Luca Harrow

when:november 13, 2180; the emperor still hungers for the blood of the monster where: a dilapidated bar off of market zero who: @zomharrow

AND THE HUNT CONTINUES away from the harsh concrete and brick of abandoned alleyways and desolate streets; he breaks off into a small district, usually sparse and hollow, the streets cracked and buildings poorly kept. If it was usually a place of shadows now it was a ghost town, darkness stretching the streets longer and longer still, the quiet creaking and skittering of vermin and poverty. He walks squarely down the center, eyes shifting to particularly blacked out windows and creeping sensations – the feeling that someone is looking at him.

He turns then, eyes focused and heavy on the sound of clattering, the familiar ring of people filled with fear and he rounds a corner, a single woman wrapped in rags with long, dirty hair. His eyes are locked and the world quickly falls away around him, eyes sharpened to slits and he opens his mouth to speak, elongated canines, tongue dripping red, and she screams. 

“ There! There’s one there…. please, please, leave me be, there’s one there! “ Her shaky voice rings shrill, finger pointed towards the rotting wood of an aging pub to their right. Ujin’s eyebrows raise slightly, curiosity piqued despite the seeming insanity of the shaken street rat. He smiles bright, eyes narrowed before stepping in the direction of her reach, the woman quickly forgotten behind him. He approaches the outside, the stairs creaking loudly beneath his feet, his steps always heavy and present, booming, aching against the rotting foundation.

He toys with the doorknob at first, pulling to find it locked. He considers knocking, decides he doesn’t like that idea and instead summons his energy, stepping back and slamming his shoulder into the door hard enough to hear wood splinter, pain radiating his left side, and then repeating the action twice – three times, his body a battering ram, before the doors falls in and he steps over the rubble. He could feel black and blue bleeding, shading down his side, but he stretches, fixing his jacket as he does, stepping past the entryway, eyes shifting to take in the few patrons ducked behind tables, quivering from under the bar top. 

Then they settle on a face most familiar and his expression cracks into another terrible grin, head tilted. “ Well, well, if it isn’t my dearest friend. “ He says first, stepping closer and closer until he seats himself on a barstool nearby, leaning slightly into the other man’s personal space. “ Now what’s got you so far out of town? “ He says, not a moment passing before his voice drips harsher still, eyes narrow, melted honey, when he says,“ Looking for a monster? “

-

It had been surprisingly easy to find a place that would put a pause in Luca’s roaming. He had simply followed the roughest looking person his eyes could find amid the fleeing few. Luca had been led through alleys so forgotten they nearly gave him a sense of familiarity. And when he stepped through the doorframe of the dingy bar he would have almost felt positively at home except for the higher fear to caution ratio in the eyes of those within. 

It was clear, even as a Gutters citizen himself, that he stood out with his nice jacket and calm confidence. It made him wonder if his usual attire would not have sufficed, yet he recalled it had been his aim to visit the nicer pub he’d been sitting in before the alarms. Whatever the case, Luca walked to the bar and took a seat while quietly one finger tapping his choice of beer. He caught the eyes of a crazed woman, before she rushed out the door for no apparent reason. Luca took one sip of his beer, confirming it was shit, and then gulped it down in one go. “Anything stronger?” he ordered more than asked. Soon as the new glass was settled in front of him, whispers broke the silence he hadn’t realized had been there. Or at least, the silence was broken until the woman from before was making a fuss outside. Someone quickly rushed to lock the door to the bar. 

As the door creaked and splintered, Luca finished his drink and tapped the glass for more. However, the bartender, as well as everyone else, was all too focused on the pounding door and so, Luca reached over the bar table for the bottle of whatever the fuck it was. He didn’t have the luxury of time if he wanted to feel some of the effects. But when the door did bust open, and Luca saw the familiar face, he chugged the bottle of hard liquor. The little it did. 

He scoffed at the demon’s use of the word friend. Shaking the empty bottle to signal the bartender for another, Luca glared at the invasion of his personal space. What would it be this time? Knife to the chest? No. That would be boringly repetitive and if there was something Luca had come to know about the vicious animal, it was that it liked to explore his bloody habits. 

