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[img]https://i.imgur.com/czPip88.png[/img]


[b]Detroit, Downtown, abandoned construction site
11:48pm, July 6th[/b]
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The young man sneered, the cold evening breeze having stung his eyes a little. He reached up with thin, dusty fingers to wipe it away, but winced as a trace of the ruins lingered behind. Only the glow of a small trash fire illuminated the area around him, the disorientation making the shadows in the peripheral all the worst.

In theory he should have grown used to them over these last few days, but in practice it was painfully difficult.

This place was not his home after all, but it was his residence for now. A blasted ruin of human failing, an image of an image, a shell within a shell. Twenty stories worth of what-could-have-been, collapsed by debt to the point where only those judged could hope to stay, away from the eyes of any who would hurt them.

[i][color=#9f7d2e]Mansa, can you hear them?[/color][/i] whispered the spider, [i][color=#9f7d2e]Here, in the darkness. Your hiding place has been disturbed.

"I told you not to call me that-"

One cannot deny one's truth. Your hands hold the balance of ruin and prosperity. You are the Mansa, you mus-.[/color][/i]

His stomach grumbling caught the spider off-guard, [i][color=#9f7d2e]"Finally,"[/color][/i] and turned his attention to more immediate matters. He reached into the bag he had with him, pulling out a small peanut bar. Its aging orange wrapper was pristine by comparison to even the air surrounding it. It wasn't much, but after the first couple of bites he tried to chew more slowly, to linger on it. The sweetness of the chocolate, the saltiness on his tongue.

As he chewed, focusing his mind on every aspect of its texture, its colour, even things as inane as the history of the brand or the specific ingredients. Anything to get away from the ramblings of that damn spider.

Or the past. Or the future...

[i][color=#9f7d2e]"...or the present."[/color][/i]

He sniffed, the peanut catching in his throat a little as his body quivered, the taunting demons ever just out of reach, lingering in the darkness. He felt the pain begin to leave his body, running down the sides of his face, the quivering changing to jolts, the unfinished candy falling from his fingers as he lent his face into his knees.

But hope would not vanish forever, as a small piece of paper drifted on the wind, and found its way to the edge of the light...