I'm sinking like a restless stone
with demons in my head
I feel you wear my skin to bone
with darkness in the air

-Coming Back, Dean Ray


He wakes up, and the sun is blinding in his eyes. Shifting, he tries to remember why he fell asleep in such a bright place anyway; when he haunts shadows, he has no need for the light. Normally dawn finds him sequestered in an alley, hidden beneath boxes or some haphazard shelter. Not today, and he can't recall the reason why.

The black tom gets to his paws. There's an another pain in his foreleg, a second primal pulse, and this too is a mystery. He's wondering if he had some kind of accident. If some spectre from his past has caught up with him. He dismisses the latter. The ground is slick with rainwater, and it's likely he's fallen and hit his head. Scraped his leg. That's why he's so stiff, so reluctant to move, because he's been lying comatose in a puddle for hours.

Ignoring the pain becomes the focus of his morning. He's got a schedule, this cat, and it's all about scavenging. He sticks to the dark corners, the inlets of shadows, because he doesn't mix with the sun. He stands out like tar, and he likes the obscurity of invisibility. If one stray knows what you look like, they all do, and then they all come out for blood. So he goes about his scavenging in a subtle way, pawing through garbage that's been looted before, barely there long enough to leave a scent. He's stuck somewhere between scrawny and stocky, and maybe it's because of this, being so introverted, so flighty, so unwilling to take risks. This is his persona, at least, and he sticks with it.

He finds chicken remnants, clinging staunchly to their lean and greasy bones. The fat and the skin have been picked over, torn at, ravished, but he eats what remains. These are second-hand scraps, and he moves on quickly. Cold, stringy strips of noodles behind a place as filthy as his paws. Water from puddles, gutters. He takes what he gets, and he takes it as fast as he can. He's not fussy, but that doesn't mean he has eating etiquette.

The hunt for food is a continuous one, but it becomes less important as the day wears on. It's a cold one, and the clouds are long, stretching from high-rise to prosaic high-rise. The day has an ultimately bleak feel, but he doesn't mind. That's what life is, in the city, isn't it? A life as bleak as the outlook. As cold as the gritty puddles he drinks from, as lonely as the wind, who always howls, but never finds solace.

He starts watching, as one hour lapses into a another. Hides behind the window of a broken building, watching two toms duel. They slink off at the end, ragged, pelts in tatters, and he doesn't really see a winner. He doesn't get into spats like that. They're stupid- they're a gamble, a risk. So I could win if I do this… and I could lose if he does that… And that circle continues until it's too battered to spin. The what-ifs. All those possibilities could land him dead in a gutter, food for that rats, the crows, those who would pick his thin bones and leave them to bleach in the winter air.

He figures he could sleep here, except the entrance is too glaringly obvious, and he doesn't doubt that guests will grace this dark expanse once night falls. He's safer down some obscure alley, sleeping beside rubbish or beneath a skip. Colder maybe, and prone to a chilled death, rather than a violent one, but he's happy with those odds. He only bothers to sleep inside when the visitors from the north come to call. They hardly ever bother hunting indoors, and maybe that's a hint to their feral origin, the dark wilderness they call home.

He saw one, that last time they came raiding, a kind of cat unprecedented in his memory. She was a burnished gold, covered in blood that wasn't her own. She shone beneath the streetlights, and as she strode by, he could only shiver and hide. She wasn't the first he'd ever seen, but she was the wildest; the flame in a city full of moths.

He deserts the warehouse, shaking away the thoughts. That was a few moons ago, now, and they haven't been back since. No one he knew disappeared alongside them- but that doesn't mean anything, because he hardly keeps tabs. The two toms have gone, leaving the tang of blood and fear in their wake. The image of their fight has sparked something in his mind- a memory, perhaps, forgotten alongside the dredges of last night, the hours of shadows he finds impossible to recall. He was supposed to meet someone.

After a few moments, he decides it's obvious.

He's not the type to schedule constant, casual meetings, so he remembers this for its importance, for the strange interruption it brings to his life. He remembers it's a late night meeting; clandestine. He remembers it's down a tiny alley somewhere- by an old dilapidated factory, smelling acerbic and disused. But he can't recall when this meeting was organised. Last night, perhaps.

So he begins walking. It's a factory he's visited before, when he was young, when he still slept indoors. He shirks contact, normally. But he feels this is different. It makes him apprehensive. He likes his hermit life, his ingrained misanthropy. He's spoken so little in the last few months, he wonders if his voice still works. If he can still read the social cues of alley life. Probably not.

The sky is dimming with abandon as he picks his way through the gutter. The occasional monster thunders past, but he barely flinches. They stick to their parallel path; he sticks to his. He supposes they don't even notice him, a black smear against the concrete, and why should they? He's inconsequential, and they're hulking metal beasts.

The tom turns down a side street. The chemicals here are an afterthought in the air, faded and bitter. They're omnipresent here; they haven't been used for years, but they linger still. It's perhaps partially responsible for the distinct lack of Twoleg activity in the area. This was first and foremost a work district, but the bustle of people has given way to the lawless patrols of alley cats and street dogs.

When he reaches the the humble, crumbling facade of the factory, he halts. There's trepidation in his belly, and he's not sure if his uneasiness is caused by the gloom around him or his impending meeting. Surely he has no reason to be afraid. He grew up in this dank area, after all, and he had begun mapping its cracked streets soon after he learned to walk. He learned to walk, and then he learned to remember. He hasn't been back for a while, but he's not the type that forgets. Nightmares, not dreams, are made of this place. Spawned by this place, and the things he's done here.

