Before the Dawn
Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 4:17 am
The night might almost be considered normal.
After all, on almost any given night, you could find groups of teenagers wandering the dark streets, doing various things, some legal, some less so. Traffic was largely absent on nights like this, but never completely gone. The traffic lights, too, were perfectly normal, having switched from their usual routine of red-green-yellow to a flashing red one way and a flashing yellow the other. Convenience for those late-night and early-morning drivers. Here and there, one could hear dogs barking. Lights still gleamed in the darkness; like most nights, there was always someone awake. No, for the most part, this night seemed like any other night. And, at the moment, most people would not find anything strange about this night. That would change very soon, when a veritable avalanche of unusual sights and sounds and actions would rock this sleepy city to the core, but for now, the oddity was confined to a small space.
For most people did not walk around in the middle of summer with a bulky gray cloak wrapped around them. Even less also chose to cover their heads with a hood. And very few people could mask their face so completely without impairing their vision. But for the three boys watching him walk, he seemed to be able to see just fine. But his clothing and his surefootedness paled in comparison to the feeling one got when looking at him. For the greatest oddity was the aura of sheer power that came from him. Here was a man not to be trifled with, here was strength, here was might. And yet, he conveyed no sense of malevolence, as though the fact that he could quite easily harm everyone around him meant nothing to him. It was a feeling that commanded respect, rather than fear. This, too, was strange, as most men in this city had all their power because of a sizable amount of currency, rather than any genuine strength, and most were only too happy to do whatever helped or gratified them, rather than simply live and let live.
So they watched this oddity of a man as he crossed the street, the black boots that were the only thing not obscured by his cloak causing an audible thump with every step. He was certainly not troubling himself to stay quiet, especially for a man who was keeping all his features concealed. Perhaps he was just ugly or deformed. But as he crossed into the park on the other side of the road, the youths decided they didn’t need to know so bad that they would follow him. Tonight they would choose a new haunt, well away from the park. Why? They weren’t really sure why…but, looking at the man, they knew it was the right decision. They slipped down an alley and headed off to look for something to do. The man, oddly, did not remain on their minds for long. It was almost as if they weren’t supposed to know he even existed. Perhaps they weren’t. They never lost sleep over it, that much is certain.
The cloaked man, meanwhile, walked in the pale moonlight along a path through the park, lightly wooded on one side, with a playground on the other. Swings, slides, a sandbox, the works. After a short walk, he found a park bench, and sat down calmly, leaning against the back and stretching his legs. He might almost have seemed relaxed, if his arms didn’t remain firmly concealed under the charcoal cloth that wrapped around his body. His head leaned forward; he might almost be sleeping.
Almost.
After all, on almost any given night, you could find groups of teenagers wandering the dark streets, doing various things, some legal, some less so. Traffic was largely absent on nights like this, but never completely gone. The traffic lights, too, were perfectly normal, having switched from their usual routine of red-green-yellow to a flashing red one way and a flashing yellow the other. Convenience for those late-night and early-morning drivers. Here and there, one could hear dogs barking. Lights still gleamed in the darkness; like most nights, there was always someone awake. No, for the most part, this night seemed like any other night. And, at the moment, most people would not find anything strange about this night. That would change very soon, when a veritable avalanche of unusual sights and sounds and actions would rock this sleepy city to the core, but for now, the oddity was confined to a small space.
For most people did not walk around in the middle of summer with a bulky gray cloak wrapped around them. Even less also chose to cover their heads with a hood. And very few people could mask their face so completely without impairing their vision. But for the three boys watching him walk, he seemed to be able to see just fine. But his clothing and his surefootedness paled in comparison to the feeling one got when looking at him. For the greatest oddity was the aura of sheer power that came from him. Here was a man not to be trifled with, here was strength, here was might. And yet, he conveyed no sense of malevolence, as though the fact that he could quite easily harm everyone around him meant nothing to him. It was a feeling that commanded respect, rather than fear. This, too, was strange, as most men in this city had all their power because of a sizable amount of currency, rather than any genuine strength, and most were only too happy to do whatever helped or gratified them, rather than simply live and let live.
So they watched this oddity of a man as he crossed the street, the black boots that were the only thing not obscured by his cloak causing an audible thump with every step. He was certainly not troubling himself to stay quiet, especially for a man who was keeping all his features concealed. Perhaps he was just ugly or deformed. But as he crossed into the park on the other side of the road, the youths decided they didn’t need to know so bad that they would follow him. Tonight they would choose a new haunt, well away from the park. Why? They weren’t really sure why…but, looking at the man, they knew it was the right decision. They slipped down an alley and headed off to look for something to do. The man, oddly, did not remain on their minds for long. It was almost as if they weren’t supposed to know he even existed. Perhaps they weren’t. They never lost sleep over it, that much is certain.
The cloaked man, meanwhile, walked in the pale moonlight along a path through the park, lightly wooded on one side, with a playground on the other. Swings, slides, a sandbox, the works. After a short walk, he found a park bench, and sat down calmly, leaning against the back and stretching his legs. He might almost have seemed relaxed, if his arms didn’t remain firmly concealed under the charcoal cloth that wrapped around his body. His head leaned forward; he might almost be sleeping.
Almost.