There’s a fire door waiting at the bottom of the stairs. The push bar is crooked, not seated flush in its housing, the way it would be if someone had just hit it hard. I slam into it without breaking stride.
I burst into an alley. It’s cold enough to shock tears into my eyes, but when I blink them away, I see a huddled mass at the foot of the wall, and I see that he’s…
It’s a bag of trash, nothing more. I walk up to it unsteadily, my vision still blurry from the cold. I don’t know what I’m looking for until my gaze falls to my feet and I see it.
Kir’s mask is on the ground, right at the base of the wall, sitting on the concrete where he left it behind. It’s staring up through empty eyeholes at the equally empty sky above. The elastic strap is stretched and twisted, like it was yanked of
