Derek Mendez stepped off the tram at Platform Nine with a duffel bag over his shoulder and blood on his mind.
The platform was crowded with people in layered coats and gas masks, steam clouding around their ankles like fog. He moved through them like a ghost—silent, unreadable, scarred by years no one could see.
The naval insignia stitched to his collar was dull and cracked. It had been six months since he'd set foot on Nocturnian soil, and it felt like the city had grown meaner in his absence. More rust. More wires. More stares.
He took a tram to the South Quarter. Past the blinking neon towers of the Skywalk District. Past the stacked shanties of the Shadowbend. Past anything that could be called "safe."
His apartment building leaned like it was trying to fall, but couldn't quite commit. He climbed the stairs quietly, instinctually—still trained for stealth, even after all this time. Second floor. Room 209.
The door was cracked open.
He froze.
"Dani?" he called, his voice low. Tired. But underneath it—a note of warning.
No answer.
He stepped inside.
The lights were off, but moonlight poured in through the broken blinds. The smell hit him first—iron and oil. Then he saw her.
Dani.
She stood—no, she hung—in the center of the room. Her body suspended by a long, segmented chain, coiled around her like a serpent. The links gleamed with embedded kunai blades, each one buried deep into her flesh. Her arms were stretched outward, crucified in mid-air. Her eyes… wide open. Still.
Derek didn't scream.
He couldn't.
His legs gave out. He dropped to his knees, reached for her, trembling—but before he could move another inch—
CRACK.
Something slammed into the back of his head. The world tilted. His vision blurred. The last thing he saw was Dani's lifeless eyes, and the kunai glinting in the moonlight.
Then darkness.