Tuesday 1st October 2017

There he lay.

Right in the centre of the floor, motionless but for the fluttering of his chest, which was almost indistinguishable because he was lying face down.

Itching to be closer to his throbbing life force, she stepped forward, and felt her power pulsate.

She couldn't help it; she just couldn't.

The pull was too strong.

Oblivious to the crumbling floorboards, the swinging lamp shades, the whole wretched place, dirty with dry rot and despair, she gazed at his lifeless figure, enthralled.

Nibbling at her unconscious, it was squirming, wriggling through her veins- pushing sickly sweet and hot beneath her skin.

Triston Arthur Finch.

An unusual name, she thought. Easy to remember. No- difficult to forget. It was difficult to see the damage done under the heavy trench coat he wore, but Roxan doubted whether she would have recognised his face from the missing posters. Decay hung around him in black sheets and grey memories sung around his temple.

Stop it.

She sighed, but at the harshness of the tone of her Kurse, she tried to rein herself on.

Stop it. You now what you're doing. Stop it right now, it snarled.

It was no use probing her unconscious- she knew it was no good. She was too far ahead. It was always the same: she got herself head over heels in something and then couldn't drag herself away. Triston was just the same.

She relied on melodrama. Here, in this hub of hurt, her senses were elite, no petty distractions, no trivial anecdotes and no cavil necessities to pull her away from the situation. She forced the cry of her Kurse down, and twisted the atmosphere until it was just her. And the boy. Empty. Alone.

She was an opportunist.