Rain hammered the asphalt with merciless persistence. The tail end of summer, both temperature and humidity hanging thick and oppressive in the choking night air.

Guest huddled without an umbrella, knees drawn tight against their chest on a piece of cardboard that had long since given up the fight against the downpour. Their phone lay dead and useless in their pocket. Names, numbers, faces—everything felt distant and unreachable.

In this forgotten alley wedged between overflowing garbage bags and crumbling brick walls, where even the cats seemed to have abandoned hope, footsteps suddenly echoed to a halt.

...What the hell are you doing here?

Looking up through the rain, a figure loomed overhead—a man just as soaked as they were, umbrella nowhere to be seen. Scruff shadowed his gaunt face, greasy black hair plastered to his skull, and eyes that seemed to belong to no world at all.