Erich sipped the mug of coffee he had been offered. He had insisted upon coffee despite the late hour, knowing all too well that sleep would not be coming to him in either case.

His host, Kouta, and the young woman who was living with him, Yuka, had retired elsewhere for the moment, leaving him alone in the dining area to think. There was a faint sound of conversation among gentle sounds of running water and clattering dishes. They were almost certainly discussing him. Yuka had looked apprehensive at his presence there and she was right to feel that way. He wondered silently, for what seemed like the hundredth time, why he had acquiesced to Kouta's invitation. Up to this point, he had managed to satisfy himself with the explanation that he didn't want to be on the street anymore in case Angel came calling once more. He had been on the most direct road back to the city, and Angel knew he did not know Kamakura well enough to take side roads, or other approaches to it. She would have known exactly where to pick up his trail if, and when, she chose. The mug shook in his hands as he thought about her.

Angel…his most terrible, personal demon. He had killed that entire family. That was the brutal truth of the matter, their deaths were on his hands. It was different now however. There was already a lot of blood on his hands from the work he had used Angel to carry out, but she had placed the knife into his hands this time. He had personally cut flesh and spilled blood. He had been allowed to feel the warmth of life cascade over his murderous hands as he watched that life bleed out of a small child.

When he had looked into Angel's eyes just before swinging the knife, something in those eyes had brought out a most terrible side of him that he hadn't quite known was there. He couldn't define what had suddenly come over him that made him commit so terrible an act.

There was a moment, just before the girl had perished, when Erich had seen a look in his victim's eyes that he knew well. It was only for the fraction of a second, but there they were; Angel's eyes. As fathomless as death was eternal. It could simply have been a trick of his imagination, and in fact, he quite firmly held to that belief. He did not want to think about how a person could live their entire lives staring through eyes such as those. He did not want to think about why Angel could do it…

She wanted him to know why. Imagination or not, there was something terrible in her depths. Something he had not put there himself. It wouldn't end until he finally had the answer to what it was. How many more would suffer and die before that happened? How many would he kill before the end? How far would he go?

He knew he didn't really need the answer to that last one. Angel had proved that he had always known it. He would go as far as he had to.

His mind returned to his surroundings, and this time, he endeavored to keep it there instead of letting it drift back to Angel, and the horror still twisting inside him like a snake made of barbed wire.

He brought the mug back to his lips and drank deeply of the steaming, unsweetened beverage, and relished its bitterness. He listened to the sigh of wind through the trees and tried to let it calm him. He had not realized just how sorely needed this asylum was. The moment he had stepped through the doors, he felt himself uncoil so completely that he feared he would sink to his knees right in that instant. Instead, he had kept his composure as Kouta introduced him to the apprehensive Yuka.

She had been reluctant to get near him. Not that she had been obvious about keeping her distance, but after the initial introductions, she ensured that he was generally out of arms reach. He felt somewhat off put by Yuka's manner towards him, not because he was personally offended by her lack of hospitality, but more because he couldn't charm her, and he had certainly tried. He couldn't put his finger on it, why was he having such trouble with this? He had prided himself somewhat in his almost effortless ability to wrap his former test subjects around his finger as he spoke to them, and many of them exhibited a greater level of intelligence than was clearly present in this simple girl. So why wasn't his charm having any effect?

He put it out of his mind, attributing it to rattled nerves that were preventing him from presenting himself in the proper fashion. Even people of the most rudimentary intelligence could instinctively feel when another person was on edge, and that affected the ensuing interaction. That was probably it. He just needed some time to calm down, and rest if he could, though he knew the latter was going to be a long time coming as he felt the caffeine rush flow through him, speeding his heartbeat.

Still however, he needed to give some thought to where he was going to spend the night. He could walk his way back to the Institute, but knew he wouldn't do so. Erich wasn't certain when he had made the decision, but at some point during his walk, he decided he would not involve any more of the Institute's forces in this wretched game with Angel. She had opened his eyes to the futility of throwing men against her when she butchered his escort. Not that he hadn't always known it was futile, but he had been angry and desperate after Angel had reveled her murder of Celine and raped him. He'd wanted revenge, and men died because of his stupidity. He couldn't trust himself not to get anyone else killed, or squander the Institute's resources in an obsessive quest for vengeance.

