Shoes For Men And Beasts: Synopsis & Chapter 1

SYNOPSIS:

Gerard Erasmus is the only person other than the devil herself to have learnt all the different forms of magic in the Turtle world - time control, mind reading, animal training and astrology. But he chooses to be a cobbler, making shoes for men and beasts. One day, his goddaughter goes missing and he finds out that children have been disappearing around the kingdom, which can cause a collapse as the kingdom runs on the children’s imagination and knows that he has to solve this mystery. In this fantasy crime thriller, there are men and Gods and the devil, all victims of the human condition with hopes and dreams and fears. Gerard is arrogant and insufferable on the surface but underneath he is just a small boy who lost his mother and is struggling to find his place in the world. His brother is the King but he hates being royalty and stays away from the palace except when he gets in trouble. But because of his charm and intelligence, he has become friends with the Gods and that combined with his own superior skills makes him the best shot for the survival of the Turtle world. Gerard gets an order for shoes that support the owner to do magic from all four schools which leads him to suspect that it is the devil herself and is connected to the missing children. He meets a pied piper who brings fantastical stories of childhood in which bad, scary things happened like being trapped in a castle of chocolate by a witch but there were always happy endings. Gerard enjoys his stories and his company and soon it starts feeling like they’ve known each other forever. Quella Mournfallow, who has a love-hate relationship with Gerard, loves how when he’s with her he makes her feel like it’s just the two of them in the whole world but once she is out of sight, he behaves like he doesn’t even remember that she exists. She hates that she still loves him, despite everything but she gives him as good as she gets. Quella is also a fortune teller who sees where the devil is and different Gods guide them along the way as Gerard, the Pied Piper and the fortune teller go on an adventure and cross the sea, the north of town, the lake and the narrow valley. Unfortunately, their suspect ends up being an anarchist who just wants to make a deal with the devil. With help from the Gods, Gerard starts suspecting the pied piper and when he takes him to see the morning star, the pied piper’s flute comes out of his waistband, telling Gerard that it is the cause of the evil. The Pied Piper was wronged by the Kingdom as they did not pay for his services and he ended up losing his livelihood and family and he wants revenge. Gerard starts doubting himself as he is supposed to be the most intelligent human but he got duped so easily. They then hatch a plan to defeat the pied piper using music. There is a royal singer called the Nightingale who is their only hope but Gerard has broken her heart and will need to fix that to gain her support. This experience provides emotional growth to Gerard who realises what matters in life and how powerful humans can be when they work together and be kind.

CHAPTER 1 :

“I liked Hell; I liked going there alone. It was a relief to lie in the rubble, ruined, physically undone. The worst had happened. What else could hurt me after that? I thought it was the worst, thought nothing worse could come. Then nothing did, and no one,” said Gerhard lifting an old gold cup with ornate wave-like embellishments on both sides which were supposed to handle. Gerhard swallowed a small gulp of the drink he liked to call ‘The Demonic Bruiser.’ It mainly consisted of whisky and some tobasco without ice or a diluting agent.

The deep redness of the drink burnt through his oesophagus, flowing like an enraged river. He grasped the rusty handles with his rough hands and leaned the mouth of the trophy-like mug towards his eyes; the cup was still half empty. Gerhard kept the small cup on the stone table; it wasn’t exactly a table, more like a substantial rectangular cobblestone slab placed among the other colossal rocks in the surrounding. He tried to look at himself through the shiny gold cup, to look at what he had become after so many suns and moons. But Gerhard could not. The rust was too strong for a reflection to be formed. Had he become so ancient? He still remembered the day when the giant sitting with him had offered him the most miniature cup he had in his tavern. Overhead the night was a superb arch of clear mist, sifted with stars.

Gerhard felt light and sudden shock on the ground; tiny pebbles on the ground trembled, and the rough rocky boulders shook slightly. But the brown bearded man sitting on a small block of stone did not even flinch. He kept on sipping his alcohol slowly. An average person might’ve reckoned it was a quake, but it wasn’t. Gerhard kept his brown eyes on the quivering liquid until it settled still. He kept his cup down, looked straight ahead, and saw a colossal cup just like his, standing proudly on the stone surface. He had seen it since he was pretty young, and he thought colossal was quite an understatement. Gerhard had heard rumours around town about the glass of the gods, how huge it would be. Maybe the size of a house? They always underestimated. It was nearly the size of a building, about eighteen meters tall: the trophy like glass that resided in front of his terror’s eyes now.

