The city was like the ocean in that the further in you went, the stranger things became until they were completely removed from anything resembling normality. It was one of those uber-modern-sprawling-metropolis places that you see on some news channel while you're in the waiting room of some doctor's office, too uncomfortable to pay attention beyond the shallow thought of "that looks like an expensive place to live". And you'd be right to think so.
The core population is estimated to be somewhere from four hundred thousand to six million, depending on where you draw the line between human and other. That line gets awfully vague and the people involved prefer it that way, less paperwork to fill out when they're applying for driver's licenses or passports. It's one of the few cities where having a "species" box is considered more important than "gender". They just prefer to know who has poisonous barbs and who can secrete hallucinogens from between their teeth, that's all.
These people are rarely found outside of the city centre and its many odd cafés that cater to the more specific diets of the residents. The outskirts and designated Tourist Zone are kept strictly to normal and normal-passing for the safety of everybody involved. It's just so difficult to explain that this isn't a costume, it's simple biology and if you stare any longer you will lose your eyes so don't say we didn't warn you. Tourists never listen.
They like to try and find "hidden gems" further inland, way out of the safety of the Tourist Zone and end up finding a lot more than they anticipated. The shift starts so slowly,much like the ocean floor as it gracefully descends from cutesy coral to an abyss full of deathly silence and strange lights. Only with the city the shift is from a typical European tourist trap to something out of an oceanographic nightmare.
Much like a starfish, a great many deep dwelling residents are found camouflaged and clinging to whatever surface they match to. It's a little disconcerting, to say the least but not nearly as worrisome as those who resemble jellyfish and live in tall glass buildings where every inch is tinted to near darkness, just as they prefer. It's rare for them to come outside unless it's raining heavily, then their transparent and vaguely humanoid forms like to writhe along the floor in large gelatinous puddles that casually bid you a good day.
No, it's better that tourists be kept as far from the city centre as is humanly possible, or inhumanly possible, given the state of the deep dwellers.
The core population is estimated to be somewhere from four hundred thousand to six million, depending on where you draw the line between human and other. That line gets awfully vague and the people involved prefer it that way, less paperwork to fill out when they're applying for driver's licenses or passports. It's one of the few cities where having a "species" box is considered more important than "gender". They just prefer to know who has poisonous barbs and who can secrete hallucinogens from between their teeth, that's all.
These people are rarely found outside of the city centre and its many odd cafés that cater to the more specific diets of the residents. The outskirts and designated Tourist Zone are kept strictly to normal and normal-passing for the safety of everybody involved. It's just so difficult to explain that this isn't a costume, it's simple biology and if you stare any longer you will lose your eyes so don't say we didn't warn you. Tourists never listen.
They like to try and find "hidden gems" further inland, way out of the safety of the Tourist Zone and end up finding a lot more than they anticipated. The shift starts so slowly,much like the ocean floor as it gracefully descends from cutesy coral to an abyss full of deathly silence and strange lights. Only with the city the shift is from a typical European tourist trap to something out of an oceanographic nightmare.
Much like a starfish, a great many deep dwelling residents are found camouflaged and clinging to whatever surface they match to. It's a little disconcerting, to say the least but not nearly as worrisome as those who resemble jellyfish and live in tall glass buildings where every inch is tinted to near darkness, just as they prefer. It's rare for them to come outside unless it's raining heavily, then their transparent and vaguely humanoid forms like to writhe along the floor in large gelatinous puddles that casually bid you a good day.
No, it's better that tourists be kept as far from the city centre as is humanly possible, or inhumanly possible, given the state of the deep dwellers.
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