Kindred: The Man With No Name

Prologue

The town was odd. It sat out of place, on browning cliffs that towered infinitely above a deep sea which in the trick of the fading light, loomed red. The wind hit him flush as the tide drew breath, swaying past sharp stones underfoot.

His eyes wandered from the treacherous sea beneath him to the clustered town behind him. It was picturesque under the fading sun, spread out beneath him like a living map. In the silence, he could hear the wind sweeping around the terrain; like a whisper in his ear, cautioning him against the journey he was about to undertake. Even so, the man cut through the steady wave of cold air, shivering as he clutched on to a weathered cloak.

The sky had faded from a dusky purple to a dark blue by the time he made his way into town. The streets, beset with dozens of bright red lanterns that hung precariously off a series of thin intertwined cables, burned brightly- couple that in with the glow the night wrought and it was breathtaking.

It was also empty as he turned into a corner, cutting through a rough cobbled path that twisted and turned until he happened upon a large old greying clock tower. He stared at it, for a second that carried an eternity. There was something about it that made him want to keep looking.

The hands on the clock, warped and hanging from their hinges, sat eerily frozen at half past three. The bricks that encompassed it were crumbling, battered and decayed. The rest of the tower was crooked, leaning so much to the right that he dared not stand beneath it.

Despite the clock's eery pull, he pushed on; his movement belabored as his wounds finally begun to slow him down. The buildings adjacent piled onto each other like boxes stacked together. They were houses from what he could make of them, but they echoed a profound stillness that put his assessment into question.

The path eventually stretched wider, and he stole another turn, past boarded storefronts until he found what he was looking for. Emblazoned in gold letters on a large window that encompassed the front of another building, were the words,

Dog pound.

The window was old and stained, but it would suffice.

He pressed his nose against the glass to get a better look. An old, scrawny looking man sat at one of the tables next to the window. A little girl in a gray cloak sat across him, her nose buried under a book almost twice as large as her head. She couldn't have been much older than eight judging by the size of her.

A dark-haired waitress in a long blue linen dress tended to her. To their right sat a woman in a red scarf, alongside a little boy who bore a remarkable resemblance to her, and in the far corner, a surly middle-aged man who hung his head low over a large wooden mug.

Beneath his feet, the ground began to feel soft, but he steadied himself, staggering towards the door; his breaths shallow as he pulled it open.

No one looked up.

They didn't even react to the ghastly chill that the open door wrought. He slunk inside, rushing to the nearest table. It was littered with plates and half-empty mugs that shook as he accidentally rocked the table. One of the mugs tipped over as he tried to steady it, and hit the ground before he could react.

He caught a brief glimpse of the red door behind the counter as he reached for the mug. It sprung open abruptly, and he was greeted by a pair of piercing green eyes. The man was huge- about as tall as anything he had ever seen. He was also bald and burdened with a full beard that swamped his entire jawline and rolled down to his thick neck.

It had to be him.

He tore his eyes away from the large man, turning to the surface of his table, all the while laboring hard to suppress his quickening breaths. It proved daunting as he could feel the mammoth's gaze burrowing into his back.