A litter of dark forms scud over the thin slice of night that looks down on Mudcat Alley, casting shadows in the night that die in the dwindling mists of chilled night fog. A rust fire escape creaks in a fitful breeze. A dark shadowform steps out of the darkedges and reveals itself as a bedraggled black cat with one ear missing. She slithers across the worn cobblestones and back into darkness, keening with spite and sorrow. Behind one of the disused trash cans a larger shadows stirs as quietly.

The man they call only by The Stranger unfolds his heavy woolen cape from over his head and untangles his long legs from the dank alley floor. Something in the fetid night air has summonsed his unconscious sleeping mind back to the present. He listens; he sniffs the fog-damp breeze. He looks without seeing for many minutes, stiller than the worn bricks at his back. Satisfied, he rises slowly to his feet, adjusts his slouch hat and his pack, and begins tracing his backtrail down into the black depths of Mudcat Alley.