Lights flickers. The low hum of electricity.
Grey eyes search rooms empty of furniture, but filled with trash and dust.
Distantly, dogs bark, on-off key night-time chorus.
Filthy glass captures black bodied, white-faced reflection.
Dust stirs as black Doc Martens crunch over rotting floorboards.
Down, down.
The stairs seem barely able to hold the weight of the dust, let alone the weight of the man the walks on them.
Then again...can one call him a man?
Such thoughts chase around his head.
A hand reaches, catches, and turns a door-knob.
The door shrieks, groans, grudging swinging open for the first time in years.
And he takes a breath as the street welcomes him.
Confusion, chaos.
People, music, sounds, smells.
Sensory overload.
Pupils dilate, retract. Skin twitches.
Knees begin to buckle.
This action is caught, a fist slams into the brickwork by the door.
Bones crunch.
How very odd. There is no pain. He watches as his hand seems to knit back together. A flick of the fingers, and the process is done.
One step, and then another.
The sounds begin to the level out, eyes adjust to the light.
The smell of thai food, from the little restaurant he passes-spicy, and sweet.
Not even a stirring of hunger.
You do miss food though. And sleep.
But it's not required.
All that is required is the will.
A caw peals nearby.
Soft weight settles on one shoulder, claws grip into the black fabric of his shirt.
No-one seems to notice, or care, about the man walking down the street.
Even with a crow sitting on his shoulder.