In that cup’s shiny gold, he could see himself back. A five foot ten man with a thick bush of a beard that needed trimming; his nightfall driving cap was sitting in front of him, slightly slanted due to the minor quake. He kept his dark grey double-breasted trench coat just beside his hat. He saw himself wearing the white shirt with the buttons tied together with tight, as they always were, even the topmost one. He adjusted his frenzy dark brown hair with his hands into less of a mess and tilted his chin upwards. He saw the company he was with, a huge giant, sitting cross-legged opposite him.

His eyes were as shiny as the glowing blue ocean. Gerhard craned his neck higher and saw his face, a humongous grey face with a bald head. The hair on the giant’s head had fallen but he couldn’t say the same about his beard. His lower face was covered with rough stone hair in a Jesus-styled beard. His stone-like moustache blended with his beard well but it stood out like a tree in a desert. The light grey skin on his face was wrinkled, his entire body felt as if he was a statue with silver lake blue eyes. The tip of his stone beard touched the middle of his bare chest. He picked up his huge cup and drank the drink from it in a stop-and-start kind of fashion, his entire body felt like a rock, difficult to move on its own. 

The twin ruined structures near the giant had three long and strong pillars carrying a stone structure like a temple-top above them. One of these ruins was on his left and one on his right. He slowly rested his hand on the right temple and took another sip from his cup and the thin pair of halos which were one inside the other hovering on his head glowed in green and blue waves; like an aurora. He was a god.

“Some centuries ago, I visited hell myself as well, t was… t wast horrible very much,” said Hetotl in his grand and gravelly voice, echoing around the ruins through his cave-like mouth.

“It is horrible, Hetotl. I laid there, hoping someone would rescue me from my own self for I was ruthlessly stabbing the spirit that lied behind this flesh,” added Gerhard in his thick voice with a Hollowshire accent.

“And then?”

“No one came, I woke up and I was back here, suffering.”

Gerhard and Hetotl did not speak for some time, no noise came their way except the lonely wind and the occasional quakes. 

“But what will Hollowshire do without me?” said Gerhard finishing his drink. He licked the little foam on his lips and slammed his cup down trying to mimic the giant God.

“Beest at peace haply.”

“Haply,” grinned Gerhard, “maybe, but I’m just an ordinary cobbler, nothing special…”

He raised the small cup in his hand towards the stone giant and Hetotl raise his hand up slightly off the temple ruins and half the glass filled with alcohol. Gerhard gestured cheers towards God and kept on drinking.

“Thee knoweth, thee remind me of young Ohdros a lot,” mused Hetotl.

“Why is that?” Gerhard was bemused. 

“He smok’d his cigars with me, sitting on the roofs of these fusty temples a millennium ago, he hadst nay friends. Quite lonely. He bethought as if ‘t be true what would anyone doth without him, perfect at everything, just like every other young god,” stated Hetotl.

“I do have friends… I have you, the god of poetry himself, there’s Nicholas… Anyway, I have simply bested everything your school teaches, everything all the schools taught.” muttered Gerhard stroking his brown beard.

“Children at a younger age bethink and chooseth their potential and receiveth into one of the schools hither in Hollowshire, not all of those folk succe’d in graduating. It’s a privilege thee graduat’d Gerhard, beest grateful.”

“You started the Sacred Heart school of thought, Hetotl, you’ve mastered the craft of time control, time manipulation. And you yourself have said that I’m quite decent at it as well,” stated Gerhard.

“I has’t, and I meanteth every word of t. Thee could’ve easily did get a good-paying job of a traveller, of a time lord, but why doth thee chooseth this life?”

“The other three gods say the same to me, I haven’t spoken to Ohdros in a long time, but who has…”

Gerhard calmly took a sip from his drink, he felt the rough rust on his cold lips.

“Honestly, I don’t know Hetotl. I’ve tried all four of the schools, graduated from all of them, but they just don’t connect to me, I don’t want a well-paying or a typical job.”

“Then wherefore didst thee chooseth to maketh shoes, cobbler? isn’t yond also an ordinary job?” asked Hetotl his voice slowing down at the end of the sentence. 

