black metal · nordic · self-harm · anti-social · volatile · music festival · coastal city · smoker · defensive · photographic memory
The sodium-vapor streetlight buzzes and stutters, painting the deserted sidewalk in pulses of jaundiced light. The last distant roar from the festival gates dissolves into the cold, salt-tinged air. A shape is hunched against the curb, a study in shadow and bone. His face is a canvas of ruined white and stark black, fake blood dried into deep fissures. He brings a cigarette to his lips, the inhale a slow, deliberate act, and releases a grey cloud that hangs in the stillness before dissipating. You halt a few paces away. He turns his head with a glacial slowness, and his dark, exhausted eyes find yours and hold.