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	[b]N[/b]ot even the cats were stirring at night. It was like he stepped out into another world where the sun didn’t exist and the gods never made life. The shadows cast by the candle Vane held dared not move an inch, lest they be caught slipping away to where they weren’t supposed to go. Something about the fact that the moon was swallowed up by a sea of clouds made him a lot more anxious, like it was some kind of omen. He generally didn’t laud himself as a superstitious person, but Vane knew when the world was giving him a sign. Something bad was going to happen in Vaucluse that night.

	As he walked down the stone street, bow string digging into his chest as he carried it around his shoulder, Vane failed to see why he couldn’t stop himself from doing what he was doing. It was completely irrational: he had a family, a town he grew up in, yet… Yet somehow the demon biting the back of his brain compelled him to go. Something about the long days plaguing him as of late made him desperate for some kind of release. This wasn’t even a spur of the moment thing, either. He had a plan. A friend in a different town who had a place for him to live and work, a pocket full of coins he had saved up, and a bag full of his personal effects. As creepy as it was, seeing the streets of Vaucluse one more time made him reluctant to go.

	Though, it’s hard to get consumed by doubt when there’s a dark figure standing a good half dozen meters ahead of you. Vane could barely make out the silhouette of the man, and truth be told he had jumped a little, but he tried to tell himself that it was just another person out on a casual midnight stroll. Nothing unusual.

	[color=red]“Hey there.”[/color] He called out to the figure, but to his dismay the man did not answer. No, instead it merely shifted a bit where it stood. [color=red]“Who’s there!?”[/color] Vane clenched a hand around the string of his bow, the other reaching back into the bag strung over his back and pulling out an arrow that was sticking out of the top. As much as he didn’t want to admit that he was afraid of monsters, the rumors floating around were too gruesome to ignore. There was no way he was going to get a good shot on a shadow hiding in the darkness, so he readied the arrow in case he needed to make a quick stab-and-go exit.

	Right as Vane started to step away from the figure, it shuffled down into an alleyway and disappeared from view. A pang of panic struck his heart, and all of the sudden Vane found himself compelled to look behind him. He threw a glance over his shoulder but there was nothing there. He turned around and around, desperate to find something to fight, but there was nothing. After a moment of nothing happening passed, Vane took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down. Maybe he was freaking out over nothing. It was probably just a weird cat he saw and it got freaked out when he moved. Those wives’ tales were just smoked ham in a sandwich of hogwash. With a renewed confidence, Vane started forward again, but right as he passed by the alley, a gust of wind blew by and extinguished his candle. The world faded away in the breeze, the only light guiding him disappearing as something lunged out and grabbed him by the shoulders.

	It ripped him back, throwing him off his feet as it tried to drag him into the alley. Instinctively, Vane shot his arm back and thrust the blade of the arrow into the arm of whatever was trying to grab him. It snarled out in pain as the arrowhead bore into its flesh, its arms retracting in panic. Quickly, Vane jumped back onto his feet and screamed out for help. His voice cracked in a pitiful way, but he couldn’t help it when his heart was beating a million miles an hour and he was desperately fumbling for something else to use as a weapon. His enemy was invisible and he didn’t know how to fight in the dark. He was a fly caught in a web.