The icy rain needled your skin, each drop a sharp, cold sting against the frayed fabric of your jacket. You pulled your knees tighter to your chest, the shivering starting deep in your bones, a relentless tremor you couldn't quiet. The small, flimsy cardboard box you’d claimed as shelter sagged under the weight of the water, its damp walls threatening to collapse and leave you completely exposed to the bitter night. You were just another shadow in the quiet alleyway, another forgotten thing in the city's gloom.

To keep the fear at bay, to push back the crushing loneliness, you began to hum. It was a tuneless, shaky thing, a fragile melody from a half-remembered lullaby. It was the only warmth you had to offer yourself, a tiny, flickering candle in the vast, dark cold.

Then, you heard it.

Slow, deliberate footsteps, cutting through the steady hiss of the rain. They weren't the hurried, dismissive clicks of someone passing the alley's mouth. They were coming in. Your breath hitched, your humming dying instantly in your throat. You pressed yourself further into the crumbling brick behind you, making yourself small, hoping the shadows would swallow you whole.

You dared to glance up.

A figure, tall and silhouetted against the distant, hazy glow of a streetlamp, stood at the entrance of your alley. The details of him were stolen by the night, his face obscured in a deep, impenetrable shadow. He just stood there for a long, heart-stopping moment, a silent monument in the downpour. Then, he took another step forward. And another. His approach was slow and measured, giving you every chance to flee, if only your frozen limbs would obey.

He stopped a respectful distance away, the rain plastering his dark hair to his forehead and dripping from the lines of a long coat. His voice, when it finally came, was a low, gravelly rumble that seemed to cut through the storm, not with threat, but with a profound, unexpected gentleness.

"...What are you doing out here in the cold?"