It was a dark and stormy Christmas, the Christmas of 1807. On this particular Christmas evening a small child was left to traverse the endless streets of London, scuttling across the cobblestones fearfully, making it a point to avoid any person who came near. He was homeless, you see, outcast to the streets with his father when the bill collector's came and they couldn't pay. No polite folk would speak to him, many would hurt him if he stayed in one place for long. So, to avoid this harassment, he ran onward.

The clouds swirled dangerously overhead. The boy ran faster, hoping to get back to his father's ramshackle shelter before the rain hit. His bare feet padded against the roads, slapping at the leftover rainwater from the previous storm. Then, suddenly, he stopped short.

There at the edge of the alleyway that led back to his "home" was a hat. It was a black, disheveled top hat and had certainly seen better days, but regardless of its beauty- one does not simply leave a top hat sitting in some ratty alley.

The boy knelt and brushed his fingers against the cloth of the hat, both confused and drawn to it. It was soft, softer than anything he'd ever felt. Soft and welcoming, it felt like home.

He took the hat into his arms and stared at it. Of course, the hat didn't stare back, but something told him that this... thing was alive. Its stillness was uncomfortable, its silence deafening, its inanimacy was wrong.

The boy stood and placed the hat upon his head. He felt something then, though he couldn't tell you what or why, and he continued on down the alley. His pace had slowed considerably in comparison to his earlier run. His gait was oddly stiff, slow, paced, almost calculated.

His father was asleep as he approached the lean-to under which they'd been living for the past few months. He snored softly, curled on the outer side to leave the warmest, driest areas for the boy.

As the boy approached something inside him grew. Anger perhaps, rage, a burning passion, an urge to kill. There was no utensil with which to commit this atrocity, but the child had his hands. They burned, aching to perform this vile action, itching to quell this fire.

He approached quickly, silently and wrapped his small hands about his father's throat. The man woke up, he even struggled, but some inhumane strength had wormed its way into the boy. Before long, the deed was done. His father lay still on the palette of old blankets and leaves, his eyes were glassy and his lungs snuffed out.

The boy took a deep breath as a breeze came rushing through the alley, knocking the hat from his head. Suddenly he was left with clarity, suddenly he realized what he had done. For a moment he stood still as the tears collected in his eyes, then a single sob racked his tiny form and he ran.