Taint

4. It's a Living

7 Years Later

Refugee Capital

9:00 pm

This town had lost its name to history. Ghost town didn't seem to do it enough justice: it wasn't a town of ghosts, but a ghost itself, winking in and out of existence on the sparkling shores of the Elbe river. Traders once passed by it on their trade routes, stopping over only if the river banks were too soggy for their tent pitchings. They stayed just long enough to wash their faces, water the horses, grab a bite and be gone before the dust their mounts kicked up had settled.

It was never really intended for anyone to stay there. But that was before the Taint and his armies had swept the land like a great cloud of death and destruction. There was no safe place left in all of Germany, save for the tiny speck of a town, so completely unremarkable in every way that even an evil dictator hell bent on ruling the entire world didn't see the point of capturing it. Of course, it was also very possible that he had merely skipped over it on his map by accident.

Whatever the case for this uneasy peace, the town soon became a Mecca of the displaced and distraught. Tattered families and broken soldiers streamed in like a dirty deluge, each new arrival with a story more terrible than the last. It was so that the little town with no name became a city of stories. Their loved ones may have departed quickly, in a flash of flames and demon's claws, a pang of pain, then nothing. But it was the survivors who carried the weight of their stories. And it crushed them a little more each day.

The town was dubbed by its denizens as the 'Refugee Capital', with all the love and affection of a butcher slaughtering a squealing pig. After their ordeals, forgive them if they weren't feeling terribly poetic. It was simple, served the purpose, and was perhaps less melodramatically cringeworthy than the 'City of Damned Orphans, Soldiers, Traitors and Cowards.' As straightforwardly as its name, the city gave all those tortured people, and the things they had seen, a place to rest, but that was all it was. The Refugee Capital housed the waifs of war, but it was nobody's home. Their real homes, after all, were overrun with demons, and the countryside crawled with bandits. In the Refugee Capital, on the other hand,  it was the thieves who ruled the streets.

This guy must've known the dangers of being out after dark. There he was, cursing himself as he tried to find his way home on the cold, moonless night. His silent stalker couldn't help a chuckle as he committed a few new ones to his memory. Curses were useful where he came from. The man froze as if he'd been shot. 'Aaaaah, too loud.' The thief may have been an expert of slipping out of sight, but his mouth was another beast to tame altogether. The man finally gathered up the courage to whip around, only to be faced with an empty road.

He continued, a little faster this time. For some inconceivable reason, he decided that the alleys were a better bet than the street. Trying to lose him? The thief thought not. 'Go ahead. Play right into my hands, why don't you?' He followed him in with a low, malicious chuckle.

The man ran through the winding, serpentine alleys, tripping over things and crashing into walls. He took a wrong turn, dashed headlong into a dead end where his palms connected hard with crumbling brick and mortar. His assailant dropped down from above with feline grace, as if a drop of the shadows spilled onto the street. The man screamed.

"Oh quiet, already, no one can hear you." The dark figure spoke in a crisp, commanding tone, that was tinged with amusement.

"Please let me go..." The man begged. A thief? Or an assassin? The Refugee Capital boasted a fine selection of both.