“Not at all, yet one seems to have found me,” Luca said sounding almost tired. He couldn’t help but sigh as he drank from the glass cup now. “Just to be clear, I did not stray from home to see you... I never do. But if you must, get it over with and keep the blood away from the jacket. I like this one.” Another drink, with barely an effect. Luca watched the thick glass in his hand and wondered, were he to smash it over his unwanted visitor’s head, would it be a satisfying revenge? He doubted it. They would both survive and the cycle would continue. 

Of course the boss liked it - the boss all but wrote it himself; Xian was only serving to beautify the drafts and the texts, to describe a few pretty pictures of a perfect world that the pro-empire radicals wanted to drill into everyone’s minds. Perhaps it’d be better ( though not less costly ) if the Emperor just caught every single citizen of the empire, fried their brains and fed them propaganda - amnesia never asked questions; it was in humanity’s nature to trust others, to perceive its own kind as benevolent and well-wishing instead of malicious, ill-intended mongrels.· He hoped his distaste was not evident on his face, but with so many people flocking around the pub, would anyone really notice him?

The question made him pause, and Xian frowned, collecting his thoughts before he answered. “I think that’s exactly the problem. Objectively speaking, I wouldn’t be a journalist if I completely sucked at writing. I tend to nitpick my own writing a little too much. I always think I can do better and that’s what leaves me dissatisfied with everything I write.” He offered, though he omitted the real reason why he wasn’t satisfied with his own writing - the man could as well be the Emperor’s personal spy for all he knew; there was no need for him to mention the fact that most of his writing did not truly belong to him.

Xian frowned, carefully eyeing the man, calculating the danger, weighing the risks. After a brief moment, he relented. “Alright.” He paused for a second, before deciding that, if they’re going to hang out for a while, they should at least get somewhat acquainted with each other. “I’m Jiang Xian.”

-

If there was something the Gutters were very good at teaching, it was the look of unhappiness under strain. And the more Luca watched and listened, the more this writer man seemed to belong there though certainly not alive. The Gutters would have recycled him five times over by this point in time. 

“A journalist...” Luca was somewhat unfamiliar with the term given the manner in which news usually spread in the tunnels was oral. The more he listened, Luca figured that, essentially, the man was a professional gossip. A snitch. One who left written evidence of their involvement. It seemed idiotic. 

“Your life sounds quite sad,” Luca commented. If he could easily feel empathy for others as he once did, Luca would have felt the stranger’s pain instead of the repulsion he usually arrived at with most humans. “Jiang Xian, I do not usually choose to interact with people who are willingly crushed under the weight of their own perfectionism. But, it seems masochistic in nature so I will give you the benefit of the doubt. My name is Luca.” 

A drink from his glass accompanied the reach of Luca’s hand as it turned one of the papers on the table, “you think the Empire is really that wonderful?”

He still wasn’t entirely sure how it had happened. One second he’d been on the street, rushing in the direction of what he’d assumed was the night monster, the next he was being tugged through a door, into a building, as someone cooed to him about finally finding safety. Charles was sure that this wasn’t a definition of safety he’d heard before, standing bemused in the heart of what appeared to be a cabaret.The ladies within were friendly— enough to make him smile, visibly showing their disappointment when he’d told them he didn’t have the time; he’d had something to find out in the streets.

They’d been very insistent that he wait out the sentinels, and that was a logic Charles couldn’t deny, sinking back into the wall and the shadows. For a moment, he half contemplated slipping further inside to see what was happening within the building, where music played and festivities seemed to still be going on despite the chaos outside. He could already hear Saint Reaper and Jin’s voice in his ear, scolding him for getting away from the task that had been set out. It was that and the rush past of a drunken man and their female escort that made him look back to the door, to another stranger who seemed to be pulled into the ornate world of the Velvet Embrace.

Amused, he watched him turn down the offer in the same way he had. It was when he turned around, lace bra around his neck like a garland, that Charles broke his silence and snickered. “Now that’s a good look for you,” he noted, lips curving upwards, “I’m very surprised.”

-

Had the comment come from any other pleb in the vicinity, Luca would have ignored it. Yet there was something to the man speaking, though Luca could not describe how he knew except maybe instinct. If there was something he had come to excel at, it had been his ability to instinctively perceive patters among people. Being an outsider often gave Luca perspective. And here was a man whose words did not quite match his demeanor. Perhaps, Luca thought, people above were more varied than he gave them credit. 

