Bullets flew up from the street, whipping their way through the rain towards Melia and her sister. Words of derision followed the lead maelstrom but lost meaning in the wind. Hands and face pale with fear, Melia gripped the metal supports to the sign as she watched her sister howl at the night.

The beams groaned an answer to her cry, and the whole sign collapsed on its side, putting the shimmering ‘The Grand Theater’ facing the ground and the two girls dangling from loose wiring. Twisting and turning, inside and out, Melia struggled to regain a view of her sister, only to see her limp form dangling inverted above the crowd of boys below, gang members she had teased and taunted.

Suddenly, her body convulsed, the neck twisting violently. A dark miasmatic mass emerged from the now silent mouth, like a dark child being born back into the world from a soul invaded, corrupted, and now discarded. A bolt of lightening illuminated inky tendrils reaching toward Melia before the thing fell away with the rain.