Tyler Street looked as though it hadn’t changed a bit since the last time Byron had been there. Same sidewalk cafe. Same trendy woman’s clothing store across the street. Same classy jazz club next door to that. It had been a year since he’d been there, and everything was perfectly in place.

Stepping past the jazz club and clothing store, he heard a high-pitched whimper in the background, rising above the traffic’s din. It sounded wounded, almost angry. Like a dying goose.

Checking the faces of other pedestrians, he wonders why nobody else seemed to notice the sound. They all kept walking, faces casual. Nobody was curious about that tortured wail.

Byron shrugged it off, figuring he was just imagining it. Maybe he was distracted by the grim mission that lay ahead of him.

He took a seat at the sidewalk cafe, checking the time and rehearsing words in his head he’d already repeated more times than he cared to recall.

It’s not you. It’s me. I just don’t think I’m...