Come, now, to the crossroads of your life...

They used to build shrines at crossroads. Bury criminals, too. It was right to do so, because everyone knows one thing to be true - you do not stay still at a crossroads. You do not stand idle - you choose. Do you know why, truly? Do you know that the unsettling feeling, the aversion, to standing still at an intersection of ways, is because you fear the thinness of the veil between worlds?

Crossroads are not built on these ripples between the above and below. They become them. So many people, so many minds, so many ways. The mental clamour of a thousand voices, a thousand pains, a thousand decisions...

How many, do you think, until a demon hears?

How many, before she offers a simple solution to all your troubles?

...When you think about it, any city alleyway is a crossroads. Small, sure, but how many have still walked past, their anguish leaking into the skein between worlds? How many secret trysts between buildings shine like beacons to the beyond?

How many have stood, and wished... how long before one is offered such a simple solution, written in a mere trifle of blood and bone...?

And what a price to pay...