This story is an unfin­ished work-in-progress. It will be updated here as it is written.

Sofia sighed deeply, her misty breath hang­ing in the air for a few sec­onds before dis­ap­pear­ing into the twi­light gloom. It was rain­ing again — it always seemed to rain here, no mat­ter what time of year it might be. Grey skies, grey build­ings, grey streets, grey looks in peo­ples’ eyes… No won­der they called this place Slateham.

Its lack of emo­tion, that was the thing. Any emo­tion would be a start. But no, this wasn’t even the kind of place you could get depressed about. it was too dull for that, a kind of oppres­sive, inva­sive, ter­ri­ble dull­ness that got inside you and infected you and con­verted you to its cause.

“I hate this place,” she said to her­self over and over again, just to keep the hatred alive, just to keep her­self from fad­ing away into the dusk. “I really hate it. I really, really hate it!”

Then she’d realise that she was think­ing child­ishly, so she’d think instead of the rea­son she was here.

It seemed strange to say it, but she’d come here to find God. She wasn’t exactly sure what she’d do once she found Him — “Hah! It’s not as if I’m on some hum­ble pil­grim­age,” she whis­pered to her­self — but she was con­fi­dent that some kind of plan would present itself.

There were the begin­nings of a plan, any­way. There was another of her kind in Slate­ham, one more favoured by Heaven. Surely she — her name was “Ahava”, appar­ently — would know the way back. It was bound to be allowed, after all. If times were end­ing, and so many said they were, then so was her pun­ish­ment. Finally, after so many years, she could go home!

Thun­der crack­led across the heav­ens, and the rain began to fall with renewed inten­sity. Even under the bridge where Sofia stood the rain fell, in droplets from the cracks high above and in tiny rivulets across the smoke-blackened brick.

Smoke-blackened.

Sofia reached into her bag and lifted out the pack of cig­a­rettes and the tacky plas­tic lighter that sat jammed down between her per­pet­u­ally silent mobile and the make-up she might one day have a rea­son to use.

Two left. She sighed, send­ing a plume of con­den­sa­tion out into the uncar­ing night. Nowhere would be open at this time; Slate­ham just wasn’t a “24/7″ kind of town.

“Shit,” she mut­tered, and lit one any­way. Then, pulling her coat around her and steel­ing her­self against the freez­ing cold air and pour­ing rain, she left the shel­ter of the bridge and headed home.