You are walking down University Avenue, wrapped in darkness. Most of the shops are closed at this hour, some of them for years now, shuttered and graffitied, but the bars and clubs will stay open till morning. You can feel the beat through the asphalt as you pass their heavy doors, aware of the bodies crowding inside. Full. Alive.

The shop you're going to never closes. It only sleeps. The bodies of its owners and patrons cold, inert. In it, only the Blood is alive.

The air is warm for an early spring night. Athens unfurls around you like a rotting night flower, its stench of piss and fumes and grime clinging to your skin. The familiarity of it.

The humanity of it.