Michael doesn't think much of it. It's a Friday night, people get drunk and do silly things, hurt themselves and sometimes, unfortunately, those around them. More people than usual - maybe there was an event in the city. He doesn't keep up with those. All cities are just blurs of lights and strange noises.
He's helped a dozen people by now. Two dozen. Sirens blazing down the street. Three dozen. Anarchy outside pubs. Fifty.
Scraped knees and a cut near the eye, where people didn't think they needed anyone's help. Sometime during the night he stops counting. He doesn't notice, all the lives he has touched, all he has done to help others. All they were unknowingly doing to try and take him apart.
And then he, too, starts slipping away. Affected by whatever was in the air, or perhaps in the water. Affected by those who he touched, those who brushed up against him, imparting something foreign and destructive onto him, pulling the feathers off his wings with tweezers and pliers.
At half ten Lucas Preston receives a phone call from the hospital. There's an unidentified male - around six feet, dark blond hair, blue eyes, didn't speak a word of anything; in fact he seemed almost catatonic, with very minor injuries but otherwise fine - who was only carrying less than ten dollars, this phone number written on a blank name card, and an old rosary made of wood, with funny symbols inscribed on the cross.
He's helped a dozen people by now. Two dozen. Sirens blazing down the street. Three dozen. Anarchy outside pubs. Fifty.
Scraped knees and a cut near the eye, where people didn't think they needed anyone's help. Sometime during the night he stops counting. He doesn't notice, all the lives he has touched, all he has done to help others. All they were unknowingly doing to try and take him apart.
And then he, too, starts slipping away. Affected by whatever was in the air, or perhaps in the water. Affected by those who he touched, those who brushed up against him, imparting something foreign and destructive onto him, pulling the feathers off his wings with tweezers and pliers.
At half ten Lucas Preston receives a phone call from the hospital. There's an unidentified male - around six feet, dark blond hair, blue eyes, didn't speak a word of anything; in fact he seemed almost catatonic, with very minor injuries but otherwise fine - who was only carrying less than ten dollars, this phone number written on a blank name card, and an old rosary made of wood, with funny symbols inscribed on the cross.