The horizon has just finished blotting out the sun when he creeps in. He settles in just as dusk falls, sinking into the buildings, the ground, the very bones of the city. No one notices.
(Why would they?)
(He blends in so well.)
He slips through the streets, whispering past crowds, scarcely touching them.
(There are not many crowds.)
(Not anymore.)
In an alley, he comes across a cluster of trembling limbs. They're attached to a young girl. Her skin is pasty, her cheeks sunken in, bags under her eyes as dark as bruises. There are shadows cast in the hollows of her collarbone, framing her neck like a twisted piece of jewelry.
He gives her a slight nod as he brushes past. She might've even returned it; he's not sure. She's shaking too hard for him to tell.
An emaciated rat trails behind him. Instead of a footprint, he leaves a card in his wake.
(It's the Jack of Spades.)
(The rat doesn't know that.)
The rat gnaws on the card like it'll never taste food again.
(But then, animals always were perceptive.)
He emerges from the alley looking as composed and unruffled as when he entered it, to nobody's surprise.
(Not that there are many people to be surprised anymore.)
As he strides along the streets he leaves no trace of his presence behind him, the only indicators of his presence the faint feeling of something having passed and the soft echo of his footsteps.
(He is the youngest of them, but don't let that fool you.)
(He'll be around for a long, long time.)
A/N
hey sup guys I'm back
I told you I would continue this fic and I will if it's the last thing I do
good news, though: I promise chapter four won't take a year and a half to update
oops sorry about that