The Butcher on the Corner

Thunder crashed all over the city. Cracking its whip like a cruel master over men. One by one, the lights went out as people locked up their shops and tried falling asleep to the pitter-patter of the heavy rain. Only a few souls, seldom as they seem wandered around the streets at such an hour. Such souls tend to have little to go home to, or maybe something pulling them, an obligation of sorts, out in dreary conditions. Whatever their reason, whatever opinions they held on the matter, it never changed the fact that they had to wander out in a score of rain and thunderous clamor.

When a mysterious hooded figure slithered into Phillip’s shop just before he locked up, a bell rang cutting the mostly quiet butchers. Gliding along the floor the figure's robes shuffled with the sound of heavy fabric. Only being met with chopping and slamming, a voice called out after a moment.

“Good afternoon, I’ll be right with you,” Phillip called from around the corner. The dank smell of mildew wafted in with the invisible footsteps that eluded the mysterious customer just moments before, but it quickly filled the space. Phillip rushed to the front of the store, wiping his hands on his thick stained apron. To his undoubted surprise, there was no one standing in the small storefront. There are undeniably no possible places to hide. Phillip scratched his skull if not reactionary then definitely voluntarily.

Just as soon as he arrived the strange visitor, whose stench still lingered, vanished, not even the bell on the door rang noting his departure. Phillip made his way to the front window and peered outside. There wasn't much besides the ordinary surrounding shops and the grey dark blur from the repeated drops of rain that hit the cobbled roads. He shrugged it off and continued back to what he was doing.

After a long day's work and a dreary evening, Philip was ready to go home. There he could enjoy the luxuries of his personal space behind closed doors. He felt the gurgle deep in his stomach before picking up his speed. If he's hungry then he'll need to make sure Clara eats before bed. He should have a copy of yesterday’s paper that could be finished to kill the time before he would eventually nod off for the night. There were still a few things to do here though. It wasn’t until later when he was finally grabbing his coat and heading out of the door he noticed, a letter.

The letter was prim and proper with a strange wax seal on the front. There was a significant lack of dust on it despite dust being on everything in the city. It was a dark purple wax that had speckles of white shiny fragments. The seal itself was hard to make out and wasn’t like anything Phillip had seen in the nearby families. The figure-eight symbol in the center was pierced by an abstract shape resembling an upside-down triangle.

Phillip stuffed the letter in his pocket and proceeded to go home. The force of the rain pressing down on Philip's body was ridiculous. It probably hadn't rained like this since right after the Shift. He started picking up his pace, keeping his head low, making his way home. Each step was a threatened slip and every lookup was a moment of showers. Luckily, Philip didn't live too far from his shop. It was honestly right around the corner but during storms like this, every step might as well have lasted hours.

The tiny loft that was above the building behind Philip's shop was a convenient spot, he told himself. He climbed the stairs to the front door. Creaking it open he was met with a drip from the ceiling that splashed in a half-empty bucket. Throwing his soaked coat off and laid it out on a table while looking for a towel to dry his hair. Finally, the one thing Philip had come trotting over to him. Purring the way she did, she rubbed up against him, Clara.