24 December 2025 – Chicago Time: 22:14
Chicago's nickname, "The Windy City," felt less like a warning and more like a threat tonight. The icy air from Lake Michigan whistled through the skyscrapers, rattling the last Christmas lights on the street. The city was bathed in the false glow of holiday bustle. But beneath Dawson Bridge, darkness remained in its usual place.Michael Hale pulled up the collar of his black coat. His shoes made a hollow sound on the wet asphalt.
He knew he shouldn't have come here. This wasn't a crime scene for him; it was where his soul was buried.Exactly 15 years ago, in the same month, in the same cold..."Dr Hale?"The voice from behind pulled Michael out of that bottomless pit. When he turned around, he saw Detective Natalia Reyes. Natalia was clutching her coffee cup tightly, looking at him with her nose red from the cold.
"You're late," Natalia said to Michael, who couldn't take his eyes off the bridge's rusty iron. "I didn't think you'd come here outside of working hours."Michael smiled slightly. But the smile didn't reach his eyes. "Sometimes cases aren't solved in files, Natalia. The place has a memory.""What do you think about this case?" Natalia pointed to the yellow crime scene tape at the foot of the bridge.
Michael stepped over the tape. There, lying on the ground, was the lifeless body of a 19-year-old boy. He looked as if he had been caught in the middle of a fight; his face was bruised, his clothes torn. But the most striking detail was the old, rusty key clenched tightly in the boy's hand.Michael knelt down beside the boy. In that moment, a flash of insight struck him.The year 2010. The sound of Vince's bones breaking as he hit the ground. Elara's scream."He fought," Michael said, his voice so low it was almost lost in the wind. "But not to escape, to hide something. This boy isn't a victim, he's a courier.""Whose courier?"Michael did not answer. He noticed a small piece of paper hanging from the young man's pocket, covered by the black leather glove in his hand.
Without Natalia seeing, he took the paper between his fingers with professional dexterity and slipped it into his pocket.Time: 23:45Michael's Office – Wacker DriveThe office windows looked out onto the dark city. Michael opened the paper under the dim light on his desk. There was only one sentence written on it:"Some sins keep breathing, even when concrete is poured over them."Michael's heart began to beat rapidly, just like it had that night 15 years ago. This couldn't be a coincidence. No one knew about that night. His father, Richard, had cleaned everything up.
The concrete pouring site, the deleted reports, the silenced witnesses...Just then, the phone on his desk vibrated. A message from an unknown number cut through the silence like a knife.Sender: Anonymous"Dates don't lie, Michael. 24 December 2010. The hour Vince D'Angelo fell off the bridge. Do you remember? Or did you believe that fake story your father wrote too?"Michael dropped the phone. He didn't let his hands tremble.
He put on the cool-headed mask he had cultivated over the years. But when he looked at his reflection in the mirror, he saw not a respected psychologist, but that 19-year-old boy with blood on his hands.A voice rose from the darkness in the corner of the room. No, not a voice, a ghost."The game has begun, Michael," his mind whispered.Michael opened the secret compartment under his desk. Inside was an old file left by his father, untouched for years. Only one name was written on the file: Asher Burke.Chicago slept outside. But for Michael, fifteen years of silence had ended. He would no longer just run away; he would rewrite the rules of this game to bring down those who created it.Like a ghost returning after years.