Clarity was in one of her weird moods, she swings back and forth in the minature playground within the park. It was night, and on the weekdays it was the only time in which she was not working. The hours in which she usually sleeps are also her "free time", she currently was deprived of any rest what-so-ever.

The park was lit up with several dull street lights. It cast shadows from the trees and equipment giving it a very eerie feel.

Back and forth, she went dazing in and out of sleep. She loved the night, it was so quiet and so absent of people. She didn't want anyone to ask why she was here.

It was a cool night in fall. Her patched jacket flutters in the momentum of the swing, her short hair remained stationary, she had gelled it into spikes tonight. Her head lends on the swing's chain.

She noticed she was falling asleep. She debated weather or not to jump, just like she did as a child.

The autumn night was a cool one, the breeze a crisp chill to those who could still feel and appreciate it. At the hour of the night, hardly anyone seemed to linger long. Couples coming and going, the younger adolescent ones trying to pass by with cigarettes and alchohol to some remote place without being noticed as they giggled loudly. Other than that, the park was near silent.

Upon a bench, situated under a large oak, just a little ways way from the swings, a man sat, garbed in a button upblack shirt and jeans. He sat hunched over, chin length hair semi concealing his pale face as he flipped througha stack of old photos. The pictures were of grotesque scenes, blood and mutilated corpses as well as snap shots of normal people, minding their buisness.

As he looked through the photos a glint of pride and love came to his eyes. These were his doings..his art before his new life.

Clarity grinned, her debate was over, she would jump. She started to speed up the swing, the swing picked up momentum as it launched her higher and higher.

She didn't laugh at the prospect of flying like she did as a child, she just moved like it was a necessary action. At twenty-two Clarity's idea of fun was a pack of cigarettes, a beer, and nobody around. She was one off from paradise.

She let go of the swing's chains and let her herself fly off of the seat. It was exhilarating when she was in the air. It was painful when she hit the ground. The back of her boots marked a trail to where her butt now rests. Apparently she had forgotten how to land.

The all to familiar sound of a body hitting the earth caught the ears of the dead man, his pale green eyes raising from the photos to were the girl had crashed from her flight off the swing. Jonah cut the deck of photos, tapping the two halves against each other before pocketing them in a coat he had aquired and that layed beside him on the wooden bench. He stood, folding the jacket over his arm as he remained gazing at the girl, a smile playing on his pale lips.

"How charming and lady like of you, little miss..." He spoke with a laugh woven somewhere into his voice.

Clarity was a little shocked that she hadn't notice the man by the tree until he laughed. She was a little embarassed of her fall but overall she didn't care. It's more important to her to regain her dignity than to sulk over her loss there-of. She picked herself up from the ground.

"You should watch who you're calling a lady." She said as she brushed herself off quickly, then reached into her pocket for her pack of cigarettes.

He chuckled quietly again. "My mistake little missy.. Though you growing too old to be playing in such childish ways, don't you think?" Age, one nuisance he no longer had to worry himself with, bliss it was to live forever for the small cost of dying once in a particularly gruesome way.

Clare put her cigarette in her mouth and lit it. "What can I say? I'm a sucker for things that take my mind off this stupid city."

She took her cigarette out and looked at it. "These things stop working after three months of smoking them and so I find other vices. Vice after vice after vice. Isn't that they way the world works?" She turned her gaze to Jonah.

He glared in distaste at the cigarette. "Those have long since failed my fancy..Found other things to replace my addiction with a new one, so I suppose you're right.." Long ago it seemed, when he walked boredly in broad day light and, though was almost the same in brutality as he was now, was a more fragile being, he smoked almost a pack a day. Now his taste only craved for the precious drink, the dead man's wine.

Clare grinned. "So you're a quitter, eh? You definately look deprived. Well, congrats if it means anything."

She took a long drag from her cigarette, savouring the flavour. All this talk about quiting was making her crave the taste even more.

"If you could call finding something that has a taste that will always surpass that of nicotine quitting than I suppose I am a quitter." Jonah had only taken one taste from his previous passion since he had become what he was now. And, indeed, it could not thrill him nearly as much as a kill.

"Hum!" Clarity said around her cigarette. "So, what is this something? If you don't mind my asking?" She spoke with genuine interest, she's always looking for something else to take her problems away.

"Perhaps, I'll show you sometime.." He grinned. Indeed he shall, this girl arose some interest, her rebelious attitude and how she differed from most of the females of her kind.


(brain fart! >:-p)

Clare nodded as if that was answer enough to her question, of course she would have to question him about it later on. "So, do you have a title or should I call out 'hey, you' if I see you on the street?" She gave him a toothy grin.

He hesitated at first, he didn't usually give his name to the living for it seemed a waste of breath seeing as most often times those he conversed with were found dead hours later or were installed into a hospital for extensive care. What could a name hurt, certainly not him, and he assumed his previous life was before her time or atleast just when she was a babe. "..Jonah." He said simply though with a great deal of pride.

"I'm Clare, nice t'meet ya." She said, not offering her hand or any other form of greeting. She was way too busy smoking.

"Jonah huh? Your parents must have been really into religion to name you that. Are you religious?" She lifted her eyebrow in a questioning glance. She has always wondered what the big deal was with Christians, especially since her father was one.

He gave a short nod and like her offered nothing else to close the introductory. To her question he replied honestly, "You could say so." In some way he was religous, though not at all Christian. He did not believe in the Christian Heaven (or for that matter any Heaven) nor in their loathed Satan. Hell, on the other hand...he believed in that and to him he thought it paradise.

"I see..." She knew that she wasn't going to get anything else out of that conversation. She checked the time, still early, of course there could be better things she could be doing... like drinking, unfortunately hard to do without money. She looked at Jonah as if deciding what to say next.

"You know, you could really freak people out by sneaking around in the dark. Do you live in this side of town?" This side, meaning cheap side as everybody knows not many people in actual well built apartment buildings live around here.

He nodded. "Yea, been here my entire life.." And death so far. " You?" Jonah already knew he was probably losing the girl's interest, he was the cut to the chase kind of person when it came to being around her kind, so naturally this in truth proved to be the longest conversation with a mortal he had yet. How sad.... not really.

"I knew it, you look like a guy who's trying to get out of here. This city's gone to hell and I've been stuck in it for all my life. I wish I could just leave, you know somewhere quiet. No people..."

Clare stopped talking and was completely lost in thought.

He tossed the jacket that had been on his arm back down to the bench and he began pacing, palms on the back of his head.

"Its not that bad..gotta look at it from a different perspective and ignore a few key things that often ward people away from here." Wow, he nearly sounded human, even to himself, just then. That was disgusting.

"You believe that shit? Besides, looking at other perpectives means I have to know how to think like other people. Other people is one thing I don't do." And thinking is something I don't do well, she added to herself.

She followed Jonah's movements with her eyes. Pacing was something she had done many times, it was strange to see someone else do it.