“Gods wouldn’t get what it means to be human. My heart always wanted to pursue something creative, something I can work with at my own pace and meet and interact with new, different people. It’s a different sort of thrill Hetotl, you wouldn’t get it.”

“Gods knoweth everything, Gerhard, nev’r underestimates us,” expressed Hetotl in a friendly tone. 

“I never asked you… were you human before? Before turning into,” queried Gerhard pointing at the colossal body of Hetotl, “before turning into a giant god?”

“I’m an old god, Gerry, we has’t a choice to either serveth in heaven as soldiers ‘r to becometh gods. To becometh Gods, the training and the study is harder than plucking the stars out of the sky. Some make the shift, others doth not,” explained Hetotl.

“And what about the ones who fail the God-making process?”

“They kicketh the bucket, back into the endless abyss. Eventually, the rebirth happeneth, haply as a human, as a creature or haply they are born in hell or receiveth born back in heaven, whither the process repeats,” expounded Hetotl. He had kept his cup on the stone platform for quite a while, his stone fingers intertwined in each other.

“And then I assume you start your own school of thought, of the subject you’re a God of?” asked Gerhard.

“You’re correct.”

“But you’re the God of Poetry, right? Then why does your school teach time control?”

“Because art, paintings, statues are how we decorate space, poetry is how we decorate time.”

Gerhard curled his lips down as he made an impressed face nodding along with what Hetotl said.

“Although the other schools of thought don’t agree with it, as much as I’ve heard,” clarified Gerhard.

“Oh, they doth not. Us gods don’t exactly has’t rivalries between us, but the students has’t did start these fartuous rivalries.”

“When was the last time you talked to the other two? Leave out Ohdros for now, he doesn’t even talk to the students now,” questioned Gerhard. 

“We’re not did allow to talk anymore. As the new gods becometh fusty, we don’t needeth much help from each other to figure things out, we art on our own,” answered Hetotl with a hint of grief in his tone. But that grief was always there, how can the God of Poetry not be tainted with misery? 

“That must be lonely as fuck,” replied Gerhard.

“Loneliness provides f’r poetry, it’s not an unexplor’d feeling anymore…” 

The windy gust blew among the ruins of the old temples, of the pillars of halls, of the graveyards, of the castles. Hetotl took a deep sigh audibly. “If ‘t be true thee don’t mind me asking, how art they? Ateus and Hedar?”

“Let me think, the God of Truth and the God of Animals, how are they…?” Gerhard took a long sip. “They’re just as lonely as you, giant, Ateus wants to meet you so bad, he told me all the stories about him and you when you lads were new Gods, but…”

“But?”

“But now he has a school to focus on, to manage it, to set its vows and its disciplines. At least that’s what he told me,” finished Gerhard. 

“Mind-reading his school teaches, doesn’t t? Oakleaf School. How wast the experience thither?” 

“Boring really, I mean all the four schools were boring, no offence,” shared Gerhard. 

“I recall the time at which hour thee wast young, so enthusiastic. Eager to learneth time control, poetry.”

“Well out of the four, Sacred Heart had the best experience of the worst.”

“You’re just declaring yond to please me right now…” busted Hetotl. 

“Yes…” added Gerhard.

“I still recall what thee hath said to me, at which hour thee did complete Sacr’d Heart. ‘One day, I will be a poet. Water will depend on my visions.’ "

“I was such a great kid back then wasn’t I?” said Gerhard with a wry smile. He gulped down his entire drink, he had gotten quite drunk. His head had started spinning but he could afford another drink. Without asking, Hetotl turned his head towards the tiny cup and his blue glowing eyes electrified like the lightning and the glass was half full again.

“This is the last drink, Gerhard. Careful of how much thee drinketh.” 

“Yea yea,” he avoided sipping on.

“What about Hedar?” asked Hetotl. 

“I don’t know much really. I do not visit the desert often, but I’ve heard that most of the younglings choose his school the most the past couple of years. Desert Winds School.”

“Of course the children doth, it’s fascinating, I would concur. Building a connection with thy choice of pet. His teaching means well.”

“They are… I’ve only met him a couple of times. He did not visit the school often, only to commemorate the final ceremony. His Kurok was scary as hell,” exclaimed Gerhard nearly spilling his drink on stone surface, his hands were stuttering. He remembered the legendary creature Kurok. He was nearly seventeen, he remembered that hot and windy day in the Quiet Desert. The flying squid-like creature. All of its black eight tentacles hovering just above his head full of hair. He was scared for his life back then. He wouldn’t care much anymore. 