Besides, he knew that this was between the two of them alone. Only he would ever have a real chance at killing Angel. Anyone else who tried, she would snuff their lives out without a second thought, and without breaking a sweat. People were going to die, there was no avoiding that, but Erich could at least keep the casualties to a minimum. He felt a nagging anxiety at not knowing what was happening at the Institute, and tried his best to put that out of his mind. Ryota would do his duty if things started to go badly, he had to trust in that. He didn't have a choice anyway.

A strange sense of freedom swept through him as he reflected on his decision to pursue Angel alone. He felt strangely excited at the prospect of anonymity, and the relinquishment of a conqueror's heavy burdens. Though his errand was a grim one, and would likely end in his death, he savored the freedom to simply walk around aimlessly, hold a conversation with a stranger, drink coffee in a simple house, and not have to stomach schemers, sycophants, or the groveling supplication of greedy fools. He would make sure to thank Angel for this little vacation before he blew her brains out. As the thought of her death flew blissfully through his mind, he found himself disturbed when he attempted to think past that event. His brow furrowed at the nothingness that seemed to follow. This, he put out of his mind as well. There would of course be future plans after her death. It was just his single minded focus that was making it appear that there would be nothing left after he…

He abruptly put his mind back to the business of nightly lodging. He could stay somewhere in the city, but he didn't know it very well, having only been to Kamakura a few times, and mostly never went out into that city further than Celine's residence there. He had a fair amount of Japanese currency in his wallet to pay for lodging in any case, having made sure to convert a small portion of his funds in anticipation of staying in Japan for a while.

Sipping his coffee, he considered his surroundings. This was an inn, wasn't it? Strange that there weren't any guests. Erich knew that there were some others that lived here with Kouta and Yuka, but he hadn't had the impression that the addition of those people would be enough to justify so large a home. Perhaps they would accept payment for him to rent one of the rooms for the night? He would have to ask Kouta when he returned from the kitchen. It was either that, or wander the cold streets for the next couple of hours looking for a hotel, not knowing the city so well except for the Institute, Celine's place, and…

…and…

Christ…that's where you want me to go isn't it Angel? That's why you're not watching me. You know that you're going to find me there…you're probably waiting for me even now…

"Feeling better?"

Kouta's voice, from the hallway that led to the kitchen. He stepped out and into the dining area, Yuka following behind. As she entered the room, she once again cast an anxious gaze upon him. It made his temper flare up, but he ruthlessly suppressed it, and offered a smile to the pair, who sat down at the table opposite him. The woman sat companionably close to Kouta. His lover, he guessed.

"I am actually, thank you," Erich replied, "I had been walking the street for so long I suppose I forgot how miserable I was out there."

"We're happy to help," said Yuka, her expression softening somewhat. He felt amused at the lie. Anyone watching her would have been entirely convinced of her sincerity. That took practice…how interesting.

There was an uncomfortable silence as both Yuka and Kouta appeared to be searching around for something to say. Erich had not given them much information on the circumstances of his evening wanderings, so they didn't really have an easy way to strike up conversation so that they might know him better. He normally would have been just fine with that, as the discomfort of others often put Erich in an advantageous position over them in conversations, but he wasn't an authority figure under this roof. He needed to put them at ease and he wasn't going to do that by being reticent, though he couldn't exactly be truthful either.

"I'm sorry to inconvenience you this way," said Erich, "I had actually planned on finding a hotel somewhere in the city, and will likely do that shortly. I'm starting to feel well enough to resume my walk."

"You have somewhere to go after that don't you?" Kouta asked. Yuka shot him a look that was just shy of incredulity, but remained silent.

"I…" Erich thought quickly, this was where he had to start telling them something, "don't have a place to go as much as I have something to do."

They waited for him to go on. He made a show of staring into his drink and sighed as though it were an involuntary action. He paused just long enough to imply distraction from some inner musing before carefully placing his mug on the table, and flicking his eyes towards his hosts, as if he had just remembered they were there.

"I'm looking for someone," that much was true.

"Who?" asked Yuka, suddenly intrigued.

He paused for a moment, and considered telling them the truth. If they had, by some freak chance, run across Angel, they would likely be able to point him in a direction. He wouldn't have to tell them why he was looking. He decided against asking however, as he remembered why it would be useless. He felt sure of where he would most likely find Angel now, and didn't need direction. Besides, the less people who knew about the Diclonius, the better. Even if JSDF eventually had to lock the city down, they could simply tell its citizens that there had been a viral outbreak and the government was attempting to isolate it. Which would be more or less true.

