Satoru's House for Troubled Youths- 3/4 of chapter 9

I still need to write the second part before publishing the chapter. I plan to write it fast (this week, even), but just in case it proves to be too hard for my meagre talent/motivation, I put the first part here, as a…let’s call it, treat, for my patrons (if anyone here actually reads my other stories).

***

The Outside was really bright.

That was Mono’s entirely honest assessment as he observed the Not-So-Pale City around him. Everything there glittered in strange ways— city too clean, too bright and too alive. Streets gleamed beneath the sunlight, the glass windows were whole and see-through and the water was translucent instead of dull gray. Adults and Children walked in neat little lines, their clothes spotless and unpatched. The sun— the bright light coming from above— was gold and hurt too look at. But even as it stung, it felt… nice and made Mono feel warm, this glowing orb much nicer than the previous one.

He still wasn’t used to that.

Though they had been in the Not-So-Pale City for a while now, he and Six almost never went Outside. They didn’t need to. After all, Home was safe—warm, with soft beds, tasty food and other Children.

He liked Home. It was still strange sometimes, but not scary strange.

Still, Satoru — their new Adult — said it was good for Children to go Outside sometimes, as it would “help them grow.” Mono didn’t know what that meant. Maybe it made you taller? But he and Six were already tall enough. Six was taller once — much taller — but that wasn’t nice. aNd MoNo wAs/iS/wIlL bE BiG oNcE tOo—

But Mono did not protest, because Satoru was not a Bad Adult. Not like the ones from before. He didn’t chase them, didn’t scream or twist or bite or grab too tight. Sure, he was made of bones and that was a little scary at first, but he never hurt Mono or Six. He was gentle, he didn’t shout, he gave them food and beds, made sure there were no Bad Adults in the Home, aNd YeT hE cOuLd StILl HeAr ThE sTaTiC—

And today—Satoru took them to the Outside for something special, something he called…

Ice cream.

The Outside was warm as the three of them left Home, two Children and their Adult journeying to find the fabled food that Abbie once said was delicious.

Satoru didn’t look like himself right now — no bones, no red orbs — just a regular Adult with pale skin and dark hair, their Adult always hiding his real appearance when meeting other Adults or going outside. The whole thing was rather odd to Mono, though he supposed others would have been scared by his bones otherwise. Even Mono was afraid at first.

He walked between Mono and Six as they moved through the city, the Adult holding each of them by hand to keep them close while people passed by.

Satoru’s hand was rather cold, as it was still bones under the disguise, but Mono liked holding hands with him. For so long, he’d only ever been able to hold Six’s hand. Now, he had many people whose hands he could hold.

Six seemed to like it too, as she walked quietly, her usual restlessness gone and her mouth humming a faint tune.

They went deeper into the city, past rows of buildings that didn’t bend in the wind, with walls that were bright, covered in glass that sparkled. The Adults around moved in calm lines, talking, smiling, carrying things. There were Children too — happy ones, running and laughing, not hunted by the Adults, but protected by them.

It was so different.

Eventually, as they entered a part of the City without any large buildings, one with a lot of benches and oddly shaped plants. There, Satoru stopped in front of a small building, built far from any other. There were tables around it, with people sitting and talking, and a line of Adults and Children waiting for something from a window at the building’s front. From inside the window, a round Adult Man with an apron was handing people strange cones topped with colored balls. It looked amazing and everyone was smiling.

“Here we are. The best ice cream place around, according to the reviews.” Satoru said. There was probably some pride to be found in his words, though the fake voice he was currently using made the delivery utterly flat. “I’m certain you will love it. After all, children love ice cream…I think.”

Even though Satoru seemed to have lost some confidence at the end of the sentence, they nonetheless joined the line, eager to try this ice cream. Soon, it was their turn and Satoru received a small paper container with three cones sticking out of it. Their task fulfilled, he led Mono and Six to one of the tables nearby. Then he handed each of them a cone.

Mono took his carefully. Inside the strange, crunchy shell was a treasure — three perfect balls stacked together- white, brown and pink. And when he finally dared a bite, it was amazing. Though it was so cold it made his teeth ache if kept in mouth for too long, it was also sweet— dizzying sweetness, soft and strange, melting on his tongue. It was the best thing he had ever tasted.