Gerhard still remembered his training and academics in Desert Winds. At the end of his studies, he could basically see through the eyes of his cat. Oh, poor Kafka must be wandering the streets of Hollowshire finding where Gerry would’ve gone to. She wasn’t much of a house cat really, growled at anything and everything in her away, except Gerhard. Kafka liked scratching him more. Gerhard sitting there, thought of her, he closed his eyes hoping he still remembered how to ping the bond between them and connect to her. He was transported to the King Oven bakery in the market district of the county. He sat on the walls in front of the glass display of the bakery. He could smell the mint aroma of the baked goods inside the bakery, he could see the freshly baked Struviange Mooncake and Lime Jelly in the encased glass. His stomach was in knots, the gurgles made him jump down from the wall and approach the bakery to steal something.

She felt safe. He wanted to make sure she was alright, although not even one of her nine lives were over yet. He dreamed of petting her, and she felt it, at least he hoped so. Gerhard then chose to disconnect from Kafka, back to reality where was sitting, in front of a wondering Hetotl. “Didst thee connect to thy cat?” asked Hetotl.

“Yes, all that talk and wondering of Hedar reminded me of her, just wondering what she was doing, don’t care about her much,” he said in a drifty tone drinking on, nearing the end of his drink. 

“Talking about the Gods, haven’t seen Ateus since a couple of weeks as well. The thing about Ateus and Hedar is that their places are quite far from town really, I don’t visit them often, whereas you live right by the edge of town and offer free booze, so I often come to the ruins.”

“As long as I has’t a friend cometh to me, I’m well enow. The fusty and new students visit every day with their problems, I giveth those folk counsel and they leaveth, t gets quite boring, in earnest.”

“You must love solving problems right, you’re a God! That too of poetry” wondered Gerhard.

“Every day I learneth about people, their issues and mine own privilege of not having such problems. The more I learneth about the ordinary. The less I understandeth why I’m here” contemplated Hetotl, “I recall Ohdros saying that once befere he wenteth into his hibernation.”

Gerhard remained quiet as he knew there were more words to come.

“He toldeth me this long ago, I didst not understandeth wherefore, I wast a young god then, I understand now.”

“Did Ateus back Ohdros’ claims? He’s the God of Truth right?”

“Ateus and I weren’t most wondrous great friends back then, we still hadst most wondrous memroies and adventures.” sipped Hetotl, “I don’t wanteth to speak of t.”

“That’s okay…” explained Gerry, “Let’s talk about my experience of Ateus. What was his school called again? Oakleaf right. I met him a couple of times after the famine. He seemed alright, he talked of how arrogant I was to his students who came to visit him that day. He used quite brutal words really, but that’s alright, he is the honest God.”

Hetotl nodded along, his stone head made a cracking sound as it moved.. Gerry looked at him and thought of how the God had never changed. The same thunder-like glowing eyes, the same bald grey head with the long stone beard and just to add a little colour to him, the colourful shining halos. He reminisced about the past. 

Just a little kid; nearly thirteen. His old mother explained to him how the Turtle and Hollowshire’s system worked exactly. They lived in a small hut made up of bricks and bones, the fireplace keeping the pair warm. Still, the cool snowy wind blew past his mother’s red hair. And her hair danced in the breeze, like a thousand swinging trees in a forest lying next to stormy seas. She held little Gerry in her arms looking at the fireplace with the wooden door of the hut closed. His daddy was a sailor, mostly never came home, they had no idea whether he was alive or not. The nights were so long and the silence went on. Gerhard could feel his mother was so tired and not all that strong. The double windows on the wall adjacent to the fireplace were shuddering, the snowstorm wanted to come in, but it was sturdy enough. While they watched the wintry sky turn a shade of turquoise, he whispered softly, “I feel lost.”

She turned with laughing eyes and curled her lips towards the fire and said, “Get your map out.”

Young Gerry, a boy with long brown hair ran with his tiny legs over to the wooden cabinets and opened the bottom-most drawer, it opened with some force and he grabbed a rolled up piece of paper and jumped back to his mother. The dark blue sweater kept him warm but not as much as his mother could provide.

