Chapter 1: Cherry Balm and Cold Steel
They say the sky’s blue up there. Real sunlight. Clean air you don’t cough through. Meals that don’t come shrink-wrapped in street grease and regret.
Up top, they’ve got paradise.
Down here? We’ve got rust, shadows... and Breakball.
The world split a long time ago. Not by war, not by laws. By height. The towers rose, and with them, the rich. The rest of us stayed buried beneath, in the soot, the steam, the rot.
Welcome to the Underground.
Where pipes groan, walls sweat, and hope’s just a hustle.
And the only way out? Breakball.
It’s not just basketball. Not down here. It’s war with a scoreboard. Full contact. No pads. No gender lines. Shirtless, skin-tight, soaked in sweat or blood. Five-on-five, twenty-four minutes. The crowd comes for dunks. They stay for broken dreams.
We call it the Slumball Circuit. The Underleague.
The only place where a nobody can become a God for 24 minutes.
Sponsorship? Gangs. Pornhouses. Juice labs pushing combat roids and stamina spikes. You play for bars, brothels, and betting dens. You win, you get a cut. You lose? You might not walk again.
Body sells. Sex sells more. Some players trade their hope for stardom. Others trade their chances for bodies.