“Is that so?” Luca turned, pulling the lace bra from his neck as he verbally prodded, “have I awakened your latent attraction to men in lace?”  With keen eyes Luca searched the man’s features, expectations low. “Surface level attraction fades,” with one hand Luca offered the bra to him, “I doubt you’d like who is behind my face, and it would take a massively impressive spirit behind yours to make me want to please you with this lace.”

It wasn’t in Luca’s nature to play with others, but he did have a tendency to desire testing those who showed a glimmer what he perceived as fortitude. 

❆

Nothing surprised Darius. Or at least that’s what he liked people to think. A mask of composure and social ease was all he needed, because in moments of crisis the last thing anyone should do was panic. A conversation he remembered once having with Luca one night when they watched people scramble away from a pipe bursting and flooding a tunnel.

Even so, he could had never anticipated Luca’s arrival outside of Vivya’s door (as she liked to remind him every morning). Of all nights, he chose when chaos and mayhem stormed the city. How fitting, Darius thought of him as he assessed the man. As well as he tried, the sludge of the Glutters lingered on Luca even if it wasn’t actually present.

“You need a shower,” he ordered, widening the opening for him to enter the penthouse. Warmth was expressed in actions, not in words, “Let me do the talking when she returns,” he added. Like he told his wife, he told nobody about his new arrangement. Keyword here being nobody. Good thing, Luca wasn’t just another expandable pawn in his roster to use.

“And you’re staying for dinner.”

-

It had never failed to impress Luca, the manner in which Darius always appeared before him, even now though it had been Luca who had showed up unannounced. To Luca, Darius had always looked like he had swallowed the sun. A beacon of light unmatched, bottled in the shape of a man, as much true now as it had been the first time they had met. Which is why, for someone whose existence had always been in the shadows, Darius both terrified and inevitably pulled him like moth to a flame.

“I brought nothing with me,” he said, though his eyes were already obediently searching for the bathroom. Luca took off his jacket, looking around at the general splendor and thinking how fitting a place it was for Darius. “You have one of those washing machines yeah?” Luca said, now removing his shirt. He didn’t care for the opinions of others, unless they were directed at his friend on Luca’s account. Piece by piece he undressed on his way towards the shower. 

“Are you sure it’s alright?” he asked after hearing Darius’s thoughts on dinner. The answer was obvious of course: It didn’t matter once Darius had set his mind to it. He would make things work somehow. He always did. 

"I hope you’re not expecting me to like her,” he said from under the not entirely unpleasant warm water. Though Luca was accustomed to the cold, he had also come to expect warmth whenever his chosen brother was around. “I probably won’t,” he continued, almost wishing to be wrong but knowing it was highly unlikely. No one could be good enough for Darius.

Luca stared out the window out of no particular interest to what was outside but rather for the experience of a window itself. Remarkably similar to watching people on a little screen at home. All of them ignorant to his observation and judgement. Oblivious to anything around them but the core need to move out the Sentinel’s way. Like changing the channel, Luca moved to another window where the view showed the depths of the building over. Immediately he recognized a familiar face. He did not wait long for her to notice, as it was her nature, and when their eyes caught each other he gave her a mechanical wave much like the first time they met. 

In the entrails of The Gutters it paid to make connections. Mutually beneficial transactions of course, not the warm love connections in books, given the meager trust most of the populace had on each other. And so it was that early on Luca sought the company of like minded youths in search of a means to survive that required more than begging or scavenging. 

The hard work paid off and repute soon followed. With it the jobs got more dangerous and those hiring more questionable. Regardless, Luca saw the challenges, sought them even, and walked straight into them. So it came as a surprise when he did walk into a place, expecting to face the usual crude Gutter scum on the other side of the wire fence, but instead the voice that spoke out was a girl’s. 

“I’ll take the job,” he had heard himself say though the details had not yet been given to him.

Time: Sometime after the alarms and a meal Location: The Black Sun Church Closed starter for: @divinecrawl

For the first time since his visit to the pub, he found himself in what seemed like familiar territory as he continued to wander about the city. The quieter area had afforded Luca a veil of safety, thin though it might be, and soon his senses turned towards the familiar rather than the immediate. With further inspection the recollection came to him of four nights ago when he had stalked the shadows of the open air during the embryonic stages of his plan to visit Darius.  Here lay architecture he had walked past before. And like deja vu he followed the once walked path leading up all the way into the threshold of The Black Sun Church. 

