Chapter Text
Long before the oldest amongst us were born to this city, breathing became the one thing within its confines to change. Rather than drinking the air into our lungs it gets lodged in our throats. One of the body’s few automated acts is now grueling work. Generations prior were born doing what is now a laborious task.
Smoke stained with a sweet, sulphuric smell lingers for far too long against the imposing buildings and along the most barren streets; a stray gust rarely stirs the sticky stale air, for the artificial mountain beyond Litchenberg prevents such a luxury. Wind, rain. Sunshine. That obscene amalgamation does not lend this city space to grow or breathe, as living cities do.
And so, the air remains thick and stagnant, hard to swallow, akin to the slop served at every table and every saloon. Funnily enough, the taste of the air is as well similar to the city’s cuisine; bitter as ash, salty from the impure burnt in the streets. Sick. Somehow full of sick.
None of it bothers anyone however, or at least they don’t complain. Everyone here is used to it. That or they’re too drunken or plagued with hysteria to care.