The night air of Destiny City greeted Fin as he staggered out the door of the club, its pulsing music silenced by time’s dull march toward morning. That he was alone in his stilted gait was a source of still more frustration, his fellow revelers having decided that his presence was unnecessary for any nocturnal activities that might follow. He ran a hand across his forehead, raked it through his long black hair, dragging sweat across his palm and into the disheveled locks plastered to his scalp.

He couldn’t help the resentment that rose within him at their willingness to leave him alone with his thoughts, as though he would have done anything of the sort to them. At least he’d managed to keep the contents of his muddled mind saturated with a heady mix of relaxation aids. Just enough to keep them pressed against the periphery of his skull where remained very nearly out of sight. Not quite as invisible as he would have hoped, certainly not as distant as they would have been if the club’s other dancers had been more understanding of his situation. He would never press them, of course, but that didn’t mean that loneliness in the oppressive quiet stung any less.

The frogs at the very least wouldn’t leave him to the mercy of whatever managed to force its way back to the center. Spurred by the notion, Fin resolved to find them. Wherever they might be. The skills he’d developed back there, the ones that allowed him to chase down any water that might have been stubborn enough to remain in a desolate landscape, were of little use in a place that was this variety of desolate. A huff escaped him as he began his trek toward…the east? Maybe. It would be a ******** of a lot easier if his night eyes worked here. They still glowed, at least when he looked like himself. When he looked like this, they remained as dim as any human’s. It looked less cold and miserable on them than it did him.

“Tired” wasn’t quite the word to describe the feeling that threatened to drag his stone-weighted limbs toward an unwanted sleep and everything that came with that. No, it wasn’t time for that. It couldn’t be time for that.

Fin was barely aware of the soft groan that dribbled from his mouth, the brick against his back as he sank to the asphalt that stubbornly retained the previous day’s heat. Cradling his head in his hands, he silently willed it to take a break from the whirling that threatened to carry him away from any hope of finding the pond he had promised to himself. He pushed aside the knowledge that there was no guarantee that the water in question would contain the companions he sought, putting his head down and taking it one step at a time. Alongside the waves of spite and blind rage, that was the only thing that had sustained him through the dark of a world too spent to care.

Blind or not, the dark felt appropriate for the moment. Both suitably dramatic and convenient for concealing the embarrassing state in which Fin found himself. He rubbed his eyes, caring very little for the eyeliner he smudged down his face. Not like anyone was going to see it. Not anyone with an opinion worth worrying himself over anyway.

When the voice began to fill the air, the glamoured alien could do little to determine whether it came from around him or within him. Distant as his own thoughts were from time to it was nearly impossible to tell. Still, its melancholy song stirred something within him. One of the endless number of things that were best left settled well below the surface. The bittersweet familiarity of warmth and light. Strains of music long since lost to the ages. Notes that resided solely within his own unwilling mind, vicious in their insistence that he be their last repository. ******** pricks. There was no reason in any corner of this half dead galaxy for him to be the one they chose. If he wasn’t the only one left, some other clan’s fili, one more…qualified…would be the one left holding the proverbial bag and he’d finally have some ******** quiet.

Hauling himself to his unsteady feet, the wall’s cool brick scraping his hands, his head swiveling in a near desperate effort to determine the direction he should go. He fought back the gag that threatened to eject what little remained in his stomach. <******** it.

This way.

If it was the only way to shut the ******** thing up.

He knew it wanted his attention. It wanted to lay bare every corpse that waited behind him.

Force him to look into the clouded mirrors of their eyes and see every accusation.

Every betrayal.

Every failure.

Every <********> failure.

No.

He needed to put a stop to this. Silence whatever specter thought it had the right to demand his attention with its cruel magic. “Sadistic.” That was the word he’d heard the humans use for this sort of behavior. There was no other way he could think of to describe this.

To reach into him and pull on music of all things. <******** vicious. Especially for something that didn’t feel like Chaos. But then there was no saying what other monsters called Earth home. Though there was no reason for them to direct their ire at Fin of all people. Unless they thought of him as something invading their home. He’d probably be ******** with them too, in that position.

His feet carried him wordlessly forward, his brain determined in its hazy way to do…something…to punish it if he could. Maybe scream his fury into the dark if he couldn’t. It would be better than nothing. That it intensified as he moved only convinced him both of its malice and that he was drawing closer to the beast. It wanted to cut him deeper with whispers of home and family, clan and song. Endless hours plucking strings now long decayed for the delight of whoever was willing to listen. Coaxing stories from the otherworld, maybe that’s what this thing was trying to do in its own sick way.

And then.

Silence.

Roots cut.

Song severed.

Heat and cold rising with the bile in his throat.

Fin closed his eyes against the world.

Embers of rage still burned within him, not fiercely enough to disgorge flame from his spent voice.

Pressing his fingertips into the black smudges atop his eyelids, he tried to breathe through the unbearable tightness in his chest and wondered if the voice’s absence was crueler.