The sun was low on the horizon, an angry red sore bled into the late afternoon sky. It hung suspended just above the crooked gathering of ramshackle buildings that made up the Kaluth skyline; they slouched over a lazy river, its water turned to blood in the sun's baleful gaze. I felt this a little too fitting. How many bodies had I seen dumped into that river, their throats cut in a lonely alleyway? I leaned against a haphazardly tilted lamppost, watching as the shadows slid down the sides of buildings into the river. Across this lovely body of water was the real Kaluth, not the dump I lived in; a shining metropolis built of steel and glass, its skyscrapers a symphony in the fading light. It was a great place to get lost.
The sun dipped lower; the streetlights (or the few that still worked, anyways) flickered dimly into life. I still had about an hour to kill before darkness fell on the dirty city. I rapped my thin knuckles nervously against the lamppost, then turned and made for my usual hiding place. Anybody else would probably call it their home, but the truth was I didn't really live there so much as just shelter there once in a while. You know, whenever I wasn't out hunting. The shadows gathered thickly around the narrow door; I slipped the key from the pocket of well-worn jeans and rattled it around inside the lock for a bit until the door creaked open. The apartment was tiny, and okay, it might have smelled a little (cleanliness isn't a top priority on my list of essentials), but when you're dockside on the wrong end of Kaluth with a bounty on your head, it's better than nothing.