_Wakey wakey..._

With a start Jacob jolted upright, inhaling sharply as a dull stinging ran over his hand. Looking around fearfully he scrambled backwards into the alley wall, grabbing his hand to see three shallow claw marks across the back of his palm. 

"Wakey waked," the same voice sneered, Jacob's attention being drawn to the little gremlin like shade covered in water logged newspaper and broken beer bottles. It had been at least two days since Jacob had managed to fall asleep last, and with good reason as this or worse always tended to be his wake up call. 

"Waked wa-," the shade began hissing again, it's words interrupted by a shriek of pain as Jacob hurdled an empty bottle at the thing. It was an ugly little creature; like some sort of monster made from oily smoke and garbage with two burning beady eyes being the only feature on it's face. 

Gurgling unhappily the thing picked itself up off the ground, a clawed hand on it's head where the bottle struck it's newspaper cloak. It was weird how they worked like that; untouchable but somehow part of whatever surrounded them. Jacob frowned in disgust, pushing against the brick wall at his back to stand up and look down at the foot high burden. It's tune altered, the shade hobbled back a few steps, raising a hand in defense as Jacob stepped forward and punted the thing down the alleyway. 

It smashed into the opposite alley wall, wet newspaper making a smack sound to cover the smashing of glass. The shadow melted out of existence and the garbage fell to the ground, once again inanimate as it should be. "Fugly lil' thing," Jacob muttered unhappily, his attention returning to the claw marks on his hand. They weren't deep enough to really be bleeding but blood had been drawn and it stung, so quite unhappily Jacob held his hand under his arm and sat down again to contemplate what he should do with himself now that he was awake. _Food might be a good start_, he thought to himself, taking his hand out to examine how it was already scabbing over. The increased healing factor of being a conduit was always useful, especially when you were consistently in harms way.

"_I could go for something to eat_," a voice responded, echoing within Jacob's head briefly before fading away. All Jacob did in response was nod, pushing himself up again and walking out of the alley way into the streets. "_You can go to Central Park. There's normally food in the garbage there_," the same voice explained, Jacob feeling a pat on the shoulder that wasn't there.

------------30 minutes later-------------

"There's nothing in here," Jacob murmured unhappily, pulling out a bunch of newspaper from the trash bin and dropping it on the ground. "_You gonna pick that up?_" a grumpy sounding voice asked from behind him. "No," Jacob replied bitterly, unaware there was nobody around. Still he kept digging, hoping to find something edible.