This town hasn’t been the same ever since the rain started. The rain starts after the sun goes down and it pours until the sun rises again. Yet, it never pools, the ground just absorbs all of it. I never cared for rain. It ruins your clothes and wet leather is not fun to wear while running across rooftops, but the rain does an excellent job of covering the noise of my footsteps on the wooden and tile roofs of houses.

“Poor sods.”

I look down an alley to see a group of huddled people suffering in the rain.

“Just hold out until dawn,” I mumble as I launch myself across a story gap, my feet ever so silent as I brace for a hard impact on the wood roof. Logically I would think that the rain would rot most of the roofs around here, but everything appears to thrive from the rain. The crops, the forests, the ground itself has thrived from the rain and given the people an abundance of food. Despite this, the people have fallen into even more despair since the rain started all those years ago. The tyrants couldn’t drive the people further into the ground with their unjustifiable rules and whips. Oh, Lord Tryggvason has ruled his territory with an iron grip for years, but recent events concerning his daughter have led him to turn into a dictator. Personally, I don’t much care for rules because rules were made to be broken.

“The roofs are slick tonight,” I remark to the raindrops that fall beside me as I crouch under a lip of roofing. Between the cracks of wood I see the light of a fire underneath me, and I hear raspy, tired voices talking about finding their next dinner.

“Nothing valuable here.”

I swiftly slide across the roof and jump into open air feeling the rain pound against my face until I find my next scouting territory.

Ah, a tile roof implies a pretentious family lives here; of course, my profiling skills have increasingly come in handy while scouting for new jobs in this pit of a town. Windows, locks, lights, the whole shebang all the way down to proper rooms instead of a one room hut like most houses in this town.

“Should I try it?” I ask my raindrop pals. There’s no response from them.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

A devilish smile cracks my stern face for a second as I scout out all entry and exit points along the property. I feel the rain drench my clothes as I crouch idly waiting for an opportunity to arise so I can get inside the house. Unfortunately, the opportunity never comes as I sit there for a star cycle. Maybe it’ll be a house to hit later on at a later date, after all, this town is full of greedy pigs.

Dawn is almost here I need to get out of this town. I need to get to my safe house. I hear the voices of guards below me as I skirt to the edge of the roof being careful not to lose my footing on the slick tiles, but luckily the rain has lightened so it’s easier to hear the guards.

“The Lord’s daughter is at it again,” one guard remarks.

“How do you mean?” says the other guard.

“They caught her with another man in her bed. The Lord doesn’t know how much of her sleeping around he can take.”

“She’s lucky they don’t tie her to a post and burn her as a witch…blasted wench,” the second guard remarks.

That’s all I needed to hear from those two. I turn tail and fly across the tile roof with graceful speed and footing as I jump down onto the building’s balcony and vault over the railing onto the cold, hard ground.

“Ah, the one thing that won’t give out on me.”

I smile at the trustworthy ground as I silently make my way down the muddy stone road heading out of town.

Finally dawn, I see the first specks of light as the last raindrops fall from the sky. The forest is always most beautiful at dawn with the last drops of rain clinging to its leaves, ever so desperate not to fall to the ground and disappear forever. I climb my sacred oak tree to reach my safe house hidden behind thousand of leaves and branches. Arrows, locks, keys, wrenches, bolt and wire cutters, my secret armory for all of my jobs plus anything I could ever need is stored somewhere in my safe house. Luckily I’m the only one who wanders this far outside the town since the rain deters people from going too far from their homes, but supernatural things have also been said to roam the wilderness where I reside.

Yet, I am a supernatural thing, a legend of mystery and shadow, my shadow haunts every person with something to hide whether they hide gold, secrets, lies, or people, I already know what they hide and I have already stolen it from them by holding that knowledge. A secret is no good once it has been exposed. But I have no remorse, no culpability for anything I do; I do not belong to anyone or anything except myself. I have no ties, no secrets, no past, and no future. I am merely a shadow that is never seen, and I exist to desist from altruistic affairs, altruistic wants, and altruistic cares for I am here to destroy the world, not save it.

I peel the wet leather from my skin and hang it outside to dry in the wind and sun. I lie in the sun to dry my cracked, bruised, burnt, cut, scarred skin after years of wear and tear. Two sun cycles pass before I get up and feel my skin to make sure I’m dry; likewise, I check on my leather to make sure it doesn’t crack in the sun. Feeling my warm skin, I run my callused fingers over the scars that protrude and the burn marks I have accumulated in my life. I forget about my wounds as I put my leather suit back on and look through my armory of toys and tools for what I may need for tonight.

“I’m not sure if the days are getting longer or shorter I haven’t really kept track.”

I say out loud as I go out on the balcony of my safe house. I watch the sun as it moves across the sky towards the other end of God-knows what this place is called. What do I call the place where I live? Is there a name for that?

“I don’t need these philosophical questions right now,” I tell myself as I go back into my safe house and continue to sort my locks and keys for tonight to prepare for whatever obstacles I may face.

After four more sun cycles, I manage to fill my pack with all the materials I may need. I walk back out onto the balcony and feel the soft breeze come from the Dún na Rí as the sky is drained of the sun’s immaculate light.

The darkness is coming. I can sense it inside of me as I howl out in pain and grip my left side around my ribs. I see the sun falling as raindrops patter against my face, but the pain is too much for me to get inside the safe house as I grip my left rib with all of my strength and hold it. I gasp for air as my legs kick in a wild frenzy of panic as the darkness begins to swallow everything around me. I scream with the last measure of my breath until I gather enough strength to push my left rib back into my body. My body screams in agony as my hands shake with tremors and my lungs contract with short, shallow breaths to ensure I’m still alive. I finally take a breath as I manage to recover to my feet. My feet stutter as I fall breathlessly inside the house onto the table and put my weight onto it as I rub my left rib. My instincts finally set in after half a star cycle, and my eyesight becomes heightened in order to see through the darkness. I stay leaning on the table as I hold my rib until I can manage to walk without stumbling.

The rain has begun to fall at its normal rate since I took too long with my ordeal so I’m going to be late getting into town. This realization hits me like a brick as I grab my tools, rappel down the oak tree, and fly with lightening speed into the town to happily see deserted streets. Time to get to work, I pull up my hood as a devilish smirk crosses my lips. I climb up a building and make my way across the rooftops towards the tile roof I was on the night before.