"My daughter," Erich lied, "I've been looking for her almost two days now."

"How terrible," Yuka said earnestly, though he was sure she didn't completely believe him, "have you gone to the police?"

"I have, but they were ever so gracious to tell me that they were overburdened with missing persons cases at the moment, and that they would do their best under the circumstances," again, a sliver of truth there. The local police force already had orders to prioritize the search for the Institute's targets. He figured mentioning that would strike a chord in Kouta, who had previously mentioned his own missing persons trouble.

Kouta sighed, "they told me pretty much the same thing, but why didn't you mention earlier that you were looking for your daughter?"

Time for the dramatic part of his story. There would be some truth in this as well, which he hoped would give it an air of legitimacy.

"Because you would have felt compelled to help find her, and besides myself, and the police, I don't want anyone else involved."

"Why on earth wouldn't you?" Yuka asked.

"Because she tried to kill me."

Shocked silence followed as his two hosts stared dumbly. Yuka appeared to be sufficiently stunned, but the look that Kouta gave him…was very strange. Like he was caught in some kind of memory.

"Why would she do that?" Kouta asked.

"It's…kind of a long story actually."

"Well, if you don't want to…"

"No…no, it's alright. You let me, a stranger, into your home and gave me shelter. The least I can do is give you an explanation."

He had intended to make a show of collecting his thoughts, and his nerve, before he began to speak, but then suddenly realized that he honestly needed to do exactly that. Once he had, Erich found himself strangely anxious to begin. To finally talk frankly about everything…more or less.

"She's adopted, and actually used to live around here" Erich began, "I took her in five years ago after she had gotten into some trouble with the law. I heard about her from some distant relatives that were taking care of her. I owed them a favor, they didn't want her to disappear into the system, and I've always had a soft spot for the hard luck case, so I agreed to adopt her."

"You said 'taking care of her'. They weren't her real parents? What happened to them?" said Yuka.

"She never spoke of them to me, even though I asked many times. She didn't appear to have any biological parents to speak of. Apparently the trouble that the girl had been swept up in was such that those people either could not, or would not, continue to harbor her. I thought I would be different, and able to handle her. I suppose I didn't really know what I was getting myself into."

Erich made a show of wringing his hands together before continuing, it wasn't all feigned.

"The moment I met her, I knew she was trouble, but I was still confident that I could make a difference in her life and I felt sure we would eventually get along. I was strict with her, but I had to be. I think she resented me for it. She was always pushing at me, fighting me. When she couldn't get her way through force, she just learned to be manipulative instead. After a while, I found myself having to mentally prepare myself just to talk with her. It was a constant battle, every day."

"Angel, you can stop this whenever you want to. Just answer my questions, when I ask them, and you don't have to feel anymore pain. I don't like doing this anymore than you like feeling it. Please do us both a favor: tell me what happened to your parents. Did you kill them? Did you know them? Are they still alive somewhere? Do you remember where?"

"Again Erich…do it again…you almost made me come that time…"

"There's no need for such vulgarities."

"So torture isn't vulgar to you? I knew there was something I liked about you Erich. Maybe one day you'll have the balls to use a knife instead of that keychain you use to shock me with. Then you'll know something about vulgarity."

"I'm not going to ask you again Angel."

"You say that every day…now come on…finish me off…"

He had been too disgusted to continue that particular day. He remembered the way she had crawled to his feet, then stood on her knees, looking up at him as she let out that mocking laughter. Daring him to hurt her. He hadn't been sure if she was bluffing or not, but he suddenly felt filthy being in that room with her, contributing to her perverse…gratification.

He had not been exactly sure when he stopped caring about that. There were times that he tortured her far longer than he used to, and left her cell feeling a savage sense of satisfaction. Never once did she ever beg him to stop…not once…

"She sounds tormented," Kouta said sadly, "I wonder what could have brought her to that? Did she never talk about her past with you at all?"

"Never. She fought with me tooth and nail regarding it. I kept asking, but she never spoke a word about it. I'm ashamed to admit that I sometimes got very furious with her because of that."

"Maybe that was the point," Kouta said, and the words stunned him.

"What's that?" said Erich.

