SUMMARY: He can't help but go through this, everytime he has to visit.

A/N: Thanks to IceSnowAndGlamour for the review...I know my wording is weird sometimes, but I hope it doesn't get too bad.

Oh, and a familiar character will finally be showing up next chapter...He just forced himself into the story with no concern as to my plot. So like him.

Stage

Two

Mounting Regret and Memories


Upon second wander, the fourth day, the city is more than he thought it would be.

While sitting on a creaky bench, surrounded by the sounds and sights of a bright city, he writes in his notebook (which he always keeps on hand, for a writer cannot be without his tool). He writes of a city of two faces, two lives, and the page reads:

It was a city of Light, a city of Darkness…a city of Hope and a city of Despair…

But he cuts himself off, faintly recalling (a whisper beyond that hidden window slithers through his mind) that he had written something similar before, and he moves the tear the page out and start again. He doesn't know why he is a writer, or just what he plans to write, so it should mean nothing. Nothing at all.

But he stops. He stares at it with something growing in the pit of his chest (homesickness? No, not that…) and leaves it be, standing, and shutting his notebook, moving on to the next scene.

Someone bumps into him, as he ducks his head down and tries to get lost in the crowd, and he hears a child's laughter, far away and mixed in the sound of the voice of the city.

"You can't catch me!"

You can't keep me.

"Come back, please?"

Come back to me.

"Okay, okay."

Why can't you?...

And he blinks at the thoughts that mix his mind around and have him look for the voice of a solitary person, rather than the chaotic symphony of people in the streets. He expects something, and waits against the tide of people passing him, muttering angrily or jostling him in order to get where they are going.

He is a rock in that river, unmoving until all the street lamps turn on and the chill is a little more than bearable. He shivers for a moment, before steeling himself and shaking the cold off.

He finally moves away, and leaves his mind behind, tracing his steps back to his hotel in a muddle of thoughts.

He needs to find somewhere else to be tomorrow.