As it was so good, he panicked as it began to melt, the colored fluid dripping down his fingers. To protect his meal, he tried to eat quicker, but it only made his head hurt. But only a little.

One problem Mono has was that his paper bag made it hard to eat. Every time he leaned in, trying to take a lick from under the bag, the cone would bump against it, splattering ice cream across the front. He tried to lick it off, but the mess only grew. The sticky sweetness soaked into the paper, and it smelled like vanilla and chocolate and strawberry all at once.

Satoru noticed and, after a small chuckle, wordlessly handed Mono a tissue.

Dutifully, Mono took it and hid it in his pocket, grateful but not finding any use for it now. After all, as Satoru himself had once said, tissues were for dirt.

And food was not dirt.

Six was clearly enjoying her meal as well. She attacked her ice cream with both hands around the cone, mashing it into her mouth as quickly as she could, lower face streaked with white and pink and brown and her yellow raincoat smeared in sticky patches. Every few seconds she’d freeze completely, eyes going wide, clutching her head and shrieking in pain before immediately going back for more.

Seeing that happen, Mono couldn’t help but giggle, receiving a glare in response.

When Six finished her meal, Mono still in the middle of his, Satoru extended his hand, offering her his untouched portion. Just like that. Sure, Satoru didn’t need to eat — he’d noticed that long ago — but still.

Six didn’t hesitate, snatching the ice cream from him and devouring it in seconds, her delighted noises mixing with loud shrieks of pain from eating too fast.

Watching her, Mono smiled under the bag. Seeing Six happy was… nice.

For some reason, people began to watch them soon after they started eating— mostly Adults sitting nearby, their gazes constantly sliding toward their table. They weren’t twisted like the ones in the Pale City, but their faces were…odd, as they were all frowning and grimacing. Some of them whispered to each other, while a few of them got up and left after observing them for a while.

In Pale City, Mono would find this attention dangerous, the boy already searching for a place to hide, but the Adults in the Not-So-Pale City were somehow much more docile than the rest.

And even if the Adults were to turn Bad, he wasn’t afraid. Not really. He and Six had powers now. Real powers, aNd MaNy MoRe CoUld Be GaInEd—

And besides—Satoru, their Adult, was here. And he was the strongest Adult Mono had ever seen.

So, he felt…safe?

It was all rather odd and it took him a long while to recognize the feeling, but that was the case.

Satoru and Keno were Good Adults. Even if one was made of bones and the other looked like a Child, they were kind. Clytie and Abbie were kind too — they smiled and helped, even when they didn’t have to. Ghost and Kirby were nice. They played with him and Six. Cyn was… there.

And Six — Six was there too.

That alone was enough.

After everything, after the Tower and the noise, she was safe. They were both safe. Together, far from the Thin Man, far from the Transmission aNd ShE lEt Go oF HiS hAnD So He WoUlD fAlL aNd FaLl aNd—

Yes. He was happy.

***

After they were done with their ice creams, Satoru took them to the playground, though it looked quite different to the ones he had seen in the Pale City.

Sure, there were things to play with— like swings, slides and bars—but here, they were all nice and clean, with no broken parts or creeping rust. Also, there other Children and Adults there. Each Child had at least one Adult who would sit on a bench close to the playground with a dull smile, content to simply watch the Children play instead of hunting them.

It was weird, but also nice.

Satoru was sitting on a bench too. He tried to speak with the other Adults nearby, but the other Adults would grow progressively tense as the conversation went due to Satoru’s lack of outward emotion, eventually resorting to giving Satoru a strained smile and leaving.

Mono and Six had found the sandbox.

It was square and shallow, with clean wooden edges and bright yellow sand. Not the gray dust that coated everything in the Pale City. Toys were scattered everywhere: red buckets, blue shovels, plastic molds shaped like stars, circles, and fishes.

Mono liked it immediately.

Six sat opposite him, pressing molds into the sand with both hands, pushing the shapes down hard to create funny shapes on the sand. Mono built towers beside her, stacking sand with the buckets, patting it down carefully with his palms.

Every now and then, another Child would approach, wanting to join them, but before they could step inside the sandbox Six would hiss at them with her teeth bared, scaring them away.

It wasn’t very nice, so Mono would gave her a reproachful glance whenever she did that, only for Six to meet his stare blankly and turn back to her activity, the girl not caring in the slightest.

