PRELUDE to Nocturn

Loading his gun, Dmitri forces himself to fight the gag reflex. -Click- Holstering his gun, he loses control and begins to spew all over the pavement. For some reason this makes him cold. Spitting out the last few bits of phlegm, he stumbles onward.

Back up the road is one of those damned dogs, bleeding out onto the pavement, making it reek. Took a whole round of revolver fire to put it still-- something about the dogs, lately, Dmitri muses. Something about the whole city in general lately. Was he the only one to see it? Hell. No use in chasing aimlessly through the neighborhood. Conrequiet was not the place for that.

Eyeing around through shades of midnight blue and black on the uniform white of the city, he eventually spots some tones of warm yellow light down an alley. His only choice, he follows the light and arrives into a fairly nice corner of the town, mainly a closed-in set of shops. The light above one door explains the source of the glow. A shop clerk most assuredly sees a fair skinned man in dark clothes draw to the glass door... Everything on him is dark, really: eyes, hair, expression... The clerk definitely sees the desperation on this stranger's face. Of course he opens the door, appearing gilded gold under the solitary light. In a tremulous voice the clerk asks: "What can I do for you, sir?"
Dmitri, never breaking eye contact, reaches into his jacket...

...

"I'm looking for my wife", as he pulls out a photograph of the most hauntingly beautiful woman the shop owner will ever see.