As I stare out the window, I try not to think too much about the past I’ve left behind, the ‘family’ I’ve forfeited. The trees and buildings move by in a blur, much like the memories that my still-errant mind keeps glossing over. And, of course, the terribly dark night at the end of the road.

The train stops, jerking everyone in the room softly to one side as it finally halts. I walk through the crowd of strangers while awkwardly holding my swords by their scabbards—it’s not like they’d rest easy in my belt on such a long ride, or in a crowd like this. Walking across the concrete, I manage to press my way to a bathroom where nobody else was inside. Passing by a mirror above the sinks—where I caught a glimpse of my own eyes, slightly to the darker side of gray—I enter the largest stall and pause, realizing there’s nowhere I can put the swords without it feeling wrong.

I prop up the katana hilt-up against the wall and hold the wakizashi’s scabbard in my mouth as I slide my rather large sling bag around to the other side of myself, extracting a sanitizer wipe and my belt from the bag before sliding it back to its normal position. I then put on the belt, a custom-made style with three layers and a prominent buckle, temporarily leaving the wipe in my pocket to free my hands. I let the wakizashi out of my mouth and slide it into my belt between the inner and middle layers before opening the wipe’s packet and pulling it out, discarding the wrapper neatly. I wipe my katana where it touched the bathroom—the tsuba and the tip of the saya—and throw the wipe away, stuffing my katana into my belt and adjusting it against my wakizashi.

God, that just felt downright vain and frivolous, but they’re one of the few inches of good that I could take from my past… As ironic as that is. An insult to them somehow feels like an insult to me. I readjust their positions in my scabbard one last time and look them over. The familiarity of a daisho’s weight at my waist is simply what I need right now. If it makes me look like a freak, so be it.

I step out, my katana awkwardly bumping against the stall walls before my hands go to my scabbards, pulling them out of place temporarily as I exit the bathroom and walk down to the streets below the train platform. I stare in wonder in how… urban, this place is. It’s not just that I can’t see an inch of unpaved dirt or grass in sight, but how drawn in everything is, between the width of the brick roads and all the buildings shoved up against each other. First things first, I should get my bearings. I grab a pamphlet from the nearby kiosk, opening it to find a map and some pictures of buildings that don’t look like they’d be far out of place 50 years ago. Alright, I’m at Easton Street right now, which means that if I just go straight…

As I advance down the streets, the architecture feels like it starts to take on a life of its own, the buildings slowly developing both color and character until it starts to feel like this place shouldn’t exist in this era. Someone in a strange ruffled shirt walks past, looking more like a Shakespeare actor than a normal pedestrian. Reaching a pair of strange metal lines in the street, I pause and look around. Strangely enough, there’s barely any cars here, but those metal lines stretch down the street as far as I can see.

The pedestrians, on the other hand, are plentiful here, almost crowding the sidewalk as they enter and exit buildings in a way that made the city feel alive, so much more alive than the places I’m used to. It almost feels like too much, to be honest, but maybe that has something to do with my swords bumping into strangers as I cross the intersection.

What’s stranger to me about the people here is the clothes they wear, ranging all the way from modern and casual to fancy and antiquated; too many peacoats and ruffled shirts dotted the crowds to be a coincidence, but I can’t find any indication of some sort of renaissance fair going on to explain it. I think some of them are even wearing pocketwatches, but why?

Looking across the corner, the architecture matches the dress code; brick walls and sophisticated, antique windows up high mix with more modern furnishings and windows down low. Between that and how pretty and relatively clean and unique everything looked—I couldn’t see any of the usual litter that I’d have expected of an urban city—it feels like a strange, ideal place caught somewhere between now and the industrial revolution, almost grotesque in its near-perfection.

So strange, almost alien, but strangely beautiful all the same, like an old friend from another planet. But I can’t linger; daylight’s burning, and I still need to find the Haracrein.

[…]

A ways away from anywhere the tourist’s brochure would dare advertise, I walk through yet another quiet side alley while clutching my notebook. Somehow these alleys aren’t quite as foreboding and decrepit as I’d have imagined them to be, but small spots of dirt on the stone and bits of litter near the dumpsters add just enough disrepair to keep me cautious.

Someone walks down the alley in my direction, wearing a hoodie. I fumble my pencil to my other hand, holding it alongside the notebook as my free hand settles over my wakizashi. He doesn’t slow down; for a tense moment we pass by each other, but nothing else happens.

I exhale. Nothing like another stranger passing to work me up. The people walking the alleyways feel more dangerous somehow, but maybe it’s just the alleyway making me think that I might discover the wrong kinds of things here.

A few more steps, and a set of writing on the wall in yellow catches my eye. Another clue. I scribble it onto one of the pages in my notebook, alongside the mass of twenty-odd other quips I’ve been able to scrape from the walls here. Supposedly, the Haracrein hide their location behind street poetry, but it seems like they do a lot of cheating with regards to how many of those lines are relevant. That, or maybe a mad hobo’s ramblings got blended in somehow…

It really doesn’t help that many of the alleyways seem to have a way of interconnecting and blending together, almost like some sort of byzantine labyrinth to go with my equally byzantine clues. I didn’t write anything down twice like an idiot, did I?