They kept playing for a while, both of them having fun, but then—

—it happened again!

Without warning, the world trembled and folded. Before Mono could react, everything doubled.

Two playgrounds. Two sandboxes. Two Sixes.

Two hims.

It was like being split—Mono could feel himself being in two places at once, experiencing everything twice.

Both sets of fingers digging into the sand. Both sets of ears hearing the clatter. Both sets of eyes watching the two Sixes crouched before him. Both were real, both equally solid.

Ever since coming to the Not-So-Pale City, it had been happening rather frequently- Sometimes once a week, sometimes several times a day. Sometimes for just a moment, sometimes for hours.

Everything would split — and he would live in both halves at once, until one Mono vanished and one Mono went forward. Both Monos were him. Each could act differently and move differently, but they were still one. A single mind piloting two bodies.

He didn’t like it.

It made him dizzy.

And somehow, no one ever noticed.

He’d tried to tell Satoru once—waving his hands and using his power to show what he meant— hoping his Adult could fix it with one of his many powers. But he quickly learned he was simply unable to explain the split without actually speaking or writing, so eventually he gave up.

Six looked at him quizzically, her head tilted just a little to one side. She had most likely noticed a change in his behaviour, Mono always reacting to the split with annoyance and unwitting twitching, and for a second, she stopped playing with the sand, seemingly hesitating, as if thinking if she should do something. Then, however, she simply shrugged and went back to her work, hands plunging into the sand again.

It wasn’t very nice. But Six didn’t care about most people — so the fact that she hesitated at all was a sign she actually cared. aNd YeT sHe StIlL aBaNdOnEd HiM-

As Mono looked away from Six and toward their Adult, he saw Satoru talking to someone.

There was an Adult Woman standing near him — Pale-skinned and black-haired, she wore a long grey coat and a pink hat. Her hands rested on a stroller that stood in front of her.

She leaned closer as she spoke with Satoru, her lips moving in words that Mono couldn’t hear from where he sat. Satoru had turned his head fully toward her, his fake body relaxed, posture shifting to polite interest.

It was strange.

Because there was no such woman on the other playground.

On the other playground, the other Satoru sat alone on the bench, elbows on his knees, quietly watching the other Mono and Six play. When he noticed the other boy’s gaze, he raised one fake hand and gave a small, calm wave, Mono’s other half waving back automatically.

Mono blinked. This was new.

Normally both halves were the same. They followed the same pattern, the same motion, like two reflections on either side of a mirror. Only Mono could make them different— he was always the one who started the change.

But not this time.

As she and Satoru continued speaking, the Adult Woman titled her head slightly. Then, her eyes swept across the playground, sharp and searching, until they landed on the sandbox.

First, they lingered on Mono and Six. Then her eyes flickered past them, focusing on something just behind them.

Her expression didn’t change, but something cold prickled at the back of Mono’s neck.

Turning to see what she was looking at, Mono saw a tall Adult Man standing at the edge of the sandbox.

The Adult Man’s face was blank, while his eyes were fixed directly on Mono and Six. He didn’t blink. He didn’t move. The clothes he wore were plain — a brown coat, faded sweater, worn jeans —and his hair was blond, with a short beard shadowing his jaw.

For a heartbeat, they looked each other in the eye.

Then—

The Adult Man moved, large arms wrapping around Mono and Six.

***

Mark Davidson had done a lot of things for money.

Once, he told himself there was meaning in it, something greater. After all, he had been a soldier once, trained to believe that every bullet fired, every life taken, was for some higher cause. Initially, he considered mercenary work to be a continuation of his previous line of work—escort a convoy here, protect someone there, watch over some oddly loud crates...

It didn’t take long for the delusions to die.

His personal moment of clarity came the day he began to work under Coil. Obscure cape or not, working under a known villain made it impossible for Mark to lie to himself any longer.

Too many bodies. Too many orders that didn’t make sense until he saw the aftermath. There was no pretending after that. Not anymore.

So when the order came to kidnap two children, he didn’t ask too many questions. His employer was reliable. The pay was high. He had done worse.

Mark hated himself, if he was to be honest.

Still, something about the job was off from the start. The orders came barely an hour before the scheduled grab, with Mark having to kidnap two children in broad daylight. Supposedly, it was out of necessity: the targets apparently didn’t leave home often, and their residence was supposedly well-defended. As such, it was a rare window of opportunity.