The cult. A gathering of the feeble minded worshipers whose home of escapism had been mildly forgiven by Luca now he had something to gain from them. Books. Without hesitation, Luca walked past the doors thinking to himself that perhaps he ought to give thanks to this fleeing Night Monster the Sentinels were after. After all, were it not for the sudden chaos of the hunt, it was very likely Luca would have found his way home well enough after leaving the pub.

Standing to the right of the pews it occurred to Luca that somewhere between he entrance to the church and the place where he as standing, he had decided to end his tourism with a visit to Darius after all. 

“You,” he said to an obvious member of the Black Sun, “I’m here to get a book.” The cult member stared blankly at him, clearly caught by the unexpected address and the questionable confusing of The Church to a common library. 

“I’m not going to pray for it,” Luca clarified lest the creature switched on his recruit mode. 

He wasn’t really expecting the man to actually come and talk to him. Granted, his own vibe lately has been closed off, and his reluctance to meet someone else’s gaze took care of any potential nuisances coming to pester him - or any new people who might be inclined to befriend him. He didn’t need friends - no, he didn’t want to have friends; they were just another soul more for him to worry about, another delicious string fastened around his limbs for the Emperor to play and hold against him. He didn’t trust people invading his space - either they worked for the Emperor, looking to test his loyalty, or they worked to have his affections ( platonic or not ) thus effortlessly adding themselves to the bastard’s long list of people to maim and threaten.

But, this man seemed like he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and he was already fed up with staring at his own handwriting for the last two hours. The question, however, surprised him and he arched his eyebrow, casting a quick glance at his notes and then back at the man. “That depends who you ask. I’m never satisfied with it, but my boss seems to like it well enough.” Well enough to threaten his family’s lives if he ever dares to quit - though he doubted his skills as a writer had anything to do with it; it was just his blood they wanted to keep on a very tight leash - and any past ghosts that might flutter out of it, stirring the public. No, no, his stale attempts at stringing lyrics and odes to whatever idiotic propaganda they ordered him to do, hardly counted as anything.

“You wanna take a seat?” Xian asked, motioning towards an empty chair facing him. He wouldn’t mind some company - if only to divert his thoughts from the Emperor and every other red hot alarm that was blaring in his head whenever he’d leave his office - or his flat.

-

The lack of confidence from the man deflated any chance of Luca having any sort of expectations. But of course, this was a man from above ground, and this one seemed particularly soft like Wailing Mary of the sewers and her cries that hauntingly echoed, there’s too much light. Inside a tunnel. 

“Well then, if the boss likes it...” he half mocked, letting the thought trail away lest he add torment to a man who clearly did not need more of it. Luca never quite related to those who bent the knew to others. He understood it, the concept of survival as its backbone, but did not relate to it. He worked transactions with others, but never had there been a relationship where Luca settled for pleasing another. Except perhaps for one or two people, but they could hardly be considered in anyway his boss. 

Without saying a word, Luca pulled the chair and sat down in reply. At length he said, “if you are not satisfied with your own writing, then it cannot be that worthwhile. Pity.” A drink of the hard liquor in the glass left a tingling sensation in his tongue, moving all the way down his throat while he looked around. Luca considered changing his seat yet again, yet he regarded the man across the table. Here was someone who clearly swam in emotional pain on the daily. So weak yet still living. It was a rarity to find such a specimen in the Gutters, such an antithesis of himself. 

“Let me buy you a beer,” the wretched thing made him say. 

Screw everyone else was the default thought entered Astrid’s head. She wore selfishness like it was a designer coat. The damn world could go up in flames but she was going to do her. It wasn’t like the empire was exactly gracious in offering a hand to someone like her now that she was yesterdays news. And so, notorious queen of speed racers did what she wanted. What she was doing wasn’t illegal unless she got caught after all. But she was assured that she’d be able to handle the situation if push came to shove, after all - the woman could fly. 

She took this chance as an opportune moment to look for car parts given that she could most likely take what she wanted for free. Everyone else was too busy fearing for their lives to notice her. Even though she was superbly famous. 

As she busied herself with the scavenge, a familiar voice gritted in her ear. Her head was quick to swivel in the direction, her own features narrowing as an exasperated sigh exited from her lips. “You didn’t tell me you had a career change, what? You’re mall cop now?” She didn’t give a damn about his judgement. Though, she didn’t give a damn about most things. 

