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His breath hitched in his throat. The one hunting him was so close. There was a dark pall over the already bleak night, and somewhere within stalked the one pursuing him. The glare of a predator had nagged him all evening, a lingering notion of a threat that he initially tried to laugh off. When in a full pub it was easy to do, surrounded by intoxicated friends and intoxicating women.
Now he was alone.
The street stretched into the gloom; the streetlights unusually absent. Sounds dulled, gone were the usual cars trawling for the girls whose steel heeled stilettos beat out a tattoo of the flesh trade. No bawdy songs or hacking coughs that narrated his usual walk home. Tonight, it had all dissipated into a miasma of fear. He ran for the next alley, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness. There was a scratch, a sigh. A stench to overwhelm the senses. While he had hoped to hide out in this moist alley way, littered with the discarded refuse of a sex and drugs kind of town, it seemed to be already occupied. While the greasy illumination of a streetlight still flowed into the mouth of the alley, it barely penetrated halfway down the first wall. Despite the impenetrable darkness, he knew that there were a great many beings hidden beyond the meagre light. As someone stepped across the mouth of the alley and blocked his light, he knew he was trapped.
‘Is this about my...’ His final words were cut short with the blade of a knife and many grabbing, rotting hands.