"Maybe that was the only way she could keep you around. Keep you coming back. She had something you wanted, and maybe she was afraid that once you had it, you would leave."

Erich just stared at him. He had never quite considered something like that as a possibility. Angel had despised him, and seemed only to desire his torment. But sometimes…Angel could be very confusing about her motives where he was concerned. Could it have been that simple?

"Walk with me Erich…"

No…that was just ridiculous. She was going to kill him at the end of this. Unless he killed her first. The only thing they shared with one another, was mutual hatred.

"I'm not so sure," Erich said.

He raised the mug of coffee to his lips again, but decided against it and returned the mug to the table. Yuka took it from him and he thanked her as she left the room, heading towards the kitchen.

"Anyway," Erich went on, "it wasn't all an uphill struggle. I think if it had always been like that, I might have sent her back to some form of social services. She was a very intelligent girl, and was very engaging when she chose to be. It was those times that reassured me that I was doing the right thing by continuing to take care of her. Despite how difficult things were, I was proud of her. She had a way of looking at things that was unlike anyone else I had ever known."

"What's this Angel?"

He had come to her cell one day to see crumbled up paper balls everywhere, and some open books strewn about which he had left for her. It had been sometime during year number three that he had worked out a device that would cancel her vectors while allowing her to move about her cell freely. He felt the concession prudent, to more strongly establish the bond he was hoping, yet failing, to achieve with her. The sight he had been greeted with was curious indeed. Angel had been perched on a desk, leaning over a sheet of paper as she wrote carefully upon it.

"Words," she had simply replied without raising her head.

"And what do the words say?"

"Whatever you want them to. I've been interpreting poetry all day, rewriting them with different words to say the same thing, or a million different things. As I've been doing this, I realized something."

"What's that Angel?"

"Words are our slaves as much as they are our masters. They say whatever we decide they say, even if the meaning becomes skewed in the process. Sometimes when the truth is turned into a lie, that lie becomes law, and then we are ruled by it. Words are so frivolous, yet so final."

"I'm not sure I understand what you mean."

"Of course you do," she had said. Erich was about to reply, but Angel spoke once more.

"Have you come to ask me my name again Erich?"

"Are you going to tell me?"

"It's a word. A lie that masked the truth. I prefer the word you gave me, both truth, and lie."

He sighed, tiring of the game, yet finding himself strangely intrigued. He turned and looked at the paper she had been carefully writing on.

"What are you writing now?"

"I thought to devise some words of my own, similar to these other writers. I have only one line, but I realized it was the only one I needed."

Angel continued to darken that line slowly with her pencil, not looking up at him. After a few moments of silence, Erich heard the sound of the cell door opening to admit a group of guards who were specifically trained in handling Angel. They had come to place her back into her enclosure for the night. She stood gracefully and stared at Erich as the men surrounded her, and carefully restrained her arms, removing the pencil from her hand with even greater caution.

"Good night Angel," he said to her. She had not replied.

As the guards led her to the enclosure, Erich looked over to the sheet of paper that Angel had been writing on when he walked into the cell. It contained only one line, just as Angel had said.

These words belong to no one.

"Those words," Angel had called out as the men were strapping her in, "they're neither slaves, nor masters."

"Then what are they?"

"Worthless."

She had stared intently at him at the utterance of that word. He felt like she was trying to tell him something, and he just couldn't cut through the fog of her words.

"Did you ever tell her that?"

"Huh?" Erich snapped back to attention at the sound of Kouta's question.

"Did you ever tell her that you were proud of her?"

He couldn't have done that. She would have seen it as a sign of weakness, and that her manipulations were having an effect on him. It would have encouraged her to take even more liberties with him than she was taking already, and that had been out of the question. Of course, privately, he had been pleased with how quickly she learned things, and how well she could fight and kill. Her labyrinthine intelligence often vexed him, but when he would watch her deal with others, he felt a secret pride that no one could scratch the surface of her, let alone pierce her depths.

"No, I suppose I never did. I wanted to, but I…"

She wouldn't have cared if he had told her. It would have slid right off of her and she would merely have mocked him for his sentiment.

"…I didn't think she would believe me."

Yuka returned from the kitchen and settled down again next to Kouta, bracing a hand on his shoulder as she resumed her position near him. The movement was intended to seem casual, but Erich could always tell when a person was acting. So maybe they weren't lovers, and she wanted to be? He filed that information in the back of his mind for the moment.

