Dusk settles over Daenlock. A young woman wanders the street, clutching a damp blanket over her shoulders as rainwater drips from her tempestuous mane. Her shoes are mottled with dark wet patches. She stumbles across a weathered stone bridge, gazing down at the murky canal below. Finding no solace in the dark water, she rounds the corner. Her feet stop at the entrance of an empty home. 

Inside, several candles have been blown out on top of a dresser, contorted and frozen in death. She brushes past them, the gold chains adorning her dress rattling with an unseemly garishness. The blanket is tossed aside, and the woman trudges upstairs. After climbing the steps to the third floor, she reaches a door marked with a wooden sign, haphazardly nailed on the wall: Eloi's Room. The door clicks, floorboards creaking as the woman enters.

To her right, a desk. Dashes of sandy wood show through the dark varnish, betraying its age and the fiery temperament of the writer who used it. To her left, the bed, donning a wine-red blanket that pooled in awkward lumps over a cheap mattress. She sits down at the escritoire. Rapping her knuckles on the scarred surface, she aims to count the nicks one by one. She fails, vision clouded by hot tears. She bangs the desk with her fist repeatedly, cursing his name. She weeps, she howls, she paces the room. She collapses onto the bed. She breathes in the faintest scent of tequila and siggs, left cheek pressed to the blanket, and remembers when he used to hold her in headlocks. 

Morning comes and the woman is gone. On the desk are the ashes of a letter that once read:

Eloi, 

My brother and friend. Mamá always said Playero men are like sparks, hot as fire and if you blink, you'll miss them. To love one is a fool's errand. But I never had a choice. Keep your head high. I'll see you one day.

Reselda