The night in Crosstown was a fever that wouldn't break. The heat didn't just sit in the air; it owned it like a thick, suffocating pressure that made every breath feel like inhaling steam. It was the kind of heat that turned the town's lights into a blurry, shimmering haze.
Residents could hardly sleep in the uncomfortable heat. Most loitered on the streets, searching for damp pieces of earth on which to sleep or sit.
Worse than the heat--or comparable to it in bad terms were the mutated mosquitoes which ravaged the town. They were as big as sparrows and moved in swarms, like dense clouds. Their buzzing was constant and maddening, drowning out 80% of other sounds. Their bites left behind swollen welts that festered as if they injected small stones beneath the skin.
