Chapter 1: Mostly He Missed ItSeptember 2016
The sun was rising. He could smell it in the air—crossed wires, blown fuses, burning ozone—and it left a bitter taste in his throat. At that point there wasn’t a single beam of light in the sky, not even a brightening of the horizon, but it was most definitely coming; he could feel it worming into his pores, lifting hair, rolling alongside every thump of his sluggish blood. Above him the bats entertained as they always did, circling like performers on soundless wings with their ‘fingers’ extended to ply the wind into workable currents. Below him sat a fat rat, gorging appreciatively on the leftovers of the dinner he had left for it. Bones crunched and splintered beneath its furiously working teeth, but although it ate with fervor it never took