He unrolled the piece of parchment and saw the small map of Hollowshire. Gerry did not understand the map much but he could get around and like the little pictures on it. His mother pointed to the desert-like part of the map with her pale hand and said in a soft warm voice, “Next year, when you grow up, you will have to go to school.. away from mom…” he could hear a bit of tearyness in her voice. “There are four schools here in Hollowshire, blessed by the great Gods.”

She taped on to the rough page, “This is Desert Winds, the school of the great Hedar. Here they teach you all about animals and they teach you the magic to see through them, make an unbreakable bond…”

“Does God Hedar also teach at the school?” asked Gerry calmly.

“He used to, I don’t know whether he does anymore, love.”

Gerhard nodded holding tightly onto her other arm.

“Then there’s the Frozen Lake School,” his mother said pointing at the top of the map. “Started by the God of the Night, Ohdros. There the teachers teach you about what’s written in the stars and all about the unexplored universe. All of the planets and the astrology and astronomy of it. Your Dad studied there, Gerry.”

He thought of his old man, the last time he remembered seeing him, his beard had started whitening, his chocolate-like skin, he had his brown fedora on his head. His brown eyes looked at Gerhard, tickling him till he cried. He did not remember much. He looked up to the wall where the brown bricked fireplace was fuming, he saw two photo frames on each side of the chimney. One was of an entity, very human-like. He stood there in the desert wearing his dark yellow monochromatic robes, his sleeves were bare and his rough hood was up to his face. And he held a staff in his right hand, which was near to his own height. Young Gerry couldn’t see the details as clearly, it was quite an old photograph and inside the other frame rested a photo of a humongous skeleton. The skeleton had a large crack on his skull whose split connected from the head to the eye shells. The skeleton sat on a table with a bottle in his right hand and a cigar in his other. 

His mother noticed Gerry looking at the pictures and not at the map. She held him closer and told him, “The one which looks like a skeleton, love, is Ohdros, the God your father worshipped and the other one with the staff is Hedar. The God I worship. Let’s come back to the map shall we?”

Gerry shifted his brown eyes to the map. His mother pointed at a temple-like structure on the map. Coloured sea green and it had quite a modern look to it. She said, “This is the Oakleaf School, which was started by the God of Truth, Ateus, here you mostly learn about people and their psychology, pretty much mind-reading. But no one is as good as Ateus is yet.”

“Can I be great like him?” Young Gerry asked.

“You can, you certainly can,” she replied.

And finally, she pointed to the last school. It wasn’t exactly a school but more like a stone structure of long bone like boulders attached to each other on a green flatland. “This is the Sacred Heart, the school of thought run by the God of Poetry, Hetotl. I always wanted to go here, but time did not let me. Talking about time, here at this school they teach you about Time control and time manipulation.”

Gerry looked into the abyss and thought of the schools his mom had explained to him.

“Which one are you the most fascinated with?” asked his mother as a small strand of her hair dangled near Gerry’s face.

“God of Poetry sounds great. But if Hetotl is the God of Poetry, why does he teach time control?”

“I have no clue, dear. Maybe one day, when you would meet him, you can simply ask him,” said his mother with a smile. A smile that he remembered every day when he woke up, which helped him get out of his bed. 

“Can I go to all of them?”

“You can, but it will be very difficult dear. It’s hard to get accepted into one let alone four, love.”

“I will try,” said Young Gerry grasping his mother’s finger with his entire hand’s set of fingers.

“What’s your heart telling you to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe, you’re trying too hard to hear it.”

“I want to be happy, mother, can I be that when I grow up?”

“You can…”

She smiled again and this time, he could see all her tiredness fading away. When his mom smiled at him. Her smile kind of hugged him.

                                                               ***

Gerhard was looking at the sky and the infinite dance of the stars. The night sky above the Godly ruins was always a sight to see. The green and purple and light blue streaks on the dark surface looked like different rivers following their flow calmly. “It’s getting late,” declared Hetotl in his deep and heavy voice. 

“You’re right,” replied Gerhard as he burped his way along, “just one last question.”

Hetotl raised his hand slightly and the ground and the surrounding stones trembled.

“Am I the only one n the history of Hollowshire to go through all of the schools? if that would be the case then it’ll be pretty cool.”

“No…” denied Hetotl. “Doth thee knoweth why you’re fear’d ‘r and hated ‘mongst the men and beasts in the city”

“Why? Maybe it’s just because of my shitty attitude, you’d say.”