It all painted his targets as high-profile figures, possibly children of someone wealthy or important. But why would such children attend a public playground instead of a private, more secure one?

On its own, it would be rather unusual. Taking the appearance of his targets into account, the entire thing was utterly bizarre.

As he was sitting on a bench in some distance from the playground, He opened a newspaper, pretending to read it, and scanned the crowd.

When he saw his targets, he momentarily froze. He was given the descriptions before, but seeing them was a different matter.

Everything about them was wrong. Not only both children looked downright destitute, making the reason for targeting them rather incomprehensible, but their choice of attire was simply…odd.

The boy was dressed like an adult—a khaki trench coat hung from his narrow shoulders, partially buttoned and reaching below his knees. Beneath it, he wore a brownish-gray shirt, one tucked into long brownish-gray pants. His face was hidden entirely behind a paper bag, with two rough holes cut out for the eyes.

The girl wore a bright yellow raincoat, one that looked entirely out of place in a sunny weather. The hood covered most of her head, casting her upper face in shadow. And whenever some other child tried to approach the sandbox, presumably to play, she would hiss at them-not a grunt, but actual, hostile hiss.

Mark lowered the paper. He felt the first twinge of unease. These were his targets?

These two were provably the weirdest children he had ever seen and he hadn’t even approach them yet. A certain, unspoken suspicion bloomed in Mark’s mind, one that would most likely explain the children’s bizarre appearance and Coil’s interest, but he didn’t voice it, afraid it might turn out to be true.

There was also a caretaker to consider. The man sat slouched on a bench not far from the sandbox, watching the two strange children with the vacant calm. From the distance, Mark could tell little about him. Middle-aged. Asian. Plain. The kind of man you’d forget the moment you turned away.

Coil hadn’t been clear about who he was— parent, handler or bodyguard—but it didn’t matter. Mark’s orders were simple: ignore him. Another operative would create a diversion when the signal came, taking the man’s focus away from the children. Everything else was unimportant.

That was what Coil said, anyway. And Coil’s intuition—his “instinct,” though obviously it was some sort of cape bullshit instead—had a very off-putting habit of being right.

Mark sat still, eyes behind the paper, mind circling the details again. Broad daylight. Short notice. Minimal prep. His job: grab the two kids, bring them to the extraction vehicle waiting in a nearby alley. Inside the vehicle would be sedatives and restraints to use on the children. After securing the targets and entering the road, boss would tell him the drop point coordinates.

Supposedly, there’d be no surveillance—nearby cameras would be disabled for the duration of his task. The car was untraceable. He’d been even issued a disguise: a false beard, a smear of putty to change the line of his jaw. Nothing fancy, but enough to blur him on any accidental footage.

Under his shirt, the familiar weight of a body cam pressed against his ribs. Coil liked to see through his men’s eyes—observe the action directly and give orders if needed. Coil’s voice always came through the earpiece in his ear.

Mark had stopped finding it intrusive long ago. Coil was a control freak, but he got results. Always.

Still, the unease wouldn’t fade. The job felt wrong, somehow...

The signal came through with a soft click, followed by the distortion of Coil’s altered voice.

“...Begin.”

Mark folded the newspaper with mechanical precision. He stepped off the bench and onto the path.

Across the park, Julia—his distraction—was already in position. She’d pushed a stroller with her, of all things. He didn’t ask. He didn’t want to know.

As she approached the children’s caretaker, she began speaking, causing the man to look up, his face turning away from the sandbox.

That was Mark’s cue.

He exhaled once and stepped off the gravel path into the playground.

It was alive with sound: Children laughing, swings squeaking, the metallic clatter of chains. A woman scolded her son for climbing too high. Someone’s dog barked from the far side of the fence.

Mark cut a line straight toward the sandbox.

The targets sat there in the sand, side by side, playing with the sand. The boy was acting agitated, though seemingly not by Mark’s approach. When Mark reached them, the boy looked at his caretaker, who was still talking with Julia. Noticing something, the boy turned towards Mark, only then noticing the man.

For a moment, he and the boy simply stared at each other, neither saying anything.

Then, Coil’s voice came through.

“…grab them.”

Mark didn’t hesitate.

