Soot. It was everywhere. It was on his hands, on his white shirt, on his pants and his hair! He was staring at the street portals of the crumbling city sporting his best expression of disgust yet. Their entrances were covered in soot too. Sweat was rolling from his temples, trickling down his cheek. He wiped his face with his forearm and winced at the scratching sensation of the rubbed black dust on his skin. A bus drove by and he closed his eyes hard, avoiding the blow of black smoke shooting from the exhaust pipe, holding his breath for a few seconds. He had learned the lesson on his first day touring about the decomposing capital, nee Paradise of the Caribbean. It was Hell Island that’s what! Soot and all! Hot and the smell of sulfur included. It was more like raw petrol, but who was he to accurately describe what muggle underworld smelled like? He only knew his own Hell, and he had been there and back. He had concluded that there wasn’t just one, but an infinity of Hells. It was not a location. It was a concept. A personalized state of mind that surrounds your existence like the bubble of a cast Protego, except it was more like a prison. He was still standing on the sidewalk staring now at the blackened pavement full of cracks. Cracks were also all over the city. Every street, every building was holding on cracks, defying gravity. As if magic was the one thing keeping it together, but there was no magic here. He had yet to find the slightest trace. This was supposed to be an easy mission. How hard could it be to track a witch on a forgotten island one hundred percent populated with muggles? They were everywhere, walking around like hordes of mesmerized inferi. Disappointment written on their soot dusted faces. Ok, he was tripping now. The heat of the sun was starting to play a number in his head. 