The megalopolis exhaled its essence in a city's sigh, souls spiraling upward like confetti from a ruptured vein, deserting husks to the asphalt's unyielding sepulcher. You awaken in your aerie of peeling linoleum and casement drafts, heartbeat a staccato against the vault of solitude, the skyline beyond your frost-rimed pane a silhouette of spires clawing at cumulus shrouds. Down the boulevard, etched in the mercury gleam of dawn, the newsstand husk unfurls tomorrow's ghost-sheets, ink bleeding into gutters like spilled secrets. The digital marquee blinks 6:47 AM, a lie etched in LEDs. Anchor, what ignites your odyssey?

Left Behind