He lunged forward in one clean motion, arms spread wide. He scooped them both up—the boy under one arm, the girl under the other. He felt their small frames jolt, muscles tensing in surprise as he yanked them from the ground.

Before anyone could react, Mark was already moving. He vaulted over the low iron fence, boots crunching over the gravel path beyond. The world blurred into streaks of color — green, gray, the scattered shapes of startled faces turning toward him. After a few seconds of shock, the world snapped into motion— shouts of various adults rising behind him, but it was too late.

He tore through the park and into the street, heart hammering in his chest as horns began to blare. A car braked hard, the driver shouting something unintelligible through the window, but Mark didn’t slow down.

He turned sharply into a narrow side street, shoes slapping against the cracked asphalt. The alley stretched ahead, full of twists and turns. He cut through it, turned again and then again, and there —

There it was.

Unmarked white van. His escape route.

He adjusted his grip, panting, tightening his hold on the two silent bodies. Their weight pressed into him unevenly, limp but heavy. Only as he did so, he realized how still the kids were. They had made no sound, no kick, not a single scream yet.

As he lowered his eyes, he saw them simply staring at each other in eerie confusion, as though they were trying to understand what was happening. There was no fear to be found, only a puzzled curiosity.

Mark felt unease forming in his gut.

Then the girl twitched.

At first, it was nothing — a small, unconscious motion. A shift of weight against his arm. He ignored it. She did it again, though — slower this time, more deliberate. Her small body stiffened in his grasp, her head moving slightly beneath the hood, tilting as if she were just now waking up to what was happening.

Her head turned toward him.

Mark frowned. He didn’t know why, but the action unnerved him, his grip tightening on instinct.

“…What the hell are you looking at?” he muttered, the words coming out rough, breathless.

The girl didn’t answer. Her face remained hidden beneath the hood, but he could feel her eyes on him.

Mark’s throat went dry. He looked away quickly, forcing his gaze back to the van. Just a few more steps. A few more and this job would be done.

Then, the girl moved again.

Her hand slipped free from where he’d pinned it against his side. The small fingers grabbed the edge of his sleeve and — with one clean motion — rolled it up, baring his wrist and forearm.

Mark froze mid-stride, confusion flooding in.

“What the fuck are you—”

He never finished.

The girl’s head snapped down with the ferocity of a striking animal. There was no hesitation, no buildup — just sudden, explosive violence. Her teeth sank deep into his flesh just below the wrist — past the skin, through the muscle — until he felt them scrape against bone with a brittle, sickening grind.

For a heartbeat, his brain lagged behind the pain. His body registered the damage before his mind could comprehend what had happened. Then it hit — white-hot and all-consuming, like his arm had been dipped in boiling oil.

He screamed. The sound tore up his throat, animal and raw. His grip shattered, the children slipped from his grasp as he staggered backward, clutching the wound and nearly losing balance as his boots slid in the slick mess spreading beneath him.

His forearm was ruined — just below the wrist there was a jagged crater where flesh had been torn away, the wound pulsing with dark, arterial spurts. Blood coursed down his hand, thick and hot, pattering onto the pavement in heavy drops.

“FUCK!” he roared, voice cracking under the weight of pain. His pulse pounded in his ears. His vision pulsed with it, every heartbeat sending another dizzy flash of white through his skull.

And then, through the haze of pain and disbelief, he looked at the girl.

She crouched low to the ground, her posture strange. The hood of her yellow coat draped forward, concealing most of her face. Her shoulders rose and fell in slow, steady breaths that made the fabric shift. Her hands were painted red up to the wrists. Something glistened in her small fingers — red, wet, fibrous, twitching slightly in the light.

Mark’s stomach twisted as recognition set in.

It was him.

The thing she held was part of his own arm — a ragged, blood-soaked chunk of it. He watched, paralyzed, as the girl pressed it to her mouth, bit down, and began to chew.

The sound was wrong. It was not the soft crunch of food, but a deep, wet rhythm — the suction of blood, the grind of teeth through meat. It echoed faintly in the confined alley, amplified by its walls.

When she was done, she swallowed and lifted her head, her gaze on him.

Her hood fell back enough for light to catch her face. Her lips were a smeared red curve. Blood ran down her chin in thin lines, painting the pale skin. Her coat was no longer yellow but drenched in dull crimson, blood covering most of her attire. She smiled — not with delight or cruelty, but with the dull, satisfied contentment of a creature that had simply found something to eat.

