The buildings echo back your cry, amplifying your solitude; whispering the names of the long-lost inhabitants of these grey apartments, with their gaping eyes and rotting lace lashes, through the burst lips of sagging balconies flaked with rust that streaks the rain-beaten façade.
Sophia doesn’t live here any longer.
You shrug the pack from your back, ever lighter with the diminishing supply of dried meat from your last kill – six weeks past – and try not to let the panic rise from the ache in your gut to tightening in your chest.
The receding water has left markers on the concrete as if to document its achievements; as if to imprint itself on the lifeline of man: a watermark for undocumented deaths.
The dog howls once more in the adjacent concrete canyon, closer now, mournful and free, the hair on your neck stands up in sympathy. You return his cry once more, lifting the charged crossbow to aim at the alley mouth where he’s libel to appear.

Tales for an attention deficit world