“Anyways since you’re here, hold this,” she didn’t give him a chance to reject the offer as she shoved one spare part into his hands. She continued on through the rummage with nonchalance as chaos bellowed behind them. 

-

The furrow of his brow indicated he did not recognize the term ‘mall cop,’ however, Luca was not interested enough to ask. Not about something coming from her. Unless the topic revolved around the speeding machines she obsessed about, her one track mind did not usually have much else to offer. And so, ignoring her question, and her attitude as most people ought to do, he took the spare part she handed him. With clear disinterest his hand rotated the object in his hand, assessing if he’d much rather drop it. 

“Who would have thought, that first time we met, that you would rummage around for scraps like a rat,” he said, allowing an amused smile to touch the corner of his lips, “I don’t want a neighbor as much as you don’t want my life.” 

He leaned on the wall. His eyes never leaving her, hungry as they were to watch every crumb of misery she so stubbornly hid under bravado and spite. For someone raised in the softness of the city, she had a spark he was curious to observe. Spectator to her fall, seeking not to miss the moment where she either broke or was forced to rise. 

Luca was not one to add difficulty upon others, at least it was not usually his intention to, given the struggles he saw people face every day, yet something about Astrid always pushed him past that unwritten rule of his. The spare part clattered on the concrete floor with a sound that clearly meant it would at least have a dent. 

“Oops. It slipped.”

Time: Some time after the alarms Location: Small shelter Closed starter with: @pureasdeath 

Luca had not expected to be pulled into shelter after having left the pub’s safety. Yet walking through a moving crowd just as two Sentinels hovered above, their speakers replaying the previous instructional recording, had him caught in the flow of a mob of citizens spilling down some steps into the basement of a boutique. The cramped space filled with bodies under the dim light of a fading bulb overhead. The fear and anxiety of the crowd was palpable, yet Luca found himself more comfortable than he had been out on the street. After all, basements were proving to be much more kin to the tunnels. 

He slowly made his way towards a small window high above near the ceiling of the basement, thinking of using it as an exit if needed. In truth, shelter was not something he had sought. He much preferred going back to the Gutters even at the risk of of having a sentinel on his heels. 

Whispers and murmuring began to cover the initial silence, a child’s cry crescendoing every now and again, but was the sudden appearance of a familiar face that finally unnerved him. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

Time: Some time after the alarms and a meal Location: Velvet Embrace (Cabaret) in the Sinner’s District Closed starter with: @northerndiarchy

It was not curiosity that pulled him towards the peculiar glow of the district lights. Already he had traversed more of the city than he had ever expected on his third journey into the open air. And though it was not the best time to be a tourist, he had not seen signs that the hunt had spread to the area he was walking through. Nevertheless, Luca had always naturally moved in the shadows, and through back alleys and streets reminiscent of the Gutters he inched his way closer to the Sinner’s District. 

An acrid smell with hints of metal hit his nostrils. The source, he soon discovered, was a pipe whose smoking surface revealed a hand imprint. The corroded metal had been peeling though the process seemed to be slowing. It was then he heard a trashcan fall over to his left. There, at the edge of the building, five fingers curled over the edge of brick - the skin tinted an inhuman color by dirt grime and blood. And then the hand was gone. Chills ran through Luca’s spine, yet he still moved towards the little alley. It was empty. He walked into it and soon noted how far ahead it stretched without intersecting another. Whoever that had been, they had been fast. 

A door burst open to his left as a person rushed out to retch. “Oh my god,” their companion said, “come inside quick! there’s sentinels everywhere on the main street, get in!” 

Inside, Luca found himself surrounded by lace and tassels the likes he’d often seen in Dirty Joe’s hands on the pages of magazines. A young woman rushed nearby to grab a coat, when she saw him. “Hi. You know,” she smiled, “you don’t need to hang around the costumes when you can look at them filled.” 

“No. Thank you. Not now,” he told her. With a pout she approached him saying, “the other cute guy also said no. Said he was on a chase or something. But well...” She removed her bra, though it barely qualified as one, hung it about Luca’s neck, and then said, “perhaps you’d rather wear the lace and surprise him when he does catch you.” Then she left. 

It was then Luca turned to see the man she’d likely spoken of before, quietly watching. 

