Even in a blackout New York was the city that didn’t sleep, but while the buildings hummed with activity anyone sane was mostly staying off the street.

Somewhere ahead of her in the darkness man’s voice bellowed. He spit between his phrases and proclaimed ‘the end was nigh’ to anyone that was forced to hear him. Just another street preacher working himself up into a damn frenzy. He shouted loud enough for his voice to carry off the buildings. “YOUR COLLECTIVE SIN HAS COME DUE, REPENT NOW-- before it’s too late!” He shouted in a way that seemed to echo off the sky, and more than anything she wished he’d just shut the hell up.

The screaming was getting under her nerves in the eerie darkness, the hostility of it. What kind of salvation needed to be found through terror-? Just when she thought she’d slipped by he snatched up the arm of her leather jacket. “REPENT GIRL, the divine judgment has arrived and it can smell the sin on you. REPE-” The man’s lips continued to move but without a voice behind it. He would breathe just fine but the noise, the noise belonged to her now. She could do that when she focused. “Have to be honest with you man, I never really subscribed to that particular newsletter.”

Now for lack of a voice he waved his hands over his head and she tensed up ready to swing back. Instead his gesturing and flailing was aimed upward. Alison turned and looked up to see a figure of light floating in the sky, burning like a star but in the figure of a person.

Oh...

The man muttered something about an ‘avenging angel’ before his words descended into broken syllables. Alison was momentarily transfixed on the light. She’d never seen anyone glow like that. Well, nobody else. As the bright figure drifted closer the vagrant scuffled backward. “Hi-? I don’t suppose you’re just like...looking for directions? Because it’s already been kind of a hell of a day.”