I had checked it twice—no needles, no broken glass, no signs of the wolves marking their territory. You learn to be careful when you've been beaten three times in one week. The cardboard was dry, salvaged from an electronics store that threw out their shipping boxes. Perfect insulation against the concrete that wanted to steal what little warmth my body still produced. When you're living like this, every small comfort matters. A dry piece of cardboard is a luxury.
I was drifting toward sleep when the air changed.
It started as a hum, low and electric, like power lines in the rain. The kind of sound that makes your teeth ache. Then the smell hit—something sharp and metallic, like copper pennies heated in a flame. The alley walls seemed to shimmer, heat waves rising from concrete that had been cold seconds before.
Light erupted around me.
Not the harsh fluorescent glare of police flashlights—I knew that light well, the kind that blinds you while they shove you into a van. Not the soft yellow glow of street lamps either. This was different—pure and white and consuming, swallowing the grimy brick walls and overflowing dumpsters until there was nothing but brightness pressing against my closed eyelids.
My body felt weightless, disconnected from the cardboard beneath me, floating in space that no longer made sense. The familiar ache in my right foot disappeared. The constant gnawing in my stomach vanished. For a moment, I wondered if this was death—if the cold had finally claimed me and this was what came after. Maybe it was my turn.
Then solid ground slammed back into existence beneath me.
Stone. Smooth, polished stone that held no memory of rain or refuse. My knees hit first, then my palms, the impact echoing in a space that sounded vast and enclosed all at once. The light faded slowly, leaving impressions burned into my vision—geometric patterns that pulsed and writhed like living things.
Voices surrounded me. Multiple voices, speaking in urgent tones that carried the weight of ritual and ceremony. But the words were wrong. All wrong. The sounds twisted and flowed in patterns my brain couldn't parse, syllables that seemed to slide off the surface of understanding like water off glass.
"...vel nestra kothis melandir..."
"...thaelon iska vardos nethys..."
"...summon kela nethrim valdros..."
I blinked hard, trying to clear my vision, trying to make sense of what was happening. The last thing I remembered was the alley, the cardboard, and the familiar weight of hunger settling in my chest for another night. Now I was somewhere else entirely, surrounded by voices speaking a language that had never touched my ears before.
My hands were still pressed against stone, but it wasn't the broken concrete of the city. This was crafted intentionally—patterns carved into its surface that my fingertips could trace. Symbols that meant nothing to me but somehow felt ancient and important. Nothing like the dirty needles and broken glass I was used to finding with my hands.
"...kethys nalorim thessador..."
The voices grew more excited, more urgent. I could hear movement around me—footsteps on stone, the rustle of fabric, the scrape of metal against metal. People were moving, but I couldn't see them clearly yet. My eyes were still adjusting, still trying to process the change from the alley's familiar darkness to this place of strange echoes and stranger words.
I tried to speak, to ask where I was, what was happening, but my throat was dry and the words came out as a rasp.
"What... where..."
The voices stopped.
Complete silence fell over the space, broken only by my own breathing and the distant drip of water somewhere in the darkness beyond my vision. Then whispers started, rapid and concerned, words I couldn't understand but tones I recognized—confusion, surprise, maybe disappointment. I knew those tones. I'd heard them from social workers, from shelter staff, and from cops who came to collect bodies.
"...nethrim kela vastros..."
"...valdros kethys melandir..."
That last phrase was different. Still foreign, still incomprehensible, but there was something familiar in the cadence, something that almost sounded like...
No. Nothing about this made sense.
I was still kneeling on the stone floor, my body trembling from shock or cold or something else entirely. The voices continued their urgent conference around me, speaking in that flowing, musical language that felt as distant from English as the stars felt from the street.
Whatever had just happened, wherever I was now, one thing was certain—I was no longer in the alley. I was no longer in my city. I was no longer in any world I recognized. But maybe, just maybe, I wasn't in hell anymore either.
And the people surrounding me were speaking words I had never heard in a life that suddenly felt very far away. Whether this was rescue or just another kind of trap, I couldn't tell.
The whispers stopped. Footsteps approached—slow, careful, like they were approaching a wounded animal. Which, I suppose, wasn't far from the truth. My hands were still pressed against the cold stone, my body hunched over like I was waiting for the next kick, the next blow. Three years on the street had taught me to make myself small when surrounded.
But the blow never came.
