He stays motionless on that grimy turquoise bus for about 4 hours before he realizes that he should have gotten off on 5th. With a sluggish step, Vincent rises, and with a slight tear in his eye, he pulls on the chord to be let off. His feet, like sandbags, seem to take hours to move. He was in a part of the city that he has never been to before. Tall industrial skyscrapers were replaced with shanty cramped apartments. A dialogue between graffiti artists existed on the numerous sides of these dwellings. The simplest solution would be to call home on his new phone and have someone come pick him up, but this would completely go against Vincent's new vow, so he kept on trudging along in his gaudy crimson robes.

After walking through countless puddles and having his lungs exposed to as many toxic fumes as possible, Vincent stumbles across what appears to be the remnants of an abandoned bus stop and decides to sit and wait. He sits down in an awkward position to avoid jagged pieces of rust and glass. Rain drops dribble down the golden tassel, at first slowly and steadily, but then they begin to pick up with a more ferocious speed. There was no sort of roof overhead to catch the rain, so the only thing protecting Vincent from the elements is the cap that Rosa pinned to his head.

Gentle splashes and footsteps reverberate all around Vincent, but there is a certain noise that captures his attention. While the majority of people move rhythmically and carry their own very distinctive beat, this new stranger sounds jagged and incomplete. Or wait, is it more hurried and hyperactive? Like a crowd of people all running toward something, but now it sounds like a couple dancing. Just as soon as the ruckus rushes towards Vincent, it suddenly disappears and blends in with the tapping of the rain.

Out of nowhere a man in a black trench coat leans up against a rusted pole that was previously supporting the nonexistent roof of a bus stop. Vincent immediately tightens up out of nervousness. The stranger's hat covers his face so well that he is completely indistinguishable. He is only able to make out tiny puffs of white hair. Despite his best efforts, Vincent couldn't resist staring at him.

They lock eyes.

After that moment all sorts of oddities ensue. Vincent becomes catatonic. It is as if a collection of ghastly threads entered his body and anchored his entire self into that seat. A dark mist clouds his thoughts and blurs his vision. Even though all of his senses are beginning to fail, Vincent does not falter in maintaining eye contact with the stranger because, somehow, this connection is the only thing keeping Vincent from falling into the darkness.

The stranger's eyes originally contained a deep brown pigment like fertile soil, but now they are quickly engulfed by a molten amber, and with this amber a whole new wild persona takes over the spell. A rhythmic drum falls in line with his very own heartbeat. Vincent senses a richness circling around him, although he can not visibly see another person in the area. He hears light delicate footsteps dancing around him, feels a tiny breath on his neck, and senses some very textured, nonexistent hair brush against his cheek. Just then, a young woman's voice rings out among the madness,

"It's him! I'm sure of it! He's going to be the one to help us, just like his father"

Vincent manages to mumble, "my...my...father?"

"As you wish Lalaina"

A faint satisfied giggle can be heard in the distance and Vincent is released.

With a heavy breath Vincent frantically looks all about for the stranger, desperately trying to understand all that just took place. He is so distracted by the visions that he doesn't even notice that he is now in an entirely different neighborhood. Cars and cars zoom buy in the busy street so quickly that they appear to blend together. People crowd and flow the sidewalks like blood cells in arteries. Vincent is the only stationary figure planted at that bus stop, or so he thinks. Through the tiny pauses in between moving vehicles, Vincent sees the cloaked stranger observing him in an alley directly across the street. At the sight of the dangerous figure, Vincent leaps to his feet, clenches his fists, and shouts at the top of his lungs,

"Who are you?! What do you want?! Where is my father?!"

Then he whispers, with a single tear dripping down his face, indistinguishable with the rest of the storm surrounding him,

"Please... I need to know"

Just then a sudden gust of wind almost knocks Vincent back down onto the bench, but Vincent braces his body and takes the remaining impact. He sees glimpses of the stranger for milliseconds, weaving in and out of traffic effortlessly, his footsteps not even making a sound against the pavement. Within a heartbeat he reaches Vincent and stands centimetres away from his face.

"You'll find out soon enough."

This is all he said before the stranger takes a sidestep and completely disappears. Vincent is memorized and stares off into the direction in which the stranger escaped for minutes that seem to last for an eternity. He was searching for not only this fearsome man, if he was even a man at all, but for answers to questions he thought he would never have to ask again. The thought of his father, or even someone knowing his father causes a complete uproar throughout Vincent's body. He forces back enraged tears and attempts to compose himself for busy masses of pedestrians who behave more like drones than people.