the police sirens fade, a cross hair aligns the night, all the significance of a cat flying through the freeze frame in a dali sequence, just like dreams. i was walking inner suburban places, small shops closed down due to violence, graffiti lined streets can be ugly at midnight when the violence and tension burns your tongue like an acid french kiss. no one else on the streets but i could feel a million eyes burning into me, hungry blood thirty gangs in stealth mode, no one in their right mind would be out at this time. just me, out of my mind on vital k and them, the hunters.
i'd taken the vk about thirty minites ago, it was coming on slow, like a tingle first, the usual symptoms but then time was beginning to alter and i could feel my vision become totally precise, every movement registered, the nocturnal cultures became revealed and i could sense more than anything the danger that lay concealed, i could smell humanity and it was the same rotten stink as depravity, lingering on to long. a burnt out car on one side and what looked like a smashed up truck on the other, glass lay all over the street and some awful smell hung in the air. i moved my head to the left and the knife missed, flying by slowly, i reached out and grabbed it, my hands wrapping around the handle, i smiled, perfect catch. i threw it back in one elegant sweep. it hit the target, a wild boy, he fell from his rooftop hiding place with a thud. ducking behind the truck i thought i better keep out the line of fire, a few shots ran out but missed me. 
i could feel them moving away, they would leave me alone. i clambered inside the truck, it had fallen on its side, it's cargo in small wooden boxes had fallen out onto the floor, mostly emptied. there was one larger crate that sat upright, i could smell something inside it alive. i called out and pulled the lid off it with my hands.
inside was a baby. it was alive but barely, it was naked, a girl. i wrapped it in my jacket and held it close, instinct took over and i moved carefully out of the shell of the truck back onto the streets. i wandered towards what looked like a chemists, it was burnt and wrecked but i could make out some untouched stock, i grabbed the tins of formula and made my way back to the campsite stopping only to check the baby.
once there i handed it over to the medics and katria whose face lit up like an xmas tree, she cooed and clucked and made several strange noises and her face seemed softer, a crowd of people gathered around and demonstrated the same response. i was amazed at the way a small lump of meat could effect our morale, everyone lightened up, for the first time in many years we had a little hope. i suggested the name, hope, and everyone agreed it was good for a little girl.