When Johnathan Figg awoke slowly, his eyes still staying slightly closed from slumber and dreams, he found his room in a shape of how it wasn’t from last night. His tan walls were now spray-painted anywhere with blotches of black and blue, a gang sign on one end, saying ‘Th Orda wuz heer’. There was trash littered about his floor, with week old pasta and fish sitting in a corner, the cockroaches and flies skittering and buzzing around, trying to eat the foul-smelling dish. John’s drawers were opened, and strewn about. But probably the worst offense was how he noticed his favorite painting, The Skull with the Cigar by Vincent van Gogh, was stolen.


But John didn’t care. All he said was “Crap…I liked the painting”. John got up, noticing his bedside table, lamp, bed, and night clothes still intact. He walked past the cockroaches and flies uneasily and nervously. John couldn’t stand bugs, nearly to the point that he couldn’t even touch them. He walked into the bathroom by the front door of his apartment room, and found an equal mess. The bathroom lights were flickering, having been cracked from a broken pub bottle, which was lying in the bathtub, as blood and liquor streamed from it. He looked in his sink, noticing a foul-stench of urine from it. The Orda must have been at his house that night.

John washed away the smell by pouring it away with cold water. Cold water was about as much as you got at the Guymound Apartment. Occasionally warm water would filter in from some other pipeline, but it was mostly cold as the ice in a freezer. John splashed the water on his face, the icy freeze of it not affecting him, as his skin was used to rapid changes of temperature. John looked into the shattered mirror, to see his face. John had a thin head with a short mop of black hair and stubble about his cheeks, upper lip, and face. His eyes looked like he hadn’t slept in months and he had lost half of his teeth. He didn’t enjoy brushing very much. So John had replaced them with chrome dentures, which he had freely stolen from a friend. John looked insane, like he might cry or scream or laugh to himself at any moment.

In fact, that was what John precisely did. He remembered when he was about 10 years old; he saw a fat, obese puppy dog. The concept, to him at least, seemed hilariously cute to see such a fat little thing wagging its tiny nub of a tail. Weeks later, the puppy died from heart disease, found dead in his food bowl. That made John tear-up a little bit sometimes, but for now, he laughed slightly at the thought as the tears ran down.

John left the bathroom and looked in his closet for his tan trench coat and black fedora. He wore these simply because he liked them. He had stolen them from a man who sat beside a dog on the street, who always ranted about how life hasn’t changed and that he lived for centuries to see life before his eyes. Some old loon, of course. The closet was the only place that The Orda must have forgotten, as there was no sign of blood marks or trashing or ransacking or even vandalism. All his pants, ties, glasses, gloves, towels, coats, and hats were kept perfectly in place. He didn’t feel like getting any other clothes on, though. He just didn’t feel like it. Besides, The Orda may have slipped a nasty, deadly surprise in one of the drawers. The Orda was well-known for placing some traps in their victim’s belongings, like a mouse-trap similar to a bear-trap or a toxic gas stained on it that could kill in seconds.

John felt around for the light switch and flicked it, grabbing the hat and trench coat. There were slight noises coming from the outside of his door, of thumping and tearing. The newsman shoved a paper in through his door. “Oh…good” John said contently. He picked up the paper, and read the front side (newspapers only had two sides; the side of one belief, The Orda, and the side of another belief, The Runnas). On The Orda’s side, the Chief Commander Maydeb had been giving thought into reestablishing the one thing The Orda wanted: Morality and Freedom.

Years ago, the President of the United States had called a meeting with the Leaders of every other country in the world. They agreed that the reason that there was no peace between them was because of the people. They had been oppressing the people by setting them into different parties and giving unfair rules. They would protect a rich man in a mansion, but they could not help a deprived man who lived in a cardboard box. And like unchanging idiots, they allowed total freedom amongst the people. Then, the people lost control and did as ever they pleased from the emotions that built up inside them from not letting out there anger. People killed for fun, stole for profit, raped for anything. They all did whatever they wanted for whatever reason. And their reasons got worse as time went on.

At least, that was what Johnathan had been told by The Orda. And reestablishing morality was something the Orda looked forward to. But how would it be done? Nobody knew. Not even the President. He decided that a comforting lie would be better.

John threw the paper into the shredder after reading it. It was no use to read it again. John closed the door behind and locked the broken lock. Any lock was better than no lock at all.

The halls of the Guymound Apartment reeked of many things: blood, oil, fire, chaos, anarchy, and red, white, and black. The Runnas made frequent trips here, doing as ever they pleased to steal, rape, loot, pillage, anything. John walked down the hallways to the stairs down to the first floor. John began thinking of what he must have done to upset The Orda to make them vandalize his apartment. The Orda would usually give punishment if their rules weren’t followed. Perhaps he had talked to one of the Runnas? No, that could never happen. They would have killed John on the spot, simply because of his skin color and ethnicity. Maybe The Orda was listening to his thoughts. Did he ever think about the Runnas in a positive light?

Well, if he had, he couldn’t anymore. They must have lobotomized him to forget about it and replaced the piece of brain with a different piece of brain. How that worked, John didn’t bother to find out.

While he walked down the flight of stairs on the left wing of the apartment (the right wing was closer, but it was said that there were even more bugs there), Johnathan began wondering whoever thought it was a good idea to get rid of morals. Maybe the President had created it, broke it, and threw it away in the trash like a toy. Maybe The Orda could rebuild it. Who knows, they worked in mysterious ways.

John walked towards the front door of the apartment past the first floor hall, sweating slightly. He didn’t want to go out. He really didn’t want to. But The Orda was having a meeting, and all members of the religion had to join. John didn’t have anything to live for, he figured. He had no family, no friends, no pets, and no loved ones, nobody he cared about. In this world, nothing could be earned. In fact, John had contemplated suicide on numerous occasions. But he didn’t want to die. He was so afraid of pain. He didn’t want there to be nothingness forever and ever.

John opened the door, his hand trembling like rubble shaking on the ground from an earthquake. John opened the door and walked down the broken concrete steps. As soon as he got down, he was stabbed by a Runna in the chest. The last things John saw was the sight of fire across the city, a woman being sexually assaulted on a street corner, children toting guns around the sidewalks, and the Runna who killed him running away.

Johnathan Arthur Figg died on sometime in 2105.