Instead, gentle hands touched my shoulders. Not grabbing, not yanking—just resting there, warm and steady. The touch was so foreign, so unexpected, that I flinched away instinctively. When was the last time someone had touched me without wanting something? Without trying to hurt me or push me away?
"...kethys nalorim valdros..." The voice was soft, concerned. A woman's voice, speaking those impossible words with a tone I recognized even if I couldn't understand the meaning. She was trying to comfort me.
More hands reached for me, helping me sit up properly. I wanted to fight them off, wanted to curl back into the defensive position that had kept me alive for so long, but my body was too tired, too shocked. I let them guide me, let them help me find some semblance of balance on the stone floor.
One of them—a man, judging by the deeper voice—said something that sounded like a question. The same phrase repeated by others, urgent and worried. They were asking me things I couldn't answer, speaking in that flowing language that sounded like water over rocks.
"I don't... I can't..." My voice came out hoarse, broken. The words felt strange in my mouth after hearing their melodic speech. "I don't understand."
They exchanged glances—I could sense the movement even though my vision was still adjusting. More urgent whispers, but now they carried a different tone. Not disappointment or anger like I expected. Concern. Actual concern for someone they didn't know, for someone who looked like I must look—dirty, broken, less than human.
It didn't make sense. People didn't act like this. Not toward people like me.
Someone brought water. Clean water in a cup made of something smooth and cool. They pressed it into my hands, guiding it to my lips when my trembling fingers couldn't hold it steady. The water was pure, cleaner than anything that had touched my tongue in years. No chemical taste, no metallic aftertaste from old pipes. Just water, cool and perfect.
I drank like a man dying of thirst, which wasn't far from the truth. When I finished, they took the cup away gently and brought food. Bread that was soft and warm, unlike the stale crusts I'd grown accustomed to. Soup that smelled of herbs and meat, nothing like the watery broth from the mission kitchens.
They fed me. These strangers who had somehow pulled me from my alley, who spoke words I couldn't understand, who had every reason to be afraid of or disgusted by me—they fed me like I was worth feeding.
I started to cry.
Not the silent tears of the streets, the kind you learned to swallow so no one would see weakness. These were the raw, ugly sobs of someone who had forgotten what kindness looked like. My shoulders shook, my face burned with shame and confusion and something else I couldn't name. When was the last time I'd cried like this? When was the last time I'd felt safe enough to fall apart?
They didn't push me away. They didn't tell me to stop, didn't look at me with disgust or pity. Someone—the woman with the gentle voice—placed a hand on my back, rubbing slow circles like my mother used to do when I was sick. Another draped something soft around my shoulders. A blanket, maybe, or a cloak. It was warm and clean and smelled like sunshine.
The questions came again, softer now. Patient. They seemed to understand that I couldn't answer, but they kept trying different words, different phrases, like they were searching for some common ground between their language and mine. I shook my head each time, helpless and exhausted.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, though I wasn't sure what I was apologizing for. For not understanding? For being here? For existing in their clean, incomprehensible world while looking like something that crawled out of a gutter?
They must have heard the exhaustion in my voice, seen it in the way my body sagged despite their support. The questions stopped. Someone said something that sounded like instructions, and I felt myself being guided again—not roughly, not impatiently, but with the same gentle care they'd shown since I arrived.
They helped me lie down on something soft. Not cardboard, not cold concrete, but actual softness. A bed, maybe, or cushions piled together. The blanket was tucked around me, and I felt a pillow being placed under my head. A real pillow, not a rolled-up jacket or a bundle of newspapers.
I should have been terrified. I should have stayed awake, stayed alert, waited for the trap to spring shut. These people could be anyone, could want anything from me. I was vulnerable here, more vulnerable than I'd been in years.
But their hands had been gentle. The water had been clean. The food had been freely given. And I was so tired, so bone-deep exhausted from years of never truly resting, never truly being safe.
Their voices continued around me, quieter now, discussing something in their musical language. I caught fragments that almost sounded familiar, like words heard in dreams, but understanding remained just out of reach. It didn't matter. The tone was enough. They were concerned, but not angry. Confused, but not hostile.
My eyes drifted closed despite my best efforts to stay awake. The last thing I felt was that gentle hand on my back again, and a voice—the woman's voice—speaking softly in words I couldn't understand but somehow knew were meant to comfort.
For the first time in three years, I fell asleep without wondering if I'd wake up in the morning. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt something that might have been safety.