Time/Date: TC1853.01.18 (Dawn)
Location: Riverside Boarding House, Brenner Estate, Explosion Site
The city barely breathed in the hour before dawn. First vendors pushed carts through empty streets, their wheels clattering against cobblestones like hesitant heartbeats. Factory workers trudged toward shifts, faces still soft with sleep. Above the rooftops, the sky lightened from black to deep purple—that thin hour when night releases its grip but day hasn't quite claimed victory.
Inside Cottage 7 of the Riverside Boarding House, furniture sat covered in dust sheets. No occupant. Hadn't been for days. Just an empty room that Serenya didn't know was empty, with a timer behind the maintenance panel counting down its final seconds.
00:00:10... 09... 08...
The spark mechanism primed. Gas concentration reached critical levels—the room had been filling for hours, colorless and odorless, waiting. Chemical accelerant vaporized into the saturated air.
00:00:03... 02... 01...
