During the Isolation

It is I The Narrator once more. Time for my words. I hope you listen to them, even if they are not as important as the human's.

Morgan Porter was trapped in this area with no hope of exit. He was trapped within a silence and emptiness that could never be quite filled. Even those voices that had tried to fool him remained silent. The City itself was the only being that brought the slightest hint of company.

After the first years The City began to regret it's decision to claim one of the last humans in existence. As the man had sunken into a deep despair that was not amusing in the least. He would stay curled up in a ball rocking in the corner muttering things about his mother and father and boredom. The City was angered at this as it required the human to live as long as possible so it could have the only thing it ever wanted. At this moment in time the human had dark circles under his eyes and hair much longer than before due to his reluctance to move from the spot.

After the second year brief fits of hysteria began to occur. Porter began to ramble about every person he had ever met. In between this he was still in the throes of despair. The City was beginning to lose hope that the young man would ever recover and tell it what it wanted to know. So The city hatched a rather half baked plan in it's moments of consciousness, to imbue life into the slowly dying Morgan Porter.

After the third year the hysteria had died. Porter was completely unresponsive, as if he was sleeping with his eyes wide open. The City was getting rather aggravated and decided in it's wisdom that it would do something it hadn't done for a very long time, converse with a victim. You see this very unlucky lucky young man was the only breathing human left in all the world and the ones beyond and The City needs a human to help it survive. So it had to use Porter. The City began to speak to Porter. It was painful at first as the crumbling and rusting town was not accustomed to forming words. It would say a few words here and there but nothing major and here it is having to talk for days nonstop. Having to ask painful question towards the man in order to get him to reply.

After the fourth year The City began to give up. Porter would only reply with hmn and mn and occasionally a tilt of the head. The City so far had told the man stories of its victims throughout the years, it had asked him questions about God and the nature of reality. However one question did break through the stupor if only slightly.

"Why won't you talk to me?" The City asked in a frustrated and crumbling voice as another piece of wall fell down.

In a voice very hoarse and crumbling like the city walls, one that spoke fine English due to The City's constant tales. "Because you aren't real."

The City was taken aback by the very notion of that, how could it not be real? After all the young Porter was sitting there, albeit that could not be proven due to this being an alternate reality, one without need for human things such as food or drink. The man looked up at the roof with his brown eye that was still deeply black ringed.

"I am just as real as you. I wish to ask you a question human." The City grumbled as another piece of roof fell down just beside Porter's feet.

Porter merely curled up in another position as an answer. I wonder how it must have felt to be wrapped up in this kind of place.

"How do you become human?" The City asked.

Only silence filled the space of the room. The City in an angry fit shook the man around until he crawled away. His hands collapsed beneath him and he choked on the aging dust of this city of emptiness that even time himself had forgotten. The moments were creeping by. He curled up just outside the door that had rotted long ago and breathed in more dead air. He nearly choked on the smell of the musk and elderly mold creeping on the walls.

"Leave me." He sighed as he choked on the words that were almost unfamiliar to his tongue.

"Tell me how do you become human. I do not wish to die here. Becoming something else like the others are is the only hope. Tell me the secret to humanity." The City begged as the pipes burst.

Morgan Porter stood up for the very first time in a very long time and fell down again. He pulled the hood over his ears in a desperate attempt to silence the voice. He wasn't doing very well with hearing voices begging him to reply after all this time when he heard only the ripping of a dying God and his own heartbeat.

After the fifth year The City had begun to ask the question constantly in a way impossible to ignore for it was that loud.

"Shut up." Porter whimpered as he pulled the hoodie around him tighter as it was the only means of security.

The City laughed.

"Do words bother you young human? I will talk until you tell me." It groaned as the fire finally burnt out.

"I want to wake up." Porter muttered.

"But you are not sleeping." The City replied as the bed springs struck out in agony of their own.

"Then I want to sleep." Porter coughed.

"You can sleep though." The City pointed out as the oven burst into flames.

"Can I die here?" Porter asked with more clarity than anyone would have thought someone could have mustered.

"From old age yes." The City replied after a bit of thought as the chimney fell in.

"I can age but I have no need for drink or water or rest or those other things." The brown eyed human thought out loud. "And how?"

"It's magic." The City laughed at the apparent foolishness.

"Magic? That seems like a lie. Are you telling me that I can never starve?"  He asked it as he sat up for the first time in a very long time.

"Not inside this place, this is my heart, the outside however." The City laughed again.

Porter stood up and took his very first steps in a very long time. He wasn't too keen on waiting to die of age, after all that's a very long time. He walked very awkwardly with very strange steps and very deep breaths. The City was not impressed as it pushed a bookcase in front of the exit. The young man let out an anguished noise that sounded much more animal than many animals.

"You will not leave until you tell me the secret to humanity." The City snarled as the wind blew down the chimes on the porch and the windows exploded.

