Chapter Text
Another day, another victim. Molly stands up over the mutilated corpse and tries to wipe the blood off of his face with the back of his hand, but only smears it more. His cybernetic scorpion tail flicks. He needs to get out of here before a centurion or hunter-warrior finds him. Molly nudges the corpse with his foot, narrowing his eyes. The victim had been a cyborg like Molly, though not totally kitted out. They still had a good deal of organic matter left, which Molly had cannibalized.
Molly grunts and picks some of the flesh out of his teeth, then starts down the alley in the opposite direction. It isn't hard to get away with murder in the Scrapyard, all you need to do is be stealthy. Molly sneaks around, making sure nobody's nearby before making his way back to his apartment a few streets away. No one would know it was him.
Once back in his tiny apartment, Molly fires up the shower. Cold water washes over him, blood and chunks of gore flowing down the drain. Molly can't help but think about his life, trying to ignore the biting cold of the water.
Molly doesn't remember much of his childhood. He was inducted into some kind of cannibal cult when he was a child, but everything before that is completely blurry. The cult had raised him to worship flesh, raw flesh to be exact, and once Molly was 16 they set him loose into the world as a monster to feast upon the innocent.
Molly typically only goes after cyborgs like himself. He rips the organic flesh from the cybernetics of his victims, then consumes it. It's become something of an addiction for him, he's realized… not that he wants to stop, anyways. He opens his eyes and starts washing his messy brown hair, red eyes blank.
Elsewhere in the Scrapyard there was a hunter-warrior on Molly's trail, a man about Molly's age named Razor. He'd been trying to find the culprit of the cannibal murders for months now, and it wasn't exactly easy. Razor had zero leads, zero information, and there were zero witnesses to question. This killer was thorough, that's for sure.
Razor clenches his fists, brass knuckles at the ready. He walks down the almost empty streets, looking around for anyone suspicious. Unfortunately, in the Scrapyard, that could be just about anybody. He bets Tiphares never has to deal with shit like this. Too bad he'll never get a chance to visit the floating city.
A scream comes from a nearby alley. Razor bolts towards the sound as fast as he can, fists up. What he finds is a woman standing over what probably used to be a person. The remains of the victim were just cybernetics and bones, and a disturbing amount of blood.
"Ma'am, are you alright?" Razor rushes to the woman's side.
"I-I just stumbled upon this, I… I didn't kill anybody!" the woman replies shrilly.
Razor nods. "I believe you, miss, just tell me what you know."
"I don't know… I don't know anything. I was walking home and then I found this mess!" She gestures to the heap of gore.
Razor curses internally. If only he'd been here earlier, maybe this wouldn't have happened! Perhaps the killer is still nearby? But… he can't just let this woman walk home alone. What if she was a target as well? Razor sighs. "I'll take you home, yeah?"
She nods and clutches onto Razor's arm. "Thank you, Mister, uh…"
"You can just call me Razor," the hunter-warrior replies with a smile.
Once the woman is safely back home, Razor scours the streets for any sign of the killer. He can't find anything, and he groans in frustration. The cannibal must have already gotten away… No point in wasting energy. Razor heads back to his own shabby apartment. Being a hunter-warrior paid well, but Razor… didn't exactly bring in a lot of targets. It's not that he wasn't good at his job, it was just… Okay, maybe that's exactly it.
Razor collapses in his too-small bed after pulling off his brass knuckles and setting them aside. He stares up at the moldy ceiling. He wishes things were different. He wishes he could have been born a Tipharean. Then maybe things would be easier.
Razor's mind wanders to his past. He'd been an orphan for as long as he can remember, raised by the community around him rather than any parents. He'd had a brother, but he had gone missing one night and was never found. Razor had become a hunter-warrior in hopes of finding his brother, but there was no luck yet so far, and he was beginning to lose faith.
Dreams start to replace reality as Razor falls asleep. Maybe he'd have better luck tomorrow.