• A gust of wind. The monotonous rythm of boots against the dirt of the road. The bottom of his long black coat flowing like a whispy dark cloud around his heels. He smiles. Heartbeat aquiver with almost excited anticipation. And so he marches.
    He stops, a sly smile dances across his lips, the only feature of his face to be seen beneath the hood that almost entirely envelops his head. The jagged, misshapen arm on his right side, conceled in bandages as though injured, begins to pulse unnaturally. He's one step closer, he knows it.
    A weathered old wooden sign hangs adorn two posts about 8 feet in the air. The sign reads "Ashe; The City of Flames". He remembers how it was burned to a mere pile of chimney ash the year before. Ironically enough.
    He enters the makeshift gate into the town. Hardly a city at all. More like a village. But then again, the ignorant are quick to exaggerate from time to time.
    He sits at a bench. Three locals to his left, 2 to his right. He feels eyes all over him and his arm. The smile dances at his lips again. No doubt they've heard the stories. Tales of the ravenous Phantom and his devil arm. Fools.
    One of them gets brave. A villager approaches him and stares at him with eyes like daggers, his exterior painted with a false sense of courage, but his interior obviously full of fear and panic. It's all in the eyes, they never lie.
    "What are ya doin 'ere, freak?" the man wobbles a bit as he speaks, he's obviously been drinking. But you don't have to look into his eyes to see that. He points close to the cloaked one's face, a move he'll soon regret.
    "We've all 'eard da stories 'bout you, don' think we 'aven't." His speech stunted tremendously. "And yer not welcome 'ear, so leave, before I'm forced to show you out meself."
    Chuckling first low and quiet, then higher and loud. The Phantom reaches out grabbing the man's finger and bending it backwards in one quick jerking motion. Now he's pointing at himself. He starts to scream, no sound. He's to scared to make one. The Phantom's sure he's pissed himself.
    "It's not polite to point, shame on you." The Phantom's voice is smooth and charismatic, like the gentle strumming of a lute, but with a wicked twist to it. Rather unsettling.
    The man stumbles backward, then decides to get brave again. He spits. The Phantom wipes said spit from his eye. He's not smiling anymore.