((This is the “Alternate Reality” thread I envisioned weeks ago. Basically I want you all to imagine a WoD so very much like our own but with some subtle and some not so subtle differences. A reality where enemies might now be allies and allies might be enemies. Where the convoluted but rich histories of long established figures can be wittled down to the brass tacks. Filler and pomp removed. Where a character’s decisions might have been different and the consequences varying.))


[b:1eb96f257f]Porter.[/b:1eb96f257f]

The city slept like a vast concrete, glass and steel giant. A modern day reinvention of a child’s fairy story. Sleeping and plagued by both terrible dreams and wonderful nightmares. Buildings rose and fell in all shapes and sizes, subsidence claiming the oldest among them, cracking century old masonry and pulling a long dead architects hopes down into the earth. Others were built on these crumbling foundations, the overall effect that of a wheezing and shuddering cityscape that seemed to rise and fall with the breathing of its denizens. A decade old monorail ran through the more dilapidated areas, seemingly glowing brighter as it trundled over tracks overlooking the financial districts.

People moved between the vast, canyon-like cracks and fissures that divided the structures. Roaming, at times, like worrisome parasites. The sleeping giant usually slumbered without disturbance. Few of its inhabitants would wander the night tarred streets but there were those that couldn’t resist the pull of clubs and bars and worse. And there were those that could not resist the urge to feed upon them.

Alden’s Coffeehouse was open later than most. Its owner hoped to cash in on the stragglers leaving bars and businessmen heading home from illicit meetings with prostitutes and mistresses. Alden himself was dead not three years since. But the name had remained like the stains on motel sheets or the memory of abuses suffered by children at the hands of cruel and depraved parents. The owner, a generously built woman who called herself Clara, kept her shop clean, her coffee strong and her prices fair. The latter could not be applied to the scenes unravelling in the street outside the shop...

[b:45ce327bb6]George[/b:45ce327bb6]

The flea-ridden room the stranger had taken was a far cry from the palaces of his youth... or even of recent years. This kindred who once had commanded armies, manipulated vast fortunes, risen to the highest ranks of kindred society.

Now... nothing. A forgotten shadow, feared by some, but little more than a laughing stock to those who remembered. The mad one. Tainted blood. Delusional.

Yet, this place with it's threadbare and patchy carpet, it's stained mattress resting upon a rusted bedframe was, perhaps, perfect for his means. Abstinence was as much a part of his journey as any other. There was so much to do, so much to achieve, an infinity of time, yet no time at all, in which to find that which he sought. Ultimately, he would complete the quest, or in failing, simply fade from existance.

Above him, the bare bulb, which dangled from the ceiling began once again to swing back and forth. Moving to and fro upon the length of brown, twisted and rotting cable that held it. Ticking like a metronome, marking time for the orchestra of creaking springs above. A ballad which told of the activities of the tired and drawn lady, all skin and bone, attending to the needs of one of her gentlemen. From time to time, during the night, they would pass on the stairs. If she was alone, she might smile, a facade, an advertisement perhaps. An offer the stranger would never accept. Pleasures of the flesh, howsoever obtained were forbidden him.

Abstinence, penance, remorse. Occasionally the stranger would hear screams from that upstairs room. But never did he act upon them. Once upon a time, he would have charged in with righteous anger, to save the fair maiden from her oppressor. Not now. At least she was alive.

The stranger frowned, self-pity was not on his road and would be a hindrance. Something else to put behind him. Something else to deny himself.

Abruptly the stranger turned, his maniac eyes alight with a green glow. Was that someone watching him? No. An empty, still room. Devoid utterly, of life. Another delusion. Something else to be put aside, ignored. Paranoia, nothing more.

Hood pulled more tightly about his head, the stranger returned to his meditations, staring endlessly and blankly and the cracks in the bare floorboards.

((nevermind, just remembered what this thread was all about. :D