Rain was falling. A time of contrasts. The unbearable noise of water colliding with the street, rooftops, and what have you against the barren marketplace. Not a soul around. Utter silence if not for the rain.
Wet and dark. The middle of the night usually afforded a glow from the stars and moon but the damn rainclouds saw fit to block such a beautiful sight. As it stood the only light belonged to a soft glow from a single oil lamp at the edge of the marketplace.
But a good eye would notice something unusual on this night. A body in the alley off the market. A body adding crimson to the rainwater flowing through the gutters. But most importantly, a body clutching a letter. The quill hastily dropped to the side while the letter lay open.
Vixen,
Something has come up and I will be unable to return. Possibly ever again. Everything is up to you now, I am sorry for dumping the important bits on you again but it has to be done. They CANNOT find us. You know what you have to do and do it quickly.
By the time you read this I will already be gone. I have never believed in an afterlife, and I especially don’t when I think of what those bastards have done, but if that should be my fate then I will do all I can to watch over you.
Thanks for everything,
Nightseer
A letter written in desperation, but it would go undelivered. If the realms had a sense of irony it was likely focused on this rain-soaked alley with a corpse.
But the night always gets darkest before the dawn.
The body moved. Crawling toward the open marketplace and leaving a blood-soaked trail in its wake. Time was not an ally as with each movement more strain was viewable and the slower the muscles worked.
The body collapsed at the entrance to the alley with the letter still clutched tightly. A flash of lightning illuminated the empty street for but a moment, a figure in black lying face down in a pool of blood and the gleam of something abandoned in the alley, followed by an abrupt darkness. A sad fate left for a stranger in the night.
A stranger who would not see the dawn.