The lot was overgrown and water droplets clung to the dry weeds like fragile jewels, pearlescent in the street light's gleam. The house was small and squat, and the siding peeled loose in places. Stains ran down the walls from the windows; empty eyes that had been weeping from loneliness, leaving trails of rusty tears.

The world was wrapped in the thick cloak of fog. Three old, bare trees stood as lonely sentinels, their leaves heaped at their feet and branches barely stirring ...