"I think she would have," Kouta said, "if you had just tried to reach out to her."

"Well, it's too late now."

"It's never too late," Kouta said in a gravely serious tone. It did not carry an air of whimsical idealism, but rather the sobering note of experience.

Erich wanted to tell him everything in that moment, just to prove him wrong. He wanted to talk about that family that Angel butchered, and how she had mutilated Celine. He wanted to take him to see what remained of those dead bodies she had left in her bloody wake. He didn't dare.

"Why did she try to…hurt you," Yuka asked, seemingly unwilling to use the word "kill," as if replacing the word could really take away its effect on the mind.

"I came back to Kamakura recently, to meet with those relatives who asked me to take care of her. They had heard of how well she was doing, and wanted to meet her. When they did, they decided that she should stay here in Kamakura, in their care, from now on. I didn't understand what was going on at first. They had asked me to invest five years of my life in this girl. They reminded me that what I had done, was because I had owed them in the first place. I…"

…didn't want them to take you…

That had been the first thought to rush into his head in that moment. He braced his elbows on the table and held his head in his hands. This was all so fucked…what in the hell was he thinking?

"…had no choice but to acquiesce to their demand. They were her legitimate guardians, not me."

"Couldn't you have fought them? Done something?" asked Yuka.

"I was just tired at that point. Five years of constant struggle and head games. I think in that moment, I was just ready for it to be over, but I couldn't leave without saying goodbye."

"I need you Angel…" he had said while looking into Angel's eyes. Celine had thought he was referring to her. At the time, Erich thought he was talking about Celine as well, but deep down…

"…Ever since you came into my life, there hasn't been room for anything else. I can't stop thinking about you. Even when I sleep I dream of you."

"I guess she didn't take the news very well then?" Kouta said.

"I wasn't sure how she had taken it, she could be very unreadable when she wanted to be. I think deep down though, I knew that she felt betrayed."

She had looked at him with desperate eyes that night. Never before in five years had he seen a look like that on Angel's face. Why did that fact just slip by him? Suddenly he wanted to stop talking. He felt confused and unsure of the destination that his mind was heading towards, but he instinctively knew he did not want his mind to reach that destination.

"What happened next?" Kouta asked, and Erich found he could not stop talking.

"She came to my home as I slept, just down the way from where I had been walking," Erich said, "I woke up to see everything in flames. I saw her, only briefly, as I woke. She wanted to make sure I was awake and aware, and then she was gone. I barely had time to grab one of my overnight bags which still had some clothes, and fortunately, my wallet. The place would be in ashes by now. Everything I have on me right now, is all I have left."

He sighed as he returned his gaze to Kouta and Yuka, who both now looked entirely captivated with his story, and sufficiently moved to sympathy. He knew he could stop here, and probably could have stopped long ago. They would allow him to rest under their roof, he was sure of it.

"So you see," he continued anyway, "this is between her and I. I have to know why she did that to me, because right now, all I have are guesses. No matter how good those guesses might be, I don't have certainty, or closure to this awful chapter in my life. Only she can give that to me, and she can't do that behind bars."

"I see," Yuka said sadly, "I'm so sorry."

"What will you do when you find her?" Kouta asked.

End this, somehow.

Erich stared without really seeing, as his mind went over the events of the past few days, and indeed, the past few years. They came like a series of images, flashing rapidly through his mind. Pieces of a puzzle, pieces of her, and of himself, that he couldn't keep still in his mind long enough to find out how to put that puzzle together. He had always been struggling with that puzzle, but now that he had actually been allowed to talk about it in this way, he felt armed with new insight. Regrettably however, that insight did not seem to be enough, nor would it really matter. He couldn't see how he was going to stop Angel. Erich once again forced out that line of thinking. He couldn't afford to consider how impossible his task was.

Distantly, he could hear Kouta saying something. Or was it Yuka? He wasn't really paying attention. His mind had suddenly become quite consumed with thoughts of Angel, and the things she had said and done. There was a memory that nagged at him in the corner of his mind. He thought perhaps that he had been relaying his story to Kouta and Yuka in an attempt to get to that memory. It was a recent memory but he couldn't get his thoughts to focus long enough to really play it back in his mind. It was important somehow. He felt instinctively that there was something in that memory which would give him the answer to finally getting the upper hand on Angel. Perhaps he did not realize its importance back then, but he was sure he could discover it now…if he could only think…

…hotel. That was why he had wanted to seek a hotel, wasn't it? It was in a hotel that that memory existed within. Perhaps being in one would…

"Erich?"