Shivering, he pricks his ears. It's oddly silent, and all he can hear are the distant roars of monsters, back where warmth does seem to exist and the decay of the city is far less prominent. Was it presumptuous to imagine them talking, laughing? What's changed? But he does know what happened. He was a part of it. That day, however, is little more than a memory, a story. They'd have recovered by now. It's in their nature.

Movement catches his attention; a thick-furred tabby is hurrying across the street. This prompts him to move forwards. His destination, now, is quite obvious; the dark sliver between the fence surrounding the factory and the brick wall of the neighbouring building. His misgivings only increase as he nears the shadows. He thinks he remembers, hazily, the arrangement of this meeting. Macro stands in an alley he likes to frequent. His face is perhaps a shade of foreboding, or else he's just the same serious tom he has always been. He spooks when he spots Macro, his brother's oldest friend. That title is arguable. He's more like a loyal ally or sidekick, battle-scarred and cantankerous. He's about to run, because he's faster, lither than this lackey of his brother. Macro tells him not to bother, with the fleeing thing. It's gotten old, are his words, and this stings. So he stays. Macro doesn't relay any news; he just tells him a time and a place, and he seems somehow to be missing the gruff edge he always displayed , moons ago. His eyes positively dare him not to show up. Then it's blank, just empty spaces, but he remembers the mandated rendezvous. Tomorrow, beside the factory. When it's dark. I hear you like that.

He's here now, and he won't flee this time. Not until he knows what Caligula wants.

The alley is eerie, when he enters it. It's perhaps as quiet as it's ever been. He doesn't dare call out to his brother. The silence is stifling- to his voice perhaps, but not to his fear. His feet scuff on the cement, slick with old rainwater, and he wonders if it was here where Drusilla bled out. Here where Caligula screamed as though he was the one dying. Where his sister's dark mate stood, beaten and bloodied, before fleeing.

"Tiberius." The voice speaks before his eyes adjust to the darkness. He flinches. He hasn't heard his name in a long time, and in a way, it feels like it died with Drusilla. His sweet sister, white-gold pelt like the sun, died red.

He steps forwards, pretending to be this Tiberius his brother knows. The rowdy one, the socialite, and, more often than not, the heart of dark street scandals. That facet of him has rotted. It doesn't exist anymore, but Caligula doesn't seem to know that.

"Caligula," Tiberius says, more retort than greeting. His brother's face swims in the shadows. It's the same face he grew up with, grinned at, laughed with. He's been told they look very much alike, but he does not believe that anymore. Not when the refractions of his past have driven him to a life of seclusion and scavenging, when he can't bear to affiliate himself with Caligula and their past.

"Isolation does not suit you," Caligula rasps. He doesn't approach him, but Macro appears at his shoulder. Perhaps they're wary of spooking him. Too late.

He sneers, and it's easy to fall back into the contempt and complacency of his younger years. "And your brutish nature, Caligula, has never been becoming. I suppose there's very little we can do about that." That's a lie. He was just as brutal when they were younger, together dreaming of an empire.
His brother appraises him with narrowed yellow eyes. "You look much too scrawny. I'd hoped for more."

Tiberius bristles. "I wasn't aware my diet and exercise regime was not to your liking, dear brother. I'll remedy that immediately."

His brother bares his fangs. "Don't bother. It's too late." Tiberius only steps closer. Caligula is not standing to face him, to beat him down, and this is a first.

"What's too late?"

"You!" Caligula howls, quivering. Tiberius can see him now, all of him, but he wishes he couldn't. Wishes he could unsee his brother's mutilation, the bright and bleeding mess of his hindlegs. The white of his socks are stained with blood, crusted with dust. He didn't stand because he couldn't. They're broken, hopelessly, and perhaps his spine is too. Beside him Macro is hunched, raw with wounds. Behind them, the ruins of their gang. Some are dead, split from throat to tail, but most share Caligula's injury, legs broken and bared. They can't run, and Tiberius can only guess how long they've been here.
"Well," Tiberius said, his voice low and even, "suppose the murdering sprees have to catch up with you sometime, eh? Can't galavant off into the sunset with a death here and there forever, could you?" He sounds calm, nearly, and this is surprising

Caligula shakes with the measure of his anger, or maybe it's just the pain. "You're a fool, Tiberius. He's here for you too."

It's then that he feels the predatory eyes on his back, finally feels watched. He turns to find a face as dark as his, inches away, unreadable, inscrutable as shadow.

He cuffs that dark face, watches it shrink from his reach. Maybe he'll use claws this time. After all, what's a warning delivered without a seal of blood?

Blood, then, Caligula's turn, then, Drusilla's scream, then.

"Ahh," Tiberius manages. He's tackled, taken to the ground, and Caligula quails with a low growl. He's forgotten how to struggle, how to hit back, forgotten these things while failing to forget his sister. He's limp when he feels claws on his belly, the heart of his fear. It bleeds out as he does. Tiberius sees Caligula fall. Macro dies with a shriek. Those left alive are dispatched.

"Impressive." A lilting, female voice. She doesn't belong here with the blood and the corpses, Tiberius thinks, but it's getting harder to breathe and she seems less important with each passing second.

The dark tom is unerringly hostile. "What do you want?"

Tiberius stares at his brother's empty eyes and slack mouth. He's a shell, and Tiberius knows he's going to be one too.

"To offer you a deal."

That's his final moment; gasping on the damp concrete of the ambiguous alley of his youth, this stranger's soft words the last he ever hears.