"Truth isn't hidden in darkness. It's encoded there."
It was raining again—not the kind of rain that washes cities clean, but the kind that drowns them in silence.
Blackridge had always sounded like this: hollow, like a confession whispered in an empty chapel.
Elijah Graves stood by the window, sleeves rolled up, wrists pale against the flickering amber light of his old desk lamp. His breath fogged the glass.
The apartment smelled of coffee he hadn't touched, and case files he hadn't burned.
Ten years ago, the Veil Killer vanished.
No one caught him.
No one forgot him.
Especially not Elijah.
A package slid through the door.
Thick paper. Red wax. A zodiac-like seal melted into the stamp.
He froze.
Then came the tremble. A gut-deep dread he hadn't felt in a decade.
Elijah stepped toward it slowly, like the floor might give way. He crouched, picked up the package, and stared at the seal. The symbol etched into the wax wasn't just familiar—it was personal. It was the cipher symbol that marked the last unsolved murder of the Veil Killer.
He opened it.
Inside: a single cipher written in blood-red ink, and an old photo—black-and-white, slightly curled at the edges.
A crime scene.
He recognized the alley instantly.
But it wasn't the location that stunned him.
It was the man in the photo.
Standing behind the police tape.
It was him.
Elijah Graves.
But he had no memory of ever being there.
"This… isn't real," he whispered.
The room darkened around him. The light from the desk lamp flickered once. Twice. Then held steady.
A hallucination, maybe. Or something worse.
He looked back down at the cipher.
It pulsed.
A low, almost inaudible hum—as if the ink was alive.
His hand moved involuntarily, reaching out to touch the edges of the code.
Then the whisper came.
"Come back."
He dropped the paper and stumbled backward. His breath caught in his throat, chest rising fast, heartbeat thundering in his ears.
In the bathroom mirror, a shadow flickered.
Behind him.
He turned quickly.
Nothing.
He moved to the corner of the room and knelt beside his bed. Reaching underneath, he pulled out a metal trunk with rusted hinges.
Inside: old forensics tools, a revolver, a faded badge, and a thick folder.
The label: VEIL CASE – CLOSED.
He brought the box to the table and laid it out.
The old badge felt heavier than he remembered. The revolver hadn't been loaded in years.
But the file—the file was ready.
He pinned the photo to the corkboard.
Taped the cipher beside it.
Threaded the first red string across ten years of silence.
"If he's back… then so am I."
Glass shattered.
Elijah turned just in time to see a figure drop through the window. Hooded. Masked. Silent as smoke.
The intruder didn't speak.
Didn't hesitate.
Didn't breathe.
Not a thief.
Not a stalker.
A Cipher Hunter.
The cipher on his gloves glowed red. Symbols burned on contact as he stepped forward with blade in hand.
The first real clue in a decade had arrived.
And it came with steel.
Elijah reached for the revolver.
Not to kill.
But to survive.
🌀 To be continued…