"I'm sorry but I don't make deals with cities. Now let me out or I will find a way to kill you before you rot to death." Porter cried with much more strength in the state of pining for death in a less painful way.

"We will see if this new found energy lasts long human!" The City laughed as the tree outside crashed down onto it's roof.

Porter laughed himself with the hoarse and crumbling voice. He stood up and began to walk from one side of the room to the another. The City chuckled inwardly as he paced in that weak way that was so hysterical.

After the sixth year Porter could walk again, he could talk properly as well. The hoarseness never left his voice though. Strange that. The City was still dying but this time it had hope for with the words and the steps that were taken every day the human thought clearly and had life breathed into him. Life out of the need for death. Is this what you call irony? I think so. The City asked him constantly the same question but Porter was always such a stubborn man he could not allow The City to get the best of him, even if he longed for death so.

After the seventh year Porter began to develop muscle tone as he he exercised constantly to rid himself of boredom. Anything to break up the seeming eternity was fine with him, even taking potshots with rubble at The City's skylight. Eventually the human with the red hair grew strong enough that he could push the bookshelf out of the way, but with the will to die strangely enough came the will to live. He had decided that he had lived to many years here to just die from starvation just outside this rotting city. As The City cried out for him to return as the skylight fell in and the remains of the roof collapsed and the floor sunk in leaving only the three walls and the brick pillar in the center. This time it was the human that laughed as he made his way towards the building in the distance.

After the eighth year Porter was speaking to himself, he had the most interesting conversations. He was eating old cans of food and attempting to repair a computer that had fried. The computer would be pointless to communicate but perhaps it would dull the boredom and stay the hand of the incoming thud of insanity. This human was considering death again but merely laughed it off. After all he said that he would not and he prided himself in the life before on never breaking a vow, even to himself. And so he suffered in a bitter spite.

After the ninth year the computer was repaired. He stood up and laughed at his work. It took him a very long time. He turned it on and began to check the files on it. A document marked The City made him grin as he clicked onto the file and it opened wide, showing it's belly.

'The City only lives as The Heart lives.' The file giggled. 'The Heart only lives as long as humanity lives. This is the only Fear that deals solely with one species as that was the issue within it's faulty wish. A wish to live. Those always backfire, don't they? If someone during the end of everything finds this I would like you to do me a favor and kill me. Smash in the building of The City, of me and release my soul to death. I am sorry. I am sorry if eventually I forget all traces of humanity and lose everything I once had.'

The computer shut down with an angry buzz and the now once again grinning and laughing Porter picked up a pipe in the corner. he was much stronger now. The City will fall.

He walked back to where the third chapter began and The city cried out for him.

"You've come back human! Teach me humanity!" It screamed.

Are not quite all there protagonist laughed. He threw off the hoodie and stood before The City.

"I promised that I would kill you because I hate you this much. And now the records on that computer have told me that you are suffering like I. I'm gonna put you out of your misery, that is mercy." Porter said as he smashed down the remains of the door frame.

"Mercy is the first part of humanity." He continued. "You have suffered and made me suffer for too long."

He smashed down the first wall.

"What stop! Please! I don't want to die!" The City cried as the pain struck where it's nerves could have been.

"Suffering is the second part of humanity." Porter mentioned. "You are begging me for life and I am living still even though I wanted death."

He smashed down the second wall.

"Stop! Stop!" It cried.

"The will to live is the third part of humanity." The young man frowned as he stood before the final wall that was already partially tore down.

"And finally I forgive you and I hope you will forgive me. Forgiveness is the fourth part of humanity. Let me put you out of your misery." He coughed out as he raised the pipe with a little tinge of sorrow.

"Why do you hate me?" The City asked in the begging voice of a man in poor health.

"I don't,"

"Why do you want me to die?"

"Because you are suffering and it can't be fixed."

"I hate you."

"Why?"

"Because you have everything I can not."

"I'm sorry."

"Liar." The City choked under the force of the pipe.

A scream rang out that chased everything away and wrecked the world itself. The only things remaining being Morgan Porter with the pipe fast in his hand and a small door, barely big enough for the man clutching to life. The door swung open and there stood another man in jeans and a white shirt. Our protagonist however was now terrified of the sight and throw his entire body into a swing on the other man. The man let out a yelp and grabbed the pipe with his bare hand. He smashed into the stomach of the hero and slung him over his shoulder.

"Everything will be alright ma'am." He said with a light and cheerful voice bursting with optimism.

"No it won't be." Porter said back with the hoarseness that will never vanish.

"And why not?" The Ace of Cups asked.

"Because you aren't real." Porter laughed with agony.

"Are you sure?" The Ace of Cups asked back.

"No. I am not sure of anything anymore."

"Okay. Let's get you out of here ma'am."

"Ma'am? You mean sir."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Human genders are hard to tell."

And with those words The Ace of Cups flung open the door and walked out with the red haired human balanced on his arm. He closed the door behind himself and walked over the gray landscape towards a small shelter. And this is where Morgan Porter's story begins.