The world burned. He burned. White light seared around him, through him, and reflexively he cringed away, one hand coming up in a futile attempt to shield his eyes, the loud scream of a siren drowning his own.

The world came back slowly, his harsh fear filled pants the only noise he could hear. Slowly his eyes focused once more, though he wasn't sure he wanted to. The small town he had been wandering about for the last day was gone, the buildings towered far overhead like the skyscrapers in Manhattan, though those had never leaned into each other, looming far above and leaving only hints of whited out sky without doing anything to lessen the overwhelming brightness. The whitened walls and bright bits of metal bursting from the buildings like broken bones only amplified the effect - for once, up was not salvation.

Here and there were outlines of people just burnt into the wall, some with holes gouged into the walls where their eyes would have been. They looked as if they had been just going about their business. He had tried to use them as markers as he wandered the mazelike streets, until he had glanced over his shoulder and seen the outlines had all turned to face him. The constant feel of being watch made his skin crawl, so he gave into the feeling and let his flesh ripple and reform into claws.

He had lost count in how long he had wandered the alleyways, never finding a street. He had no idea if he was even walking in circles, but he had begun to try the building doors, desperate to get out and away from the watchers just out of sight. The doors were broken, jammed, locked - but he couldn't rip them off their hinges, or smash through them. It was if he was attacking the walls for all he had to show for his effort.

Eventually his wanders brought him to a set of glass doors. They slid open as he drew close, the motion activation still somehow working. Inside was just as bright as out, and no matter how far his pupils contracted he couldn't adjust. Thermal vision was just as useless inside as it had been outside; the deep blues and blacks were barely sufficient to see outlines, let alone see anything useful, so he stumbled about half blind.

Here and there the glint of metal hinted at the building's purpose, but it was the scent of antiseptic barely covering the sickly sweet scent of rotted flesh that harshly brought to mind a morgue. The walls about were angled wrong, and tiles upon them had been scrubbed so often and so hard the shine had almost worn off. The grates embedded in the floors were a different story, bloodstained and dented, as if something had smashed into them.

It was then that he heard the first sound he himself hadn't made - a soft hollow whispering, and the sound of flesh on wet flesh. It took far too long to round the corner and come into view, but he found himself rooted in place, unable to move to go meet it, or to avoid it.

It was some kind of monster, wrapped in flesh and in more flesh and clad in still more flesh like a ragged open robe. He swore he saw something resembling eyeholes. There was a head, but no face. The hands were just empty reaching husks, fluttering in the unnaturally still air. It didn't matter. A single slash with his claws split the thing, his feeder tendrils plunging into still living flesh, seeking to sooth the burning hunger that was his constant companion - but the thing's skin began to dry up and flake off into ash that slowly drifted up and away. There was nothing left.

A harsh gasp made him look up. He'd know that sound anywhere - Dana. He had scared her again. "Dana?" he called, his voice sounding unnaturally harsh in the quiet, more like the snarl of a beast than a human voice. "Dana?" he tried again, relieved to note that time it sounded more like his own voice.

There was no answer but fleeing footsteps. He ran after them, never seeming to gain no matter how fast he moved. So caught up in the chase that he forgot to look where he was going, he smashed headlong into the panes of glass before him, the light of a thousand suns momentarily blinding before his eyes adjusted.

This ... wasn't that cold, bright non-city he had been trapped in, just the sleepy silent town he'd been lost in. He had just run through the hospital's emergency doors. The nicks and scrapes had mended before he even noticed them, and he reformed his hands as he brushed off the shards of glass.

Before him on the ground was a map, weighted down by a broken cellphone. The police station was circled, 'Go heRe' scribbled in his own handwritti- no, it wasn't. It was a mishmash of letters, not one matching the others. Still, it was his only lead to finding Ragland, and from there, to finding out what the hell had happened to Dana.

With a sense of déjà vu, he tucked the map in a pocket before striding off into the fog.