The Black

A stranger seeks revenge on those who wronged him. On those who wronged his sister. On those who are guilty. It's as simple as that.

For many, it was the first love people remember. For the stranger, it was the first hate.

The stranger whistled the lyrics in the open dark as he reflected on that first hate, almost watching the tune as it escaped into the night. It was like washing hands of blood, circling and circling the drain until it reached an aperture and finally disappearing. He concluded his senseless whistling. Nothing worse than being addicted to a bad song.

The small, contained campfire crept closer and closer as his feet journeyed him across the dirt road. It wasn't entirely safe in any part of the world to set up camp on the wayside, in the periphery of strangers furtively trekking from one town to the next, but when you were a member of The Black you could afford such luxuries. When you were the most notorious fighter in the new world a decade prior, what did you have to fear?

Certainly not a lonesome stranger traipsing by.