“Nay. There wast one lassie before thee, the morning star. Decades before thee wast coequal born. The lady did succeed in all of the academies. The lady wast hath called the morn star famously, the bringer of light; who couldst possibly bringeth peace to the war-sunken land of Hollowshire. But…” Hetotl paused.

“But?”

“But the lady did get bor’d and rebell’d just any other genius ‘r a cunning person would do and hath fallen from heaven and now the devil, Gerry,” recollected Hetotl. “that is why I at each moment remind thee to beest humble, to beest a better version of yourself everyday, get off this horrible personality of yours.”

 “So the people in town reckon I’ll be the next devil?” Gerhard laughed in his own burpy way. He was too drunk.

“Aye, at least that’s what I assume so.”

“Well I would love to meet this lady someday, she seems really bewildering. What was her name?”

“Lucifer.” Hetotl croaked, “child, don’t taketh everything f’r a quip. Lucifer is not a mistress to be mess’d with.”

“Have you met her?”

“Once the lady wast mine student, the lady was everyone’s student just like thee. But there wast no one f’r her. Why doth thee think I talk to you and alloweth thee cometh and drink with me? I don’t wanteth thee to turn out like that lady,” gasped Hetotl. 

“Why do you call her the lady? Just call her Lucifer, right?” babbled Gerhard laying his head down on the table, cartoon-like bubbles flowing from his mouth into the air. 

“She’s fear’d everywhere, ‘mongst the commonfolk and ‘mongst gods. You would not know.”

“I don’t know…I would still love to meet her, never saw her in Hell though, whenever I went there.”

“The demons and the Cerberus, and all the creatures dread that lady. It’s most wondrous not to speak of t. I’m not particularly fond of that lady.”

“Yeah, I figured.” agreed Gerhard. He looked around him, with surprise in his eyes, why did he not know about her? The ground was calm, the rocks and the stars and the beautiful moon had gone to sleep. He should go too, he thought. 

Hetotl was silent. His light blue sockets glowed lowly now, Gerhard looked at him and reckoned he was thinking of Lucifer. “Well, Hetotl, it’s been a pleasure. I have to leave, the time’s running out.”

“Running out? Doth thee count thy days, Gerhard?” Hetotl questioned without looking at Gerhard with his massive stone head.

“Do you think that I count the days? There is only one day left, always starting over; it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.”

Hetotl nodded and the pebbles shook, not the boulders, it was just a slight bob. 

“And I want to make the most of it, before dawn arises,” finished Gerhard as he burped one last time and fell onto the ground quite hard.

Hetotl looked annoyed. He lifted his right arm up without any creaky sound and Gerhard was up, standing extremely still. As if time was reversed. “Go home safe Gerhard, the night is not always meant to be ours.” asserted the God of poetry.

“Yes boss,” replied Gerhard in a very tipsy manner almost tipping his hat to God but that would be disrespectful. He wore his double-breasted trench coat which lied on the stone slab and buttoned it up, the cool breeze still blew. He kept his hat in its place and bid adieu to Hetotl and went on his way. 

He still walked the cold paths of the ruins, the way to the town was far away from him. He could feel the quakes behind him, it wasn’t anything new to him, Hetotl always cleaned up after their drinking sessions. Kept both the glasses back on the ruins of the old giant shelves; like trophies. Gerhard was drowsy but he knew the patterns with God.

He still adored the night sky. It did not change a bit since he was young and when his mother held him. One day he had woken up, high above the blue. From a child to a bratty lad; in a lawn chair on the dunes. And written in the rose green glowed in his mind “You can go easy, now you owe nothing.” Maybe he dreamt of that. He had done everything he could’ve: finished all of the schoolings, everything went well but he did not find what he loved. He could go easy now, he owed nothing. 

Gerhard kept his chilly hands in the warmness of the pockets of his coat. He tried to cover his ears with his hat and as time passed he was on the way back home. His eyes were twirling, he could not see things clearly. The way home was far, he passed by the familiar old shop of goods and wears near the prairie of the Ruins. There was the wind beneath the door, sounds of the branches clawing at the pane of the windows of the closed down shop. Panicked animals were wailing, nothing he was concerned about.

He walked alone. The lad the low black clouds couldn’t hold. As a silver threaded light broke in between the blinds of the sky, he was drifting through the formless night.