It was pleasant, in a twisted sort of way. It made the muscles thrill as neurons sent flickering darts up to the brain swifter than an automatic machine-gun. Also a pleasant feeling, not that Lang could feel his brain – that is scientifically impossible – but that his consciousness inferred a palpable idea from the needle-like bolts as they struck home, igniting his mind with a heat that flooded through every twitching sinew. This delicious sensation was itself sparked by a singularly poignant smell floating down the darkened hallway.

Blood. Whether human or animal, Lang couldn’t be sure, but then that didn’t really matter. It was the smell of something dying; a life being sacrificed to the ever-hungry gods of the High Rise complex. In order that chaos remain unchecked and violent promiscuity be allowed to flourish in the moldering darkness, such offerings must be made. Lang was reminded of the Aztecs and their insane obsession for human blood. From the threading of noble tongues with thorny ropes, to the shredding human breasts and wrenching of still-throbbing hearts from their screeching hosts, these savages had understood the structure of the human form well enough to rend its most valuable parts. How similar the occupants of the High Rise had become to their ancestors, Lang could not say, but the almost surgical methodology of the Aztecs intrigued him. He saw the similarities between himself and these religious fanatics of the past, and it comforted him, strangely, to feel as if he himself were one of them. Not that the other inhabitants of the High Rise did not also share some form of common bond with their forefathers, simply that the Aztecs, with their insane forms of understanding and procedure, appealed to Lang’s surgical intellect as perfectly reasonable. He, and the others in his tribe, must conquer, and conquering, they must sacrifice that which they had risked their lives to take and keep. Once they had sacrificed – whether through physical blows or back-stabbing verbal intrigue – they would retreat, regroup and prepare to conquer again.

It was an endless cycle, and nearly the same every time. The same plans of attack formed in the same waning afternoon light; the same weapons and inciting words wielded with equal ferocity down permanently benighted halls; the same halls and doors, apartments and balconies, through which the maddened warriors must fight their way to an end and for a purpose no one could ever agree on. They were not united by interest, friendship, or even any basic commonality, like the desire for food, or the anger at having their apartments ransacked in the middle of the night. Their bond came simply from two having struck the same man on the head, and then that man, with them, striking another. The badge of this horde was a wilting red flower worn wherever the bearer pleased. Its battle-cry, whichever kind of scream suited each individual voice best.

They had become savages, searching for blood under the pretense of warring for peace.