"Huh?" said Erich, snapping back to attention.

"What's the matter?" Kouta asked, "we lost you for a minute there."

"I apologize. It's been a long night, and I'm rather exhausted."

He opened his mouth to ask what it would cost him to rent a room here, but froze before doing so. Kouta and Yuka had refrained from speaking, seeing that he had been about to. He paused for a moment, long enough to allow them to make an offer if they were so inclined, but not long enough to suggest that he was waiting for such an offer to be made. Strangely, he was relieved when they did not make that offer. He realized that he did not want to stay here after all.

He realized, with ill humor, that the kindness and hospitality offered him by his two hosts, had been the only genuine kindness he could ever remember receiving in his life. It was like he had stepped into another life for an evening, and that life belonged more with people such as these, rather than with the Institute, and everything that waited for him there. He knew, of course, that he did not belong with people such as his current hosts at all, and could never. His path was far too much in the dark, and he would only bring that darkness with him, to all who crossed his path. He couldn't stay here. Couldn't repay their kindness by bringing suffering and death down upon them, as he was quite sure he would.

Besides…he needed the surroundings of the hotel to help him focus his thoughts. He felt sure that it was all he needed to get everything straight in his mind. Erich stood up to leave.

"Thank you both for letting me rest a while, but I really must be going."

The city wasn't far off, he was practically in it as he was. He was sure finding lodging would not be difficult, and he still felt relatively awake from the coffee. He could afford to walk for a while longer.

"I'll walk you out," said Kouta, standing up with him. As Erich was turning away, he caught Yuka giving Kouta a look of concern, grasping his hand quickly, then removing it again. He silently wished her good luck with that. Kouta was a lucky man, if a bit blind to what was in front of him.

As Erich put his coat back on, Kouta slid open the front door and allowed him to step past, back into the cold night. They looked at one another for a few moments more, Kouta on his side of the door with light and warmth at his back; and Erich on the other, darkness and chilling wind at his. It just seemed right.

"Well," Erich said, "it was nice to have met you Kouta. If nothing else, meeting you has put some things in perspective for me."

He paused…considering.

"Do you," Erich began, hesitantly, " or Yuka, have any family outside of Kamakura?"

"Well," Kouta said apprehensively, likely thrown by the strange question, "yes, I do. Further north, in Hokkaido. Why do you ask?"

He wanted to tell him to run. Pack their bags and get the hell out of Kamakura while they still could. He wanted to at least warn these people, Kouta in particular. There was just something about the man which…well…didn't exactly remind Erich of himself. Perhaps it was simply the idea that he could have had this man's life, were he born in a different place, in a different world, at a different time.

He wanted to warn him of what was coming, but who would believe him? His story sounded crazy enough to his own ears, and the time it would take to explain everything; the Diclonius, Red Sky, the Institute, everything…

No, it would be completely useless to try. All he could do was try to stop Angel. It would be the one sure way to prevent the military hammer coming down on the otherwise peaceful, coastal city.

"No reason," Erich said, "this business with my…daughter…has just had me thinking about family I suppose. You don't want to take your own for granted."

"Believe me Erich…I don't…"

"Good," he said quietly, "…good."

Erich turned to walk away into the night…where he belonged.

"Erich," Kouta called out from the doorway, "I forgot to ask you something."

"Yes?" Erich said, turning his head back towards Kouta.

"Well," Kouta said, "your daughter's name. You never mentioned it."

"It's a word. A lie that masked the truth."

"That's because she never told me," Erich said truthfully. Angel had never said what her real name was.

"I…don't understand," Kouta said, "then what did you call her?"

"You're mine now Erich…"

Erich stared across the lawn at Kouta.

"Mine," he said simply. And she was, his focus, his mission, his job, his obsession, his curse, his sin…

One more day, that is all he would give himself before he descended once more into Angel's world. He would take no one else with him. Not the Institute, not Kouta, not anyone.

He slid the courtyard door open and stepped through, closing it firmly behind him, and walked away towards the city. The cold sliced through him, stealing the warmth he had recently acquired, his lonely footsteps echoing quietly until they faded into the whisper of the winter breeze, and a distant roll of thunder above.