The rats snuck around and scurried about his feet as he stared down to the end of the alley from behind a trash can he had found. He'd struggled with a vagrant for it for maybe an hour before scaring him off with a sharp thrust to the neck. After staring down the alleyway, he took a deep breath and assured himself that no other bums would be coming for revenge, he sat down and leaned against the cold brick that made up the decrepit building haunting, dark, and uninviting.

He leaned against the wall and stared up at the sky. He watched as the dark black clouds covered the stars. He sat and waited, wondering why nights like these are no longer a Godsend but an annoyance. Something to be hated rather than loved. It wasn't the acid rain that fell from the sky, he'd lived with it all his life. It wasn't the cold or the water, nor was it the darkness that hid everything from view. What was it that made nights like these so favorable back then?

As the drizzle slowly begins to fall he closes his eyes to shield them. He faces the ground and opens them again. He watches them twitch and shake uncontrollably. He studies how they yearn and beg for him to make them stop, but he can't. He was able to before. He was able to make them do more than stop shaking. He was able to make them miracles. They were faster than anything on the street, able to throw things faster than it takes some people to blink. Able to draw guns and pull the triggers at sub-machingun speeds. But now they shake. He takes one last look at them before hiding them in his pocket.

As they fish around Long Coat pockets, he looks at the brick walls before him and reads the graffiti scrawled on them. Names like Angel, Grendel, Snoopy, and Chaka stand out. He remembers when he had a name like that. A name that commanded respect and fear. A name corp.'s used to have on their "Most Wanted" lists. Now he doesn't even remember what it was. It's a distant memory to him, like the names of those he used to know. Names that belonged to people he once respected and respected him. People who would have given their lives for him. But now their gone. Disappeared into the back of his mind, buried there like they are now in the ground. People now corpses, buried in the ground, buried now for a long time.

His hands come up out of their sanctuaries and present him with an offering of heroin and a needle. As his hands prepare their cure the start shaking. He can only remember when he found his demon, his vice, his poison. He can only recall that this hunger, these pangs he was feeling were an indirect result as to why it was he was now alone in the cold air and drizzle, friendless. This thing in his hands, that he craves, was the only thing that he remembers ever being in his life and now it was here again, and he knew it was never going to leave his hands as he takes the needle and feeds it into his veins. As the drug surges through his body he feels peace within himself as the demons, these questions, in his head quiet down. His eyes half-close by themselves as he once again relives those moments in his life that ever really mattered.