The rain clouds gathered, hiding away the blood red sun as it sunk. The night would be terrifyingly dark, Arthur guessed. He stood outside of his house, wearing a trench coat and bowing his head towards the earth. The metallic scent of rain tinted the air and the earth below his leather boots was soft and dark. All the birds in the world seemed to have hushed at once. Taking a shaking breath, Arthur stepped forwards. He walked away from the outer gates of his home, touching one of the spears that pointed upwards. The black was chipped in areas. Thick, thorny vines wrapped around each on, delicate tendrils quivering in an unfelt wind.

Arthur did not order a cabby and instead took a walk. He approached the outer edges of the city and walked through the dingy, groggy streets. Muddy cats hissed at him as he approached and, sensing no threat, slunk back into the inky darkness. It had taken up the last rays of sunlight to reach this point on foot. Now, as predicted, the sky weighed down with darkness. Not a star was visible, being obstructed by clouds pregnant with rain and trembling to let it loose.

A drunken man stumbled through the streets, humming a tune loudly to himself. The tune was off and he paused, looking towards Arthur with watery eyes barely penetrating the darkness. His cheek bones were high and thin. Dirt smeared his face and hair. He parted his lips in a grin, exposing gnarled yellow teeth. He began to sing.

Oh my love went down to the sea!

And then I learned how sad I could be!

So how good I felt to see

My door swing right open right in front of me!

Arthur, disgusted, walked away from the clearly not poetic man. He began furiously walking towards his destination. He stopped when a particular lyric caught his attention

Death! Decay! And so my Arthur please come hither!

Or would you like your world to wither?

Arthur seized up and looked behind him. The man grinned again and began on his merry way, staggering through the streets and kicking at the muddy cat when it crossed his path. Arthur's heart throbbed inside his chest. "There are many Arthurs…" he tried to comfort himself, walking with even greater vigor towards his destination. "Surely it couldn't have been me he meant."

But these woes were quickly forgotten. He reached a nearby inn and opened the door. The owner was a scrawny, dusty looking woman. She looked up at him with large eyes that popped out of her head. Her eyelids with a scarce amount of eyelashes stretched to cover the great big brown eyes. She smiled, exposing large teeth. "'Ello sir! May I 'elp you with somefink?"

Arthur walked over, greeting her politely. The rain had started plip-plopping against the window. The pearl-sized drops hurled against the window and shattered with a pattering sound. "Hello, ma'am, I would like a room for the night. I'm afraid I couldn't have made it here earlier."

In fact, Arthur wasn't sure as to what he was doing until an hour ago. And even now he hesitated.

She stood up and lifted a piece of paper, pressing her forefinger to it and squinting, trying to find a room she could give to Arthur that was presently vacant. "Now, sir, we've got one room and it en't too big. But y'sir are all by your lonesome now en't'ya?"

Arthur confirmed this.

"Glad to be of service! 'ere's your bill 'n' I'll get you a key, sir!" She turned away, her hair bouncing on her shoulders. Her skirts, tattered and wary, skimmed the floor.

Arthur placed the money on the bill and waited for her to return. She appeared with a bronze-colored key and thanked him. Arthur took it and crept up the groaning stairs. The hallways were uncomfortably thin and smelled of soggy wood. The rain picked up velocity and ferociously slaughtered down on the shabby inn. He could hear the whisperings of the other tenants. In one room two men seemed to be arguing in hoarse voices. Arthur went into his room, finding a dross bed and a tiny blind window. Arthur shut the door behind him and shed his coat, setting it neatly on the bed. The dresser with a Bible and oil lamp atop it had a mirror leaning against the wall sitting in the middle. Arthur pulled his eyelid down, feeling the mark there burn as though someone had dropped acid in there. The pink flesh there was coated in inky black veins. Disturbed, Arthur let go of his eyelashes, accidentally pulling three black hairs out. Arthur placed them in his palm and, closing his eyes, blew them away.

"I wish this would all be over…" he murmured.

His next course of action was to open the letter he discovered on his front porch. All his instincts told him to not open it at home. And, being too old for this, he obeyed them. He tore off the molted envelope and found that the package combusted.

His ears rung and he fell backwards. The envelope had burst into a bright red flame and now fell like ash to the floor. Arthur's hands stung. His legs were jutted out before him. Between his ankles the ashes collected, smelling foul.

Trembling, Arthur looked at his hands to study the damage done. There were burn marks all up his arms. The sleeves of his shirts were burned off, the end now at his biceps were singed and smoking. The burns were bloody red and giving off an unearthly odor. They were words, words in a language Arthur could not understand. They appeared Italian, however, and he at once decided to meet them. But there was one word he understood from his various squandering of the Romantic language.

"Nation"

His heart shriveled up and he decided that he had to hide himself away. These people, if they were even human, were dangerous. He could not risk harming anyone else and had to resort to something completely different. Could he pass off as human? He started building a scenario.

"Arthur J-Ch—no—Henry Kirkland, thirty-five years old born on the blessed day of January… yes, sounds right, and… oh what am I doing." Tears sprung up in his eyes and trailed down his face. He went to wipe them away but the moment the burned skin touched his face it stung. He recoiled and held his hands out before him. The ash had started to eat away at the carpet.

"Dante… Sebastian… somebody…" he found himself whimpering.

I apologize for the pathetically short length of this chapter.