The rain didn't just fall that night.....it whispered.
Every drop carried a sound, a secret, a faint hum that only the sleepless city could hear. Neon lights pulsed weakly through the downpour, painting the cracked sidewalks of Ash Street in sickly hues of blue and red. The night smelled of wet iron and burnt incense.... an odd combination that made Detective Taye Daramola frown as he ducked beneath the flickering tape line.
He had been called to many crime scenes in his ten years on the force, but this one felt wrong. The kind of wrong that made the air heavier, thicker.... like the city itself was holding its breath.
"Victim's name is Adamu Kareem," Inspector Nnena Okeke said, her voice tight. "Male, thirty-two. Works at the port. Same pattern as the last three."
Taye crouched beside the body, the rain dripping from his trench coat onto the puddle that shimmered around the corpse. Not just any puddle,this one glittered faintly, like crushed stars swirling in dirty water.
He reached out with a gloved hand, brushing the edge of the man's neck. There it was again...that strange circular mark intersected by three crescents, glowing faintly beneath the skin.
"No burns," he murmured. "No wounds. It's like something just… took him apart from the inside."
Nnena shivered. "Lab said there's no trace of blood. Whatever's inside them… evaporates."
Taye didn't reply. He'd seen too many deaths, but none like these. The reports called it spontaneous incineration, but that wasn't what he saw. This wasn't heat. This was extraction. Something or someone.... was taking what made these people human and leaving only the shell.
He rose slowly, eyes scanning the alley. The walls were soaked black, tagged with graffiti and old posters. There were no footprints, no fingerprints, nothing disturbed except the faint scent of burnt sage that clung to the air.
Then he noticed it....on the far wall, a faint smear of ash-gray light, barely visible until the lightning flashed. It formed the same three crescents.
"Taye," Nnena called, "you think this is ritualistic?"
"Not ritual," he said quietly. "Too clean. Too deliberate."
He turned to face her, his dark eyes catching the light for a brief moment. "This isn't human work. Whatever did this...."
"....doesn't leave evidence?" she finished.
He nodded. "Only warnings."
The rain intensified, drumming against metal dumpsters. Somewhere distant, a church bell tolled three times, the same hour the last victim died. Taye checked his watch: 2:59 a.m.
And that was when the world changed.
The sound faded first. The rain's roar turned to silence, each droplet freezing mid-fall, suspended like a thousand tiny mirrors. Even the light seemed to pause, flickering once, then holding its breath.
"Taye…" Nnena's voice trembled. "Do you feel that?"
He didn't answer. He was staring upward.
On the roof across from them stood a woman.
She wasn't wearing a coat, yet the rain didn't touch her. A white cloak wrapped around her form, glimmering faintly like woven moonlight. Her hair, long and dark, moved even though the air was still. But her eyes....her eyes burned gold, bright enough to reflect in every suspended raindrop around her.
She looked at him as if she already knew who he was.
"Taye Daramola," she said. Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried....echoing through the stillness like a prayer half remembered. "You shouldn't have followed the ash."
His name on her lips froze him.
No one outside the department knew he was on this case.
Before he could move, the world snapped back.
Sound exploded, thunder cracked, rain crashed down all at once, soaking his coat. The rooftop was empty. She was gone.
Taye's heart pounded. He ran forward, splashing through the puddle, scanning the rooftops, the street corners, the alleyway. Nothing. Just rain, darkness, and that eerie shimmer of ash.
Nnena's hand gripped his shoulder. "What happened? You just....stopped. Did you see something?"
He hesitated. He could tell her the truth.... that a woman appeared from nowhere, froze time, and spoke his name...but even aying it out loud felt insane.
"Nothing," he lied, his voice low. "Just thought I saw lightning."
But when he turned back to the body, his stomach dropped.
The ash around the victim was moving..... swirling slowly like smoke underwater. The faint mark on the neck pulsed once, glowing brighter than before, the same shade of gold as her eyes.
Nnena gasped. "What the hell...."
Then it stopped. Everything went still again, normal, almost calm.
Taye exhaled, forcing control back into his voice. "Bag him. Get him to the morgue. And Nnena...."
"Yeah?"
"Seal off this street. No one leaves, no one enters. Not until I say so."
She frowned. "You think the killer's still here?"
He looked up at the sky, rain running down his face. "No," he said quietly. "She already came."
---
By the time he got back to his car, the city had started to wake. Vendors lit lanterns under dripping awnings, and the scent of fried yam mixed with the sharp smell of ozone. He sat behind the wheel for a long moment, staring at the raindrops streaking across the windshield.
His reflection stared back....tired eyes, a day's stubble, the weary face of a man who believed in logic but had just seen it crumble.
He rubbed the back of his neck, where a faint tingling had started. When he glanced in the mirror, he swore he saw a faint golden flicker behind his own pupils... gone as quickly as it appeared.
The words echoed again in his head, soft and haunting.
> "You shouldn't have followed the ash."
He didn't know who she was or how she knew him, but one thing was certain:
This case wasn't just another murder.
It was a message.
And somehow, the message was meant for him.
---
When dawn finally broke, Ash Street was still cordoned off. Officers milled around the taped perimeter, but Taye remained in his car, staring at the file on his dashboard. Four victims. Same mark. Same shimmering residue. Same impossible silence before the world snapped.
He opened his notebook and scribbled a single line under the case number:
> "The woman in white — eyes like gold fire. Knew my name."
The ink bled slightly from the moisture in the air, spreading like smoke across the page. He shut the book and leaned back, exhausted.
In the distance, thunder murmured again... faint, almost like laughter.
The city would call it another unsolved mystery.
But deep down, Taye Daramola already knew...
This wasn't the beginning of a case.
It was the beginning of a calling.