The coffee cost more than his lunch for a week.
That was the point.
If the world was going to end, he wanted one last thing to be clean. Hot. Bitter. Real.
Across the street, the police station sat under harsh fluorescent light—glass, brushed steel, the kind of brightness that made you feel guilty for having shadows. The front doors slid open and shut like gills.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Every time they opened, he felt it in his teeth.
He didn't go in.
Not yet.
He kept his back to the café window and watched the station through the reflection in his cup. Looking at it straight-on made his stomach twist, as if the building could see him back.
A stupid superstition.
He didn't do those.
He cleaned noise for a living. Digital filth. Bad faith. Things that weren't supposed to exist.
Tonight, something that wasn't supposed to exist had looked at him through a screen.
He stirred the coffee even though it didn't need stirring. The spoon clinked against ceramic.
A small sound.
An anchor.
His right hand wouldn't stop trembling.
Not from caffeine.
Not from cold.
From the other kind of anticipation. The kind your body carries when it knows something your brain refuses to say out loud.
He took a sip.
Too hot.
It burned his tongue.
Good.
Pain was honest.
He glanced at his phone.
23:47.
No notifications. No calls. No messages.
Silence meant the system had already made a decision.
He set the phone face down like it was contagious.
Outside, the street was almost empty. Late-night traffic passed in soft, indifferent waves. A scooter cut through the light, then vanished.
The city was doing what it always did.
Pretending tomorrow was guaranteed.
A server in a black apron drifted past his table and stopped, polite caution in her eyes.
"You okay?" she asked.
He looked up, surprised by how far away her voice sounded.
He tried to answer like a normal person.
Yeah.
Fine.
The words stuck behind his teeth.
He forced one out. "Yeah."
It came out flat.
Her smile tightened. "You've been staring at the station for a while."
He didn't respond.
She lowered her voice. "Are you… waiting for someone in there? Or… should I call someone?"
A misunderstanding. A human one.
It should have been comforting.
Instead, it made his throat close.
He shook his head. Small. Controlled. "No. I'm fine."
She held his gaze for a second longer than necessary, then nodded. "Okay. Just… don't make me regret not asking again."
She walked away.
He watched her go and hated himself for it—not because she was pretty, but because she belonged to the normal world. Closing shifts. Rent. Weekend plans. A future that didn't care about midnight.
He'd been bored yesterday.
He missed bored.
Across the street, a uniformed officer stepped out, cigarette already in his mouth. He leaned beneath the station sign and exhaled smoke into the night.
In the café window, the smoke looked like fog.
In the reflection, the fog looked thicker than it should have.
He blinked.
Just smoke.
He'd been awake too long. He hadn't slept since—
He stopped the thought mid-step.
No.
That was the line. The one he didn't cross.
Thinking was how it got hooks in.
If he walked his mind all the way back to the moment he saw the file, it would unfold again. Vivid. Complete.
And completeness was what it wanted.
On the table beside his cup, a paper receipt lay folded into a tight rectangle. The café had printed it without asking. His name would be on it if he'd paid by card.
He hadn't.
He didn't want his name on anything.
He didn't want paper trails.
It wasn't paranoia. Not exactly.
It was a feeling—like standing too close to a cliff edge in the dark. You didn't need to see the drop to know it was there.
Names were… heavy.
He couldn't explain that, either.
He ran his thumb along the cup's rim, slow and careful. The ceramic was smooth. Heat seeped into his skin.
"Stay small," he muttered.
The wave-sound came again.
Not with his ears.
With the back of his skull.
Soft. Distant. Like surf against a far shore.
Impossible. The city wasn't on the coast. There was no wind tonight. No weather. No reason for waves.
The sound didn't care about reasons.
He looked around the café.
No one reacted.
The espresso machine hissed. Someone laughed. A student hunched over a laptop, earbuds in, face lit blue.
Only him hearing the ocean where there was none.
He dug his nails into his palm.
Anchor.
Anchor.
Across the street, the officer finished his cigarette and tossed the butt into a bin. The sliding doors opened behind him.
Someone in plain clothes stepped out.
Tall. Coat too thin for the season. Shoes too clean for the sidewalk.
The man paused beneath the station sign and looked straight at the café.
Not at the windows.
At him.
The distance was too far to see eyes.
