowing across the New City of Macau. Hsiao notices those twisted lines tattooed on his arm. They shine in an ominous teal in stark contrast to the dull colorlessness of the night. 'Must be from the Sea', he thinks to himself. He ignores those low talks and sweet giggles of the sweet couple, that his sharp ears are trying to pick up.

Did he even have a family or anybody important in his life?

He can't remember at all.

He knows he should have to be belonging to somewhere. But he does not remember where. Or more specifically with whom; Skys, Seas, or Earthians.

All he knows about himself is that he is no more alive.

But apparently now things have gotten to a point where he cannot be very sure whether he really belongs to the afterlife as well.

Being unable to find an answer to any of the thousand questions swarming inside his head Hsiao rolls on his belly, his palms in fists beating the innocent roof tiles. And he continues to whine loud.

"Sethal?" He calls. And a distinct hum replies to him. Turning around his eyes meet the sight of a smiling girl, who seems to be busy enjoying the events going down in the red land. He snaps his fingers in front of the girl's face. "Sethal listen."

"Hmm? What?" Sethal asks without bothering to turn to her friend.

"Are you sure this is what the afterlife looks like?" He questions. 

"No idea" She replies.

Not getting the attention he wished for, Hsiao tugs at her sleeve and quires again. "Why wouldn't you know ?!". 

Sethal spares a barest of a second to gaze at the pouting guy. "Don't know. Maybe because I'm still alive?"

"Argh!". And he resumes his whines and rolls on the warm roof tiles.

Sethal who sits next to him pays no mind. Within the last few weeks, she has gotten used to this. This, according to Sethal is a part of Hsiao's daily routine. 

Every morning, once woken up, he would go on and on over how he should have gone to Heaven: a place according to him that situated high up in the sky, was better than the best place on Earth, with all delights and utter consistency that you can imagine of, and also a place where you can only reach once you die.  Though Sethal can't quite grasp the idea she thought of it to be something similar to Sky: her territory and Skys: her people.

By now she has learned that Hsiao has lost count of how many nights he has been going on racking his non-existent brain, hoping to remember the tiniest detail about himself.

As for a memory, all Hsiao has is the one of that how he fought some giant but miserably died. And he still doesn't even know the point of the fight.

Though he can't really remember Hsiao swears this couldn't be what he has imagined the afterlife to be, when he was still alive.

Wandering about this totally man-made water body that flows separating Macau into to two, the one they called the River of Life or floating like a feather, listening what everyone has to say about the Riots till it turns dark to sleep on someone's roof at night  were not even on his bucket list.

"Maybe I don't belong in the heavens." His head pops up to the dull starless sky.

"I might not be an Earthian, to begin with. Heard the granny from the laundry house saying to her child that only Earthians go to heaven after death." He whispers and his own words sound like the biggest gibberish in his very ears.

He stealthily looks back to Sethal who hasn't yet gotten over with sightseeing.

"Then why on the earth am I on the Earth?" He pointedly complains, a sharp index pointed to the surely guilty-free sky, his lips supporting him with some serious pout.

All the little memory he has says nothing about him belonging to Earth. Or in simple words him being one of the folks down the streets, who looks normal, walks normal and talks normal as well. They are the ones born and bred on lands.

However, his memory does not claim him to be coming from the Sea. There are no marks on his barely visible outline of a body, a body that calls his non-existency, that indicates he had been surfing on sea waves or diving under them. He wished he had at least single tendril of a glimmering mark on his body, like a Sea would have on them.

To say he was in the Sky before he died, his hazel eyes were not supporting at all. The folk from the Sky have only pure red or gold to their irises but nothing mud brown like his. Neither he has ivory hair. His are as inky as a midnight.

The only rational conclusion is either he was an outcast, the one that doesn't fit into any of the Three Types. Those who supposedly became RIOTs at some point of their life either by their own will or simply because they couldn't find a hide. Hsiao doesn't essentially wished to be claimed as one, for in his five months of wandering he has seen enough of what struggles outcasts have to go through to survive.

"Whoever is in charge of this afterlife thingy, please let me leave." He hides his head between his arms, his forehead pressed flat against the warm roof tiles.

A tap on his shoulder is followed by Sethal whispering, "Go down. Have some fun." 

And that throws him literally off the edge of the roof. Just when he poses to start giving his usual lecture on how much he hates when people walk through his unanatomical body, his eyes catch something down the red land.

Something, or rather someone, of a decent size so that one wouldn't miss him walking down the road, swiping the inhabitants there with his huge hands so he can move easily in the cramped space. 

Someone that can trigger the only memory Hsiao has of his origin and existence while he was still alive.

A/N: First read done. Might still have typos and stuff. Please let me know if you see any. Leave me a comment and vote if you enjoy :)

wc-1524