The streets of the city were cold and gray, monstrous concrete monoliths rose up on either side of the alley. Now and again cars sped past on the main roads spreading light into the crevices of the passage. Mostly the rubbish filled alley and iron fire escapes were eerily dark. High up in the apartments shadows and silhouettes danced in the slightly yellow glow of the electric lights. The lit rooms glowed like eyes in the concrete. The smell of urine and rotting food hung on the air.
The young man sat down on a cardboard box, his head deep in his hands. Above his face short, dark hair was slightly displaced by his fingers upon one of which a yellowish band sparkled in the light. The man sobbed into his wide palms and tears trickled down his wrists to his arms beneath his tight fitting polo-necked sweater. A shabbily dressed old man stumbled past and grunted to him but still he did not look up. The old man passed into the darkness.
A female voice spoke next, seemingly from everywhere and nowhere at once. She said a single word, his name, but he instantly recognized her voice and shouted her name into the darkness. He cried her name in the dark, asked her to come back to him and ferociously searched the bins and piles of boxes to no avail. As he does this, a thin booklet drops from him and on the front of it appears a cross with her name printed below in gothic type with two dates. The first, her date of birth and the second, a date closer to the present.
Noticing the white paper on the gray floor in the darkness he picked it up and, dusting it off, put it into his pocket. Then once again he sat on his box, pulling it well out of the light and sitting hard down on it. Under his weight it gave slightly emitting a small tearing sound. He continued his mourning, wailing into the icy streets.
It felt like his life had ended to the extent that he could almost hear the vultures circling. Indeed it was a flapping noise that made him look up into the black night sky. Hovering above him was a large bat like creature with thin, torn, leathery wings beating. Suddenly it dived and picked him up. Like a monstrous harpy the talons of the creature dug into his shoulder and lifted him. The bird flew back up to the sky and came down to perch with him on top of one of the buildings. As he teetered on the edge of the abyss chaos swirled at the bottom. On the pavement were fleshing lights and noisy ant-like crowds. Loud hailers all screamed the same thing; her name, a million, million voices in the black. His head spun as he stepped out toward them. Then suddenly all was silent, all was black.