Time: Long time after the alarms Location: Penthouse Closed starter for: @arcticwvlf

If there was one good outcome from the hunting of a Night Monster, it was that it had led Luca much farther from home and for longer. Then again, it came as no surprise that the chaos and disaster of others could bring forth opportunity. Such was life in the tunnels. Even so, as he stood at the front door of the building he found himself feeling surprise. He allowed it. After all, though coming to see Darius had been his goal, Luca had not expected to reach it the third time he strayed from the underground.

He pressed a button and a foreign voice spoke. Wrong call button. He pressed another. Wrong again.  “Open the door,” he told the third wrong call button. 

“Who’s this? We’re on a lockdown there should be no vi-”

“The Night Monster’s going to kill me. Help. I don’t know where to hide. Please. I am scared.” Luca stated, without the appropriate acting. Still, the door did buzz open and he walked in. The wrinkled card, with nearly fading letters, had given him the address and floor number. Long ago he had made it a habit of carrying it in his pockets, in case he ever needed it. Now here he was, staring at the elevator, before opting for the stairs. Had he known the meaning of penthouse he might have given the machine another chance.

At length, he reached the door. Ten minutes later, Luca knocked.  

Time: Post-alarms Location: Ramen Stall near Millions Street Closed starter with: @ofbloodbat

Now that most citizens had sought shelter, the hunt for the Night Monster dominated the city. It now required more focus, more vigilance, to move through the city. Even more so for the Gutters connoisseur that now ventured above them, perhaps more lost than he had been 15 streets ago. Nevertheless, colorful lighted rooftops announced the bright glow of the Sinner’s District. He could recognize it even at such a distance and despite never having known it before, but the description of it could not have mistaken the area for another. And if there was any place that would dare break the rules of curfew, it was this one. 

He followed the path of silence, slowly creeping his way towards the inviting glow, when an outdoor stall appeared in the distance. One that looked in some ways so familiar. But for one body occupying one of the stools, it appeared otherwise empty. Luca smiled. 

It had been something like ten years before that he had aimlessly walked the tunnels, not out of misdirection but rather out of mild frustration: a delivery gone wrong.  A twenty-something Luca walked, focusing only on the echo of each step visualizing his frustration as if it were a rat scuttling through his insides. He could feel his mark crawling over the skin of his abdomen as the last remnants of an injury regenerated. Deep breath in. Breath out. He imagined the scuttling frustration to be his mark, crawling slower now than before until fading into a stop. And the feeling was gone. He had learned a lesson today, but the error no longer weighted on him. More pressing now was his hunger.

Though it had taken longer, he had made his way to the ramen stall by the Reaper’s Cradle. It was very early and therefore nearly empty but for one other customer. Luca took an empty seat and quietly sat there. Both him and the person next to him were statues. The only noise came from the owner moving about preparing the bowls. 

“You ok son? That’s a lot of blood on your shirt,” the owner remarked in the same way she might ask the other customer if he’d like extra noodles. 

“Yeah. It’s not mine,” he lied. 

Luca reached the outdoor ramen stall and sat next to the only customer. He sat quietly, just as he had on that day they’d first met. Except this stall owner didn’t know his regular order. 

“Where’s the owner?” he asked, just as he had been about to order. 

Time: Some time after the alarms  Location: the streets / an abandoned lot Closed starter with: @meridiantiger

The city streets were beginning to feel like tunnels now they had mostly emptied of people. Endless maze of tunnels so much wider and porous, yet comforting despite his having been lost in them for some time now. He barely allowed himself to feel a pebble of childish mirth at the memory of being lost for the last time so long ago. Yet time had changed him, making the boy from the past into a new man entirely so much so that the word itself - lost - no longer held the same meaning. It was now so temporary. Physically inconsequential. Nonexistent in the ether of his mind which by and large controlled the ebb and flow of his stoic heart.

And when his heart did jump, it was to the sound of bodies bursting through a swinging fence as they speed across the street mere inches from him. With the full pull of instinct he found himself running with them as the voice of a Sentinel admonished against being outdoors. Calm though its robotic tone was, it had launched a bullet that burst and opened in midair. A claw reaching for its prey, the net wrapped itself around another as the Sentinel cooed they would be safe now. 

The group spread out, leaving Luca with just one other, both ducking under a tree branch as they entered a small yet crowded abandoned lot where they took temporary refuge among nature. 

Luca turned to observe the newfound companion. One brow raised, he said, “Why would the Sentinels bother with you?”