"Why the hell are you following me?"

This log is part of Stacey and Yi's "Smoke and Mirrors" ongoing plot. Yi ran this one.

Sleep comes quick, when the ragabash's body and mind turns out to be much more weary than first felt. Gradually, the dreams come, some peaceful and passionate, others bland and just as quickly forgotten. Within the world of the subconscious, eventually, intrudes a feeling of discomfort. The source, unknown, but a feeling of being watched resides there nonetheless. Even in a realm where the sky is bright and sunny, and windows on skyscrapers and buildings gleam against the afternoon face of Helios, the ragabash unscarred and sometime in the past walks along on some form of errand. Natalie's words come to mind. Must've been to get more milk and other groceries, and why not, considering Kevin was the least likely to draw attention to himself with the Curse.

Yes, those were good days. Freshly Rited, pure of mind and body, the world at his feet, Kevin was going to be something great. No wonder he walked along the city street toward the grocery store with a spring in his step and a lightness in his heart. The sun's pleasant on his face, and the city feels good around him, all its webs and wires humming gently in a subliminal symphony of Weaverish warmth.

People pass. Some with faces, some without more distinguishing features, but the fair majority don't so much as give the young runner a second glance. No one appears to anyway, but like all good newmoons who are alert to their surroundings, the sixth sense kicks in with that feeling of being followed. A tail. The feeling is there, clear as the sky above.

Kevin doesn't give any outward sign of realising there's someone tracking him, his poker face coming into play. Instead of carrying on towards the store, he swings left at the next intersection and down the cross street, then right again at the next, just to check whether his feeling of being followed is real.

It's real alright. So real it's unmistakeable. Someone, something is out there watching. It's like the eyes are right on him, watching his every move. Though the passing thought of this being an extra test for his Rite of Passage comes to mind, like some bonus round in a video game, it doesn't seem quite so likely. The sun continues to glint off of the windows, on its way down towards the horizon in a sunset that comes quick, like fast forwarded time lapse photography.

It doesn't, for some reason, seem unusual to Kevin that the sun is moving down the sky much quicker than it should. But being followed like this still makes his senses tingle. Coming up to a shop window, he comes to a stop and pretends to be looking at the wares on display inside, to see how his stalker will respond to him stopping moving.

No need to look hard. Right behind him, there the supposed stalker is. A looming, dark form shaped like that of a crinos. Even so, the light of the sunset is simply absorbed into this creature, not passing through any bit of it and its aura of black, smoke-like tendrils. The being's eyes are nothing but mirrors. Its shape is reflected faintly in the shine of the store window.

Kevin's instincts tell him to change form himself, but he suppresses them; this is the city and the Veil is the Veil. (Even if the smoke-wolf seems to be attracting no attention at all.) He stops pretending to look at the drills and hammers in the store window, and draws himself up to his full height in order to confront the smoke-being, uncomfortably aware of being smaller and thinner than it in his birth-form.

Confrontation is anything but. The moment the ragabash turns around, the being is gone from sight. Not so much as a poof of smoke from its inky aura is left. People pass by still on the street, completely unaware and uncaring. Where the time had fast forwarded to twilight, now it seems to stop on pause, with the sky turned red and hints of dark blue beyond the reach of the sun.

Kevin glances around. Where did it go? Has it somehow transported itself behind him again? He looks back and forth, suddenly aware of the absence of the sun's warmth on his skin and the lengthening of the shadows cast across the street by the buildings. Very dark they seem all of a sudden, very capable of concealing many things.

Gradually, the streets are emptying out. The cars that pass by continue to run on their own time, as does the world around the newmoon, though the sun seems to have stopped on the dusk. The ragabash's sharp eye catches a glimpse. Here and there, not in the shadows, but in the occassional reflection, he sees the snippets of the shadow wolf. As a car passes, on its silver body is the reflection of the mirror eyed one, running along until the car turns a corner. Then again, on a woman's compact mirror as she stops to powder her cheek, the surface angles just so, so that Kevin sees the black one, now a wolf and not a crinos, being reflected there on the street.

Kevin turns to look at the store window again. This time it's not to pretend to check out power tools, but more purposefully. He moves his head and body, adjusting them so as to find the angle that he hopes will catch the light just so and reveal in its reflection the elusive smoke-wolf.

And there it is again, staring at the Walker ragabash from its faint and faded, reflected look in the store window. It speaks not a word, and nor does it move a muscle save one ear that turns to a side.

Kevin stares at the being in the reflection. "Why the hell are you following me?" he says suddenly, angrily.

Silence again. The sky darkens almost unnoticeably. The ear that is turned stays that way. The way it just stands there, innately invisible to everyone who passes by except the ragabash, is almost maddening.

