Sixteen days since he'd last seen Martin. He could hardly even remember what had happened in all that time: just names and faces washing by in his memory. Distracted conversations cut short. He thought that most of his time had been spent searching the streets, but he could not be sure.

There'd been blood, at some point.

Seven months since they'd first met. Maybe more, maybe less. He'd spent the first few months failing to get Martin home, and drank the rest away. Maybe if he hadn't... after all, the signs had all been there. They'd always been there. What could he have done back then? What was he going to do now?

He kept searching. Staggering down alleys and slinking around the edges of plazas and ignoring vehicles coming straight at him as he ran intersections, chasing shadows and silences for weeks with nothing to show for it. Just this square, now, empty as far as he could see. Skeleton trees and twisted fences and pavement buckled under the stress of some old catastrophe that Bariyan knew and cared nothing about. He turned, still looking, now searching with an increasing sense of hopelessness.

He used to be patient. He used to be good. Now he was-- blinking in lamplight, stepping back, too far gone to do anything but imagine the worst.

Now he was only tired.