Mark’s entire body convulsed in shock. He stumbled backward, boots scraping over the concrete, his mind struggling to process what his eyes were seeing. The alley warped around him — the bricks, the light, everything spinning, blurring into a nauseating whirl of gray and red.

“What—what the hell—what the hell are you?!” Mark screamed. His voice cracked halfway through, rising to a near shriek.

The girl tilted her head slightly, seemingly in curiosity. Then she started walking toward him.

Each movement was unhurried, fluid — the slow prowl of a predator hunting her prey.

Mark could feel it now. He didn’t know how, but he felt it — an invisible pulse radiating from her, thick and suffocating, pressing against his chest. It wasn’t rage. It wasn’t even malice. It was hunger. Cold, endless, instinctive want. The raw, indifferent pull of something that wanted only to consume.

Behind her, the boy with the paper bag on his head hadn’t moved. He just stood there, silent, watching everything with certain apathy. He was not trying to help her, not trying to stop her. Just… watching. Like someone who’d seen this before.

He tried to take a step back, but his heel slid in the puddle of his own blood, sending him crashing backward onto the cold pavement. The sound that escaped his throat was half grunt, half whimper. He tasted copper and grit. His ruined arm hung uselessly at his side, the wound throbbing with each sluggish beat of his heart — a rhythm that felt like a countdown.

He pressed his back against the wall, gasping, blinking through the blur of sweat and tears and pain. His breath came ragged, hot. His good hand — trembling, slick with blood — groped behind him, searching for the concealed gun tucked into his waistband.

“S–stay the fuck back!” he barked, the words tumbling out, high-pitched and broken. His fingers found the gun’s grip and clutched it like salvation.

But before he could pull it out, the air around the girl changed.

A black vapor seeped from her small frame, thick and oily. It crawled outward in slow, rippling tendrils, twisting through the air as though tasting it. The stench hit next — rot and metal, the smell of things long dead. The mist moved with purpose, like a living thing, coiling and uncoiling before suddenly honing on him, flying through the alley in lighting speed.

“Oh…” He muttered faintly, realization flickering through the haze. “So you’re a cape.”

The mist reached him before he could blink.

Something unseen pressed against his chest, and suddenly he was hollowing out from within. His heart stumbled — a beat, a skip, another. The warmth fled first, retreating from his fingertips and toes, seeping upward like a receding tide. His breath caught mid-chest and wouldn’t come back. His muscles locked, then softened, the strength sliding out of them.

He could feel it leaving him — that invisible force, that vital spark that made him Mark Davidson. Like something invisible had reached into his core  and began pulling it apart, thread by thread. Every second was a peeling — a slow unravelling of warmth, of awareness, of self.

The world dulled. Pavement lost texture, nearby objects lost shape, everything went silent. His pain shrank into a faint pressure somewhere far away. He became weightless, formless, an echo of a man watching himself fade.

His body sagged sideways, sliding down the wall. His mouth opened — to scream, to curse, to beg — but no sound followed. Even his voice had been taken.

When he hit the ground, he was no longer even sure whether his eyes were open.

The girl approached him.

The mist curled lovingly around her legs, rising higher, draping her in a shifting mantle of black. It didn’t cling to her — it was part of her, like shadow to shape.

When she stopped, she stood above him, her eyes finally visible.

And in her eyes…

There was no kinship, no understanding, no mercy to be found, only overwhelming indifference of nature. There was no secret there to be found somewhere deep inside, her eyes containing only a half-bored interest in food.

Girl in front of him was a beast, one of the articulate vileness and baseness and obscenity. Animal, whose sole purpose was to devour and spread the misery it carried. Nature’s harmony of overwhelming and collective murder, primordial simplicity that men wanted to make more complex out of existential fear. An ancient sort of indifference —a kind of hunger that had no beginning and no end.

The girl’s small hands, sticky and cold with his gore, closed gently around Mark’s head. There was no hesitation, no fury — only the act of nature reclaiming what belonged to it.

The world dimmed. The alley bled away into gray, then black. His heartbeat staggered, faltered, and fell silent. His final thoughts flickered and faded like a dying ember.

Then, nothing.

He was gone long before the first sounds of the feast began — the soft, wet rhythm of tearing and chewing that filled the narrow alley.