A street lamp flickered overhead, casting shadows from a line of decrepit trash cans onto the pavement, making them dance, their flickering forms bouncing on the warm, cracked ground. A man-hole cover beside the street lay slightly out of place beside the light cast by the lamp, giving view of the absolute darkness of the sewer below, wherein a steady cloud of milky steam rose into the fresh night's air, hovering for a moment, and then dispersing. Run-down apartments lined the streets, and several shady characters stood at street corners huddled together in congregations, whispering or laughing, depending upon the topic at hand. The place was a cesspit best left to vermin.
..And a stagnant pool of filth, so vile in its demeanor, yet melancholy, too, and innocent, in that it continues to sink into the pothole of filth without stepping up and saying, “No, I've had enough! Out with you, villians and scum! No more will you clutter my streets with your trash, and loiter at my corners in your immodest attire, selling your damned sex, drugs, or other desirable human product!”
A tall figure moved into the light of the flickering street lamp, pen and notebook in gloved hand. He clicked the pen, retracting its point, and replaced it in his dark gray, faded trench coat. His notebook followed. A faint sigh escaped the figures hidden lips, from beneath the shadow of his fedora, and he (as his sigh was both deep and masculine) stepped out of the lamplight and onto the sidewalk, where he began to walk.
From the moonlight you could make out some of his features. While nearly his entire body was clothed, along with the top of his head that sported a worn, dark gray cap, you could tell that he was a moderately large man, with long arms and legs that added to his impressive height. His face was long with prominent features and a strong chin, while his nose produced a gently curve and wore a deep scar across its bridge. The man's eyes were something to behold. Surrounded by darkened, seemingly bruised skin inherent in insomniacs and late-nighters, his eyes themselves were bright and full of thought; indeed, they seemed to sparkle with it, the moonlight reflecting off them as he tilted his hat up slightly to glance at the sky. They were also different colors. His right eye possessed a blue of the darkest seas, his left eye holding the tint of a mid-summer oak leaf, somewhat dark with tiny bits of a lighter green dusted about his iris. Tilting his hat back down to obscure his face, the man's eyes disappeared under a pall of shadow.
He made no sound as he walked. Only the whisper of cloth followed in his wake. Stopping in front of a nondescript apartment entrance, he looked up at the darkened windows. “Hmph. No signal, as said there would be. Not that this should surprise me.” He said to himself in a deep voice that he had trouble keeping to himself. Across the street several shady-looking figures were gathering; youths and middle-aged men that looked more likely to send a knife through your belly than say 'hi'. The darkly-dressed man, Sartana Misirlou, turned his head slightly, his eyes falling on the group of men. “What now..?”
Roxy couldn't remember exactly how she'd gotten here, but she was here just the same. Her brow was furrowed as her eyes darted around, checking out the scenery. Yeah... It was the bad end of town. Not exactly where she had intended to end up.
Having just moved here, she hadn't exactly learned where everything in town was; she didn't know how big or how dangerous this section of town would be, and she knew the sensible thing to do woulf be to turn around and go back the way she came from, but a strange desire in the pit of her stomach pulled her forward. Without even thinking, her right hand reached up and rubbed the amulet on the neckalace she was wearing. If one could see it in this light, they might recognize it as a pewter protection amulet, round, with strange markings in it. She was feeling the ridges in the metal as she slowly walked down the sidewalk, deep in the shadows, her boots making a strange tapping noise against the gritty concrete.
Her thin figure was tightly clothed in just a few layers. Her pale blue shirt looked white in this darkness and her dark blue cardigan looked black. She pulled her long black coat tighter around her, making her skirt dissapear. She wasn't sure that she wanted to be seen here. In the moonlight, her pale complexion grew lighter and her eyes glinted as they narrowed in on a group of people she was nearing. For a moment she wondered whether or not she should turn back. Her long hands, arms crossed, gripped her sides and she slowed down her pace. The dirty appartments, their paint peeling seemed to tower over her, and she altogether stopped to take in the scene.
She saw a man, a few paces ahead, in a dark fedora and trenchcoat. She could hardly make out the details as he was in the shadows too, but the way the moonlight hit what she could see, she got a vision of a deep scar on his nose. But, as his hat was low, she couldn't make out many more features. She turned her attention to wherever he was looking, and saw the same group of people gathered around a fire. She didn't want to approach either group, wondering if they all knew each other.
