PROLOGUE: DON'T LEAVE WORK LATE

Ink tiredly hustled, stumbling every few steps, down the barren streets on a chilling fall night. The light from the light post illuminated his path were from the road lights, but some lights were broken -the city didn't care to fix them. Constellations made by the stars speckled the navy sky that was absent of moonlight. His glasses, thick lenses and matte black with glossy rainbow dotting the large full moon frame, started to slip from his skull as his magic weakened. He was tired from a day of work and not exactly eating enough for his small body. His buttermilk winter coat flutter around him with fingerless gloves warming his palms. He tired to fix his glasses from falling the best he could through his sleeves and snug under his black cap that had a rainbow pompom that he loved.

The silly reason that this small monster was running past ten in this unsafe city was very simple but stupid: Ms. Notrin's,(No-treen), his boss, shop needed to be stock and he didn't want to leave it for morning shoppers. Though, he would have normally walked down the street calmly, if had been a month prior and he hadn't been late to leave. Sadly though, it was a cold autumn night and he needed to get to his apartment to both pay Vicky and get his son to bed-his little neon palette wouldn't go to sleep without his father. Also, it was very dangerous with mobster and gangster having fights and other criminal activities  so he had a knife and handgun in his pocket for defense even though he was more of an alluder than fighter when in troubles.

'Stupid stupid stupid,' Ink chanted softly to himself through his scarf. He was forcefully slowed by the winds that now were against his running. His well loved scarf funneled the warm breath to his glasses fogged the glasses. He couldn't see well and a crack in the sidewalk caught his foot. A soft scream erupted on his mouth when he crashed to the floor; the scraping of his bones under the fabric made his eyes water with black tears and the world was blurry. 'Why?! Not this!' he begged in his mind while forcing himself to crawl around to find those precious speckles. His left humorous felt like it was either had a rug burn like scrap or a bruises with his knees were certainly bruised.

As he crawled around on the floor, a gruff voice suddenly spoke up -maybe not out of the blue but his footsteps were ignored since Ink was panicked with finding his glasses.

"#€¥ ł#3§3 Y0u|2$¿" the person asked. Spending his teen years in the mobs, he could tell the person was  a feigning that innocent; also, he knew to not point it out or anger the person that could kill him and had held the key to sight. Slowly, he forced his body to stand waves of pain shotting to his patella and humorous however he powered through it to hide the pain.

"Yah most likely are." he said respectfully/softly. Ink put his hands out nervously scared that a knife would just stab through his hand.

"#3|2€ ¡ł !$," the distorted voice said while setting my glasses in my hands; he promptly placed it on his face and blinked a few times.

"Thank you" he said calmly to him before starting to walk.

"^^aY! |€æRñ w#¥ y0ü ār3 0ùł $O |Ał€" the man asked.

"I'm just heading home. Like you should be too" Ink replied trying to urge this possible criminal or normal citizen to head home/go away.

"o# dO ¥0U n3€D [0^^PaN¥¿" the taller, Ink was smaller than a lot of people but from his glimpse they were taller than most, said

"Oh no!" he said quickly. "I'm fine alone but you should head homed"

"|2€a||¥ ! |]0 WâÑt ¥Ou łO 93-|- #uRt" they said once again feigning worry

"Well you should be more worried for yourself and your family or friends. I could be a criminal planning to kill you so sir head home," Ink said to the man keeping his head down so the man couldn't see his face thus making it impossible to recognized in a could. He could hear a deep chuckle -it sounded very attractive if he wasn't scared to die tonight by him. After that, the man seemed to leave him alone. Ink though was smart. 'Don't trust silence' he thoughted and decided to take a longer route to deter interest in following...

BUT THIS WOULDN'T BE THEIR LAST ENCOUNTER JUST THE FORTH