Blind Affection

Chapter 1

It was a dark and stormy night. "Pretty cliche of a starting line". He thought as the sound of rain pummeled the half-rotted roof above him. It was at least a comforting sound that somehow made him feel a little bit safer in his makeshift shelter as he ate the last bit of the orange he had. The walls of this building were half gone, rotten and falling apart, but it was just enough to give Cathen a bit of shelter for the night. The building sat near the end of a rural gravel road on the outskirts of the city. Abandoned, unused, in an old cattle field now grown over with tall grass and bushes; fences fallen over and useless. The area of this city seemed to have quite a few abandoned places. Who knew what happened, though major economy shifts were probably a part of it. Larger farm properties were just too hard to keep up with now that the cost of living was rising. Not that Cathen really had to worry about that right now, he was, in all senses, homeless.

Shelters had been dangerous, not just for himself, so he refused to stay at those. Hospitals were out of the question; the risk of his wounds being examined too high. They caused him too much pain and a hospital would cause more issues than he would have preferred. Police only took him to the hospitals. He didn't know where else to go or what else to do, so he simply hopped from abandoned building to abandoned building. The only real issue he encountered was money for food, which had caused him to become a rather skilled thief in the past few months; at least only when he was desperate. It had only been a few months, but he was already looking extremely malnourished, dehydrated, and weak. Under his baggy hoodie and black jeans, he was thin and boney. However, he never got to the point of death, only weakness. He always seemed to have just enough energy to last another week.

He arrived at this particular place about an hour ago and was thankfully now dry and mostly warm in the shadow of the back corner. His clothes and dark hood allowed him to blend in quite well between the wood and other materials left in this rotting old place. Somehow, he was still mostly clean, and his clothes were still in decent shape, despite having just been attacked shortly after stealing some food. He had taken a back alley to get away from the store clerk, only to run straight into a group of thugs who instantly went after him. Cathen thankfully was much faster and outran them rather quickly. However, in his blind running he caused a ruckus in the streets, catching the unwanted attention of searching eyes.

* * *

In the distance a car, muffled by the sound of the rain, turned down the long, lonely road that faded from pavement to gravel. It moved slowly, perhaps searching for something, perhaps simply lost. Eventually, the car rolled to a stop and shut off. The silhouette of an abandoned barn was seen through the windshield as Ashero put his phone back on the holder, closing his messenger. He had been informed of a rather strange event today in his territory. Someone had disturbed the piece and had rather unnatural skills for running and evading capture from multiple groups. Perhaps just an athletic kid, but the information he had gotten hadn't been very average and something piqued the man's interest a bit too much. Much to the dismay of his assistant.

The door opened and he adjusted the collar on his leather raincoat, closing the door gently and quietly before moving into the field towards the collapsing barn. No sound came from the man's steps and in the darkness of the storm he seemed to be able to avoid any obstacle with ease. However, it wasn't any of this that caught Cathen's attention, it wasn't even the car pulling up. It was the slight tapping sound of rain on unnatural leather. The sound of the rain hitting the man's coat.

Cathen's thin frame stiffened like a loaded spring, waiting, watching. He was hidden, there was no way anyone knew he was here, and if this was just a random encounter, no way anyone would see him in the dark. He figured this was most likely some kid looking for an abandoned building adventure. Those were popular online right now, so it wasn't uncommon even in a storm like this. The problem was: there was no talking, no vlogging, no giggling, no sound of human life even a whisper of a presence. Unnerved by this, Cathen slowly moved, almost like a chameleon, into another corner feeling for a big enough space for a quick exit if he needed to.