The scent of blood was a pungent thing, both sickly sweet and salty, like sugar and sea water. It reminded him of the Asian dish he'd tried, both sweet and spicy.
He didn't care for it too much. He preferred just sweet, like his mama.
But she was dead, too.
The child walked purposelessly through the streets, passing a gentleman's club and a restaurant and far out he saw a cathedral and a lighthouse. The bell in the cathedral that was held in a pretty marble prison, was ringing ruefully in the blistering cold winds and the beam from the lighthouse was uninterrupted by it.
Past the lighthouse, he gazed at the churning ocean, at the clouds that piled and rolled around each other, holding in rain like a misty bladder in the sky. The child frowned; he never did like the rain.
He never got cold, not at all. Since he was a baby he stepped as only an alone four year old could. He ambled all the way past the House of the Lord where the blood smell was coming from, and where his mama and papa lay sleeping forever on the floor. Then the lighthouse. He stood outside of it for a long time, admiring the ray of illumination that was so bright and fantastic, yet so untouchable.
He wanted to be like that one day, when he grew up.
Like the light of a lighthouse.