While I check, the sunlight slowly peels back and away from my notebook as well as the alley in general. Oh, right. It’s getting dark, and I haven’t made a single plan for it. I should get to work thinking, but with my luck I’ll probably end up sleeping on the stones.

Doing another pass of the area around me, I stop by a dumpster. It would be embarrassing as hell, but nobody would think to look into a dumpster for a helpless victim, right? I open the dumpster, take one whiff of the contents, and—revolted and coughing—strike that idea down from my internal list… And then drop it into a paper-shredder for good measure. So, that idea was out. What next?

I turn my sights up to the fire escapes adorning the walls of some of the apartment buildings. They’re actually an extremely attractive alternative, as it would put me firmly out of range of the vast majority of the urban jungle’s theoretical threats, but only if I can make a way up to them. Which, of course, is a pretty damn big if, too big for me to surmount in any way I could think of, even if I tried getting on top of one of the dumpsters first.

So, that leaves the stones laid on the floors of the twists and turns of the alleys. After some cautious searching, I settle for camping in a dead end at an offshoot of a larger alley. It’s probably a terrible idea, but given its positioning it would at least not be in a high-traffic area, so the stones themselves would be the only thing ruining my sleep.

Looks like I lucked out when picking which jacket I’d bring with me; it’s already starting to get cold, and I can feel it in my hands. I stare down at the cobblestone road, sweeping the area to try and sweep it clear of any broken bottles or spent syringes that might be there. Satisfied (as much as I can be sleeping on the streets), I pull my bag off and use it as my makeshift pillow, throwing my hood up for extra padding before settling down on my side, pulling my katana from my belt and cradling it in my arms. I’d consider stuffing my hands in my pockets to keep them from chilling, but there’s no safety here. I keep my hands right on my katana as I face the streets and try to sleep… While keeping my ears open, of course.

Here and there, I hear faint echoes that manage to lull me slightly but never fully awaken my conscious mind. Sometimes the footsteps get a little closer, and something stirs harder, but then they go away. Another set of footsteps come, but instead of going away they just keep getting closer and closer…

And in my mind’s eye, I see something, someone too familiar for comfort. I can’t see them clearly, so I can’t tell who but I can feel the dread pulling me along—

My eyes snap open and I yank the scabbard off my katana, looking up at a figure in a hoodie with sweatpants holding a suspicious-looking rag in one hand. I sweep myself to my feet, my footwork slightly off as the rest of my mind tries to catch up with my instincts.

“Why don’t you come quietly now?” His voice rasps as he draws a knife from his free hand, flicking it open. Another unpleasant memory comes and goes in a flash. “I’m sure you don’t intend to actually be using that sword, do you?” He tilts his head, and I realize his voice, his mannerisms are all… Wrong. I can’t figure out just what this man has planned for me, only that it was something terrible. “It’d be a shame to ruin such a pretty wall-hanger.”

Something within screams and claws at the edges of my mind with a singular urge to cut him down where he stands, to remove him from the cycle. ‘No mercy, no hesitation, for he is unworthy’; those are the words it chants between its screams. And I don’t like this little houseguest in my head. I exhale and force myself to swallow it. “You wanna bet?” The words come out shaky as I fight a war on two fronts.

“Now, I’m sure we can just come to an agreement...” He approaches, slowly at first, and for a terrifyingly dangerous moment my focus slackens a little, almost wanting to believe his words. Then he lunges, and I scramble backwards, avoiding his rag and hitting the wall behind me as I counter-cut, though my sword moves too late to tear into his arm with much more than the tip. For what little blade actually cut him, the amount of blood that splatters is surprising.

“My, my.” The voice sounds subtly angered as he looks over his shaking forearm, shrinking away from the cut. “How naughty of you. I guess I’ll have to find you another time.” He slowly backs up and walks away while the same voice within pleads for me to eviscerate him even with his back turned to me. With a shaking hand, I brush the blood off my sword with my blood rag before grabbing my scabbard off the ground, hesitating to make sure I didn’t cut myself as I saw the blade back in. I sigh, my spine chills finally relaxing as I stare at my bloodrag one last time. I can’t tell in this light, but I’m not sure if I remember blood being this dark. Pocketing the blood rag, I gently set myself back on the floor, staring at my katana’s hilt as I let my own thoughts sweep me up again.

Not that he wouldn’t have deserved it—I’m sure he would’ve, even if I didn’t have his exact rap sheet in front of me—but that urge, that voice is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to leave behind and forget. Swallowing down that shard of shame, I inhale, exhale, and try to sleep the rest of my way through the night, but sleep was elusive and fleeting.