The city wasn’t always this way.

There used to be a few families, a few houses. Some visitors now and then. But now, it’s full of dilapidated houses with holes through the roof, siding missing, collapsing on their foundations, front porches that had been razed by tornadoes. Just about anything you can think of had happened here. Disease, natural disaster, plagues of insects and animals.

I stop walking for a minute and take a deep breath of the foggy evening air. It smells like cigarettes and beer, just like usual. It seems to be a typical evening in the city, but I get a sinking feeling that it’s going to be a long night.

As I stand on the road, I see ahead of me a flicker. It looks like a flashlight, and the only people who carry those anymore are the police. Shit. I look to my left quickly to see if there’s anywhere I can disappear to, and out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of someone waving from an alley in between townhouses and I jog over to see who it is. As I get closer, I realize it’s Jameson and I breathe a sigh of relief. “Hey, when did you get back?”

He shakes his head in response. “Look, we can talk about my trip later. Right now we gotta go, coppers are crawling all over the place.”

I look over my shoulder and around the corner of the brick building. “I don’t see them anymore…” but my voice trails off as I hear a slight rustle from behind me. As I turn back around to look at Jameson, a pit forms in my stomach.

The cops on patrol had found us, and they’d already gagged Jameson to keep him from warning me. “Fuck,” I mutter. I look back to the street again and see four more policemen approaching from some distance yet, given away by their flashlights and shiny helmets. I look at Jameson again for guidance and he shakes his head, eyes wide and pleading—asking me not to get caught too. I can’t leave him. He blinks quickly, and I don’t catch the message the first time, but I do as he repeats it. - - · - - - / - · - - - · - - . I nod at him, quickly reaching for the pistol inside my shoulder holster and spinning around. I hold the pistol in a ready position and shake my head at the approaching officers. “Sorry boys, but it looks like it’s time for me to go.” Two of them, much closer now than before, look at each other and both rush forward. I trip one of them and dodge to the right, sprinting back up the road the way I came. The cop on the ground looks up and yells “Well?! Go!”

But it was too late. I had already vanished into the basement of an old pub down the street, following our concealed tunnels to the Colony.