The rain in Tredex City didn't just fall; it judged. It was a thick, oily downpour that turned the neon signs of the Cobalt District into blurred smears of pink and green against the black asphalt. Detective Samson sat in his battered sedan, the windshield wipers struggling against the deluge. He looked at his hand. Between his thumb and forefinger, a faint, iridescent blue glow pulsed beneath the skin. It wasn't a bruise, and it wasn't a stain. It felt like a heartbeat that didn't belong to him.
"Focus, Samson," he grunted to his reflection in the rearview mirror. His eyes were bloodshot, the eyes of a man who hadn't slept since the harbor murders began.
The harbor cases were impossible. Three bodies found in three weeks, each drained of blood, but with no wounds. Only a single, intricate symbol carved into the concrete beside them—a geometric maze that seemed to shift if you stared at it too long. The "Enigma," the tabloids called it. But to Samson, it felt like a mocking greeting from a past he couldn't remember.
He stepped out of the car, his trench coat immediately heavy with water. He was headed to the Old Clock Tower to see Baba Seventh. In Tredex, when the forensics failed, you went to the fringe.
The tower was a skeletal remains of the colonial era, its gears rusted into a permanent scream. Samson climbed the stairs, his boots echoing with a hollow thud-thud-thud that seemed to wake up the shadows. At the top sat Baba Seventh, a man whose eyes were the color of curdled milk.
"You carry too many shadows today, Detective," the old man whispered before Samson could even speak. "They are dragging your coat like hungry children."
"I don't have time for the juju talk, Baba," Samson said, leaning against a rotting beam. "The harbor marks. Tell me what they mean."
The blind man reached out, his hand trembling as he caught the air near Samson's face. "The world thinks you are blind, Samson, because you see only what is in front of you. But I see the 'Wind People' dancing around you. They remember you. They remember the man with the brass-bound ledger."
Samson felt a cold spike of dread. He had been having blackouts—hours where he would disappear and wake up in strange places with the taste of copper in his mouth.
"What ledger?" Samson demanded.
"The one you used to build this labyrinth," Baba Seventh replied, his white eyes widening as if seeing a ghost behind the Detective. "Tredex isn't just a city, Samson. It's a cage. And you were the architect. The spirits say the Enigma is your signature. It's a map of the things you buried because the truth was too heavy to carry."
Suddenly, the tower felt too small. A wet, dragging sound—schlick, thud, schlick—began to descend from the rafters. Samson pulled his service weapon, his heart hammering. "Who's there?"
"It is you, Samson," the blind man whispered, terrified. "Or what's left of the you that lived eighty years ago. It wants its memory back."
The dragging sound intensified, and for a split second, the world flickered. The rotting wood of the tower replaced itself with white marble and golden light. Samson saw himself—younger, eyes glowing with that same iridescent blue—writing frantically in a massive book.
"To save the city, we must make it forget," his own voice echoed in his mind.
Then, the vision snapped. He was back in the dark, the blue ink on his hand throbbing with a violent, freezing heat. He didn't stay to hear the rest. He bolted down the stairs, the laughter of the blind man following him into the rain. He needed answers. He needed a scientist, or a sinner. He needed the Chemist.