Built along the Ala Wai Cannel, Waikīkī, this stretch of ten by two blocks sits between water reclamation sub-centers. Once a beautiful stretch of land as the infrastructure of Oahu became increasingly demanding the state EPA required the construction of a water treatment facility to clear the waterway before meeting the ocean. The Ala Wai housing tract grew in almost the same way.
To support the growing number of tourists’ migrant workers were incentivized to move to the island in late 2061, before the Great War had begun to affect the United States. Originally designed to appear as a resort, the housing tract masked the water treatment centers and aeration tunnels. By 2085, Hawaii had become a haven for Japanese survivors and staging ground for US troops deployed to the Okinawa Prefecture. With the collapse of the tourist industry, the Ala Wai tract became a government-subsidized project for refugees and displaced citizens.
Today Ala Wai remains a blight on Oahu. Inside the tract, buildings range from three to nineteen stories. Cannel facing ground floors hosting aeration generators and safety equipment to prevent the toxic waters from washing ashore. With near triple the population density of the rest of the city and crime rate skewing the numbers for all of Honolulu living in the Ala Wai is a virtual death sentence on job applications. Most survive working under the table for Water Treatment, or prostitution.
Below the Waters, the legend of Moke Hyōsube
People disappear in Ala Wai; sometimes they turn up, the body washing up at the far treatment substation. Kidnappers, fun-boys, or other mundane atrocity festering in the housing tract turns out to be responsible. There are times though when the sludge is smeared with blood, wild on the narrow access tunnels, this is when the name Moke Hyōsube is whispered through the ghetto.
Described as a hairy lizard larger than a man, Moke Hyōsube is the polluted brother of the Green Lady. He is kinder, though far fouler, than his sister. Where she snatches children from Wahiawa’s gardens, he takes only those with black hearts from Ala Wai.
The oldest residents of Ala Wai say they can hear the difference in the screams when Moke Hyōsube comes for his victims. No one admits to having seen Moke Hyōsube personally but everyone in Ala Wai knows his appearance, his stench, and rage. For those who cannot protect themselves Moke Hyōsube is a guardian spirit, or so they like to believe. Younger members of the community write the monster off as some imported legend. Still the bodies go missing, with only a trail of blood and sludge leading back to the cannel.