He felt them anyway.
His throat tightened. His tongue tasted faintly of salt.
The café became too bright. Too loud. Too near.
The man lifted one hand—not a wave. Not greeting.
Acknowledgment.
Then he turned and walked away into the dark.
Not into the station.
Away from it.
That should have been comforting.
Instead it felt like someone had checked a box.
He reached for his phone without thinking. Flipped it face up.
23:51.
Still no notifications.
His fingers opened apps and closed them, hunting for a familiar rhythm.
He stopped when he realized what he was doing.
He wasn't looking for information.
He was looking for permission to panic.
He set the phone down again.
His reflection in the black glass looked pale. Not sick pale.
Moon pale.
Underwater pale.
He swallowed.
The burn on his tongue had faded. The coffee was cooling.
That made him irrationally angry.
He wanted to stand up and demand a fresh cup like a normal person.
He wanted to worry about something small.
Instead, he listened.
The surf-sound shifted.
Closer now.
Like something breathing under asphalt.
His phone vibrated.
Once.
A single, sharp pulse.
He stared at the screen without touching it, like it might bite.
There was a notification banner.
No app icon. No sender.
Just text.
**LOW TIDE: 00:00**
His stomach dropped.
He tapped it.
Nothing opened.
No thread. No history. No contact.
Just the same words, now centered on a blank screen like a verdict.
**LOW TIDE: 00:00**
And beneath it, smaller. Clinical.
**CASE ID: LT-00:00-001**
He tried to swipe it away.
The banner vanished. The Case ID remained, faintly embossed into the lock screen like a watermark.
He looked up.
Outside, the streetlights flickered.
Not all at once.
One by one, like dominoes falling down the avenue.
A block away, a traffic light sputtered, then died.
In the café, the music didn't change. The espresso machine hissed again. The student typed.
No one noticed the lights failing.
Because it wasn't outside.
Not really.
He stood so abruptly his chair scraped the floor.
Heads turned. The server looked up, eyebrows raised.
He forced a breath into his lungs. Forced his face into something neutral.
"Sorry," he said. "Just—air."
He left a bill on the table. Too much. He didn't care.
He walked out like a man going to the bathroom.
Like a man who wasn't about to step into something that had been waiting with infinite patience.
The night air hit him.
Cold. Clean.
And underneath it—
Salt.
He crossed the sidewalk toward the station.
Stopped.
One step. Two.
The sliding doors opened. A pair of officers stepped out, talking, laughing quietly at some private joke.
Human laughter.
Concrete walls.
Rules that wore uniforms.
He almost ran at them.
He almost did.
His foot moved—half a step forward—and froze.
Because his phone buzzed again.
A second pulse.
A new line appeared under the first.
**INJUNCTION I: NO FULL NAMES.**
He read it twice.
Three times.
His mouth went dry.
Behind him, the café door opened. Someone stepped out, phone to their ear, voice loud with confidence.
"…yeah, I'm outside the station now. I told you. I'm meeting—"
They said a name.
Not a nickname.
A full name.
Clear as a signature.
Thrown into the air like a coin into a fountain.
The streetlight above them flickered.
Their shadow—just for a blink—stuck to the pavement as if nailed.
They kept talking.
Unaware.
He took one step back.
Then another.
The surf-sound rose, thick and close now, like water filling a room.
He looked at the station doors again.
For a second they seemed farther away than they should be.
As if distance had become negotiable.
He looked down at his phone.
23:59.
The second hand on the clock above the station entrance moved.
One.
Two.
Three.
Somewhere in the dark between streetlights, something tried his name on its tongue.
Not right.
Not complete.
Just an ugly syllable. Then a pause.
Then a better attempt.
00:00.
The street went quiet.
Not silent.
Quiet in the way a courtroom goes quiet when the judge enters.
He felt it in his bones.
And in that hush, a sound landed that wasn't a sound at all—
A decision.
Like a gavel falling behind the world's face.
Low Tide had begun.
And the first notice had already been served.
The police station doors slid open.And didn't show a lobby.
They showed black water—motionless, waiting—like a courtroom that had drowned and kept its silence.
The station sign above the entrance changed without changing.Not letters. Not ink.A weight.
JURISDICTION: LOW TIDE.
Then the asphalt across the street began to peel.