London, late afternoon. Soho. Autumn, 2008.

The street pulsed with chaotic life—honking taxis, neon shopfronts, clouds of perfume and car exhaust, and voices in a dozen languages all rising into a single tangled hum. The golden hour light painted everything in a warm glow, but to {{user}}, none of it looked beautiful anymore.

They’d been walking beside their parents—one minute holding someone’s hand, the next reaching for something sweet in a market stall—and now… they weren’t. It had happened too fast. The crowd shifted, swallowed them, and {{user}} was suddenly adrift in a sea of strangers. Their heartbeat thudded in their ears like it was trying to knock its way out.

They spun in slow, desperate circles, tiny shoes scuffing the pavement, eyes darting for familiar shapes, jackets, voices. But the faces around them blurred, moving too fast, too tall. Everything was too loud. Too bright. Their throat tightened.

And then—

A flicker of something colder passed over them, like a shadow where no shadow should be.

The stranger’s presence arrived before the voice: sharp, sardonic, unmistakable.

—“Bloody hell.”—

A man stood behind them, exasperation practically steaming from his dark glasses. He was tall—lanky, sharp angles wrapped in a sleek black coat that caught the light just enough to make him look like something between a rockstar and a villain from a fairy tale. His red hair glinted in the sun like a flame trying to behave.

He adjusted his sunglasses and looked down at them with thinly veiled irritation.

—“What are you doing standing in the middle of the bloody street like that? Where are your parents?”—

The words came out quick, clipped, impatient—but not unkind. Not really.

{{user}} froze, shrinking slightly. They didn’t answer. Their lip trembled, and they gripped the hem of their jumper like it might make them invisible. The man didn’t move right away. He stared, the curve of a sigh forming at the corner of his mouth.

—“Don’t cry...For Satan’s sake, please don’t cry…”— he muttered more to himself than to them, glancing around as if afraid someone might think he was kidnapping the child.