Night Owls

Jerry glanced down at the photograph in his hand, then back up again at the woman sitting alone at the back of the cafe.

The woman in the picture was short and stout, mastering a wild mane of black hair in a ribbon made from string and twine woven together; this woman was similar, only her hair was shaved to the scalp, with a giant scar going from the back of her skull to the front. She was ill.

All at once a blinding light coursed through the space. Jerry and the woman froze. And then a creature appeared, seemingly from the air itself.

It was a creature of pure swirling energy, like the turbulence of a current in the ocean, its structure was that of a horned ram, and yet so uncanny to the idea that it seemed purely unnatural. While Jerry was frozen in ear, the woman stepped up to the creature to say hello.