Kevin is uncomfortably aware of what standing in the street talking to someone who isn't there must make him look like. "This is my turf," he points out in a low voice to the smoke-wolf. "Yeah?"

Finally, a movement. The tail behind the wolf flicks, almost lost in its lightabsorbing body. Yet the 'answer' it gives seems to be in the affirmative. At least, it's possible to interpret as such. A few people in the dream even give the nomoon a second glance, but continue on their way.

Kevin stares into the window-reflection again. He has the sudden overwhelming urge to step sideways into it. He knows he mustn't, not here in front of people. But still he takes a step forward as though drawn in by some compelling force.

Step sideways? No need to. With a blink of the wolf's mirror eyes, the world around them grows dark with the setting of the sun, finally. As the world turns cold and full of shadows, the glimmering webs of the Weaver's works appear all along the outlines of various buildings. Here and there, the glowing eyes of Pattern Spiders are seen as they go about their work. The store window grows dark, but still reflective, and the black wolf's faded reflection gets significantly clearer now, and more obvious. Now, it turns its head, for once taking those silvery mirror eyes off of its original target of the newmoon, and looks off in another direction.

Slowly, still as though he's become some kind of automaton and no longer under his own control, Kevin turns and looks in the direction that the smoke-wolf is staring.

From that looked in direction comes a reddish glow of light. Anyone who's seen a building on fire would know that sort of glow. The scent of smoke has thinned out, but it's there just noticeably for the nose to pick out. The mirror-eyed wolf turns its gaze back upon the Walker, as if expectant of something.

Kevin shrugs helplessly, puzzled. "Fire..." he says hesitantly, then as though making a snap decision he starts to run, or tries to, in the direction of the red glow.

The black wolf disappears again when the ragabash takes his eyes off the window and starts to run towards the glow. His jog seems both long and short at the same time, and the setting around him wavers between web-ridden Umbra and just some pale reflections of the city buildings. Eventually his mind clicks in though, that he's running in a particular direction. Eastwards towards the river, his legs move with ease and for a moment, just that joy of running and feeling free reaches him past the smoke and past the thoughts of some strange enigmatic wolf creature staring at him not more than a few moments ago. The trip stretches out and out, and then it all snaps together as suddenly he comes to the burning building. The hospital is alight, and smoke is billowing out from the upper stories. The windows have blown out, and glass litters the ground. There aren't any emergency vehicles, and nor are there people, but strands of gossamer webbing float by, red and orange with tiny flames burning them up in mid air.

In this strange dreamscape, Kevin isn't certain whether this is a flashback to the real hospital explosion, or whether he's experiencing it through a filter of his memory and what he heard of it. He stoops to pick up a shard of glass as the heat of the fire scorches his face, and for a second he's reminded of the choking heat and smoke at the heart of the tire fire.

The glass shimmers in the colors of the flames. In it, the Walker can see his reflection as well, only something is quite off. The flames dance and twist, but the colors don't stay consistent. Instead of the usual reds and yellows, the ends seem to contain within them a purple, then a green tinge. It seems imagined at first, and then it's unmistakeably so. The smoke continues to curl up and spread out over the city blocks, engulfing the sky with an unnatural thickness. The air gets harder to breathe in by a significant level.

Kevin finds himself coughing from the thickening smoke. He tries to step backwards away from the blaze, but once again his legs seem reluctant to obey and every pace is a huge effort, like pushing through a wall of jello. He looks round in rising panic for the smoke-wolf.

Continuing its ominous spread, the smoke and fire doesn't just stay limited to the hospital building. Eventually the other buildings around seem to spontaneously combust as well, burning bright and psychadelic in its colorations not unlike balefire. The smokey wolf is nowhere to be immediately seen in this world that is burning up around the ragabash. He is alone, surrounded by fire, and not a soul to help him. Once or twice, it seems like he catches a glimpse of the mirror-eyed one from behind some flames, but just as quickly it disappears. The feeling of the smoke lying heavy in the lungs, penetrating into the mind, invading the chest and seeping into the heart is unbearable. The flames creep closer and ever closer. Everywhere he turns is a wall of flames.

Kevin staggers a few more steps, racked with coughs from the poisonous smoke. The flames are coming nearer, but he can't keep moving, his strength is gone. He falls to his knees, then to all fours, nothing around him now but the smoke and the fire.

Coughing and slowly suffocating, the situation seems dire. He's going to die here, no doubt. A million thoughts run through the mind - plans he could have done, things he should have done, or what he would have if such and such had happened. The fire finally burns him, hot and painful to the point that he cries out in reflex. Then a cooling force descends on him. Things go black, and it's unclear whether he's passed out or not. The newmoon's eyes are able to crack open though, and he finds himself in the dark, cool room of the Greek house of the Furies again, back in his resting spot. The pain of his wounds throb with all the presence of reality returning, once more.