Downtown
Official illustration by Clément de Ruyter
Animals call Downtown the remains of human constructions that still stand: concrete-and-steel tower blocks, stretches of tarred road, industrial sites rusting in the rain.
The streets are silent. The clatter of a wild doe's hooves sometimes breaks the quiet before she flees at the slightest noise. When night falls, neon signs begin to crackle and light up, and the empty place takes on the look of an abandoned funfair.
Animals cross it without staying: they find it grim, tarred all over and unnerving. Passages lead down from it, however, into the Kingdom of Rats and the GIN.