2. A party at Zeelis | Collaborative Contest

A party at Zeelis

He recognized the scent immediately. It was while shooting in that dark, smelly alley, dimly lit by the neon lights of a bar that had long since closed. It wasn't the smell of gunfire, or burning flesh, or robots shorting out. It was something else, something that took him back to the past, when he was little and the city was a quiet place where he spent his evenings with friends or family.
When there was no longer any danger, he let himself be carried away by that scent. It was not something he was used to doing, quite the opposite: life in Zeelis consisted of escaping from everything. He reached some old garbage cans scattered next to the door of the abandoned bar. He felt a breath and brought his hand to the gun. He kicked the garbage cans away. A boy was sitting on the floor, curled up in a ball. Next to the boy was a backpack. He looked terrified, but in Zeelis no one could be trusted. He pointed the gun at him, but the boy wouldn't even look at him. He pulled the backpack closer with his foot, still pointing it at him, moved a little away and opened it. He knew those cardboard boxes, stained slightly with grease. He opened one. It was the first pizza he had seen in twenty years.

• @agreste

He hesitated for a second. It could be a trap. He still remembered the tragic events in the city a few years ago. The attempt by the corporations to form smaller consumer hives. Part of the population was eliminated by randomly inserting pathogens into the food. "The cleanup" they had called it. It was not safe to eat from then on.
Chemical analysis confirmed it was real pizza. Amazing! The boy came closer and looked at him with huge eyes that seemed to challenge him: Eat! He took a bite. A feeling of euphoria invaded his whole body. His senses sharpened and his heart began to beat faster. He smiled, he felt invincible.
"What is it, child, why do I feel like this?" he asked.
The child, impassive, answered him: "You are now one of us, an "improved one." You are going to help me find the next element: !beer."

• @ditoferrer

This is the second part of a story for the contest organized by @bobthebuilder2 in collaboration with the Scholar and Scribe community. The contest is set in the @psyberx universe and consists of putting together a collaborative story about a party in the city of Zeelis. The idea is that everyone adds two paragraphs to the story. Everyone who collaborated on the story that has the most participants will have a prize in the game token, lvl. If you are interested in continuing the story, please read the contest details and rules inthis post.

The text was originally written in Spanish and translated with Deepl.
The image is taken from the post resources Psyberx offers in his discord.