Morning came like a bruise—purple-grey clouds over a city that didn’t sleep, only shifted. The alarm didn’t ring.

Jake Sterner was already upright, boots laced, badge catching the thinnest slice of dawn reflecting. His image in the mirror looked like it owed him an apology. Coffee hissed as it met the cracked mug. Bitter. No sugar.

He glanced at a photo on the wall of his wife smiling. Now to experience the same thing again, Jake would have deemed it impossible. His wife wasn't in his house. She had gone away for business. 

Nothing sweet lasted here.

He flipped open the newspaper, neatly folded, fingers going over the fine material, before his eyes hit the headline:

 “POLICE OFFICER, 42, FOUND MUTILATED IN ALLEY. SUSPECTED GANG KILLING.

The mug stopped mid-air. Steam curled into the silence.His lips pressed tight. One more name on a growing list of dead uniforms. He folded the paper slowly, the way you fold old clothes of the deceased—not for use, just out of habit. His knuckles cracked. He left the paper on the counter like it was already history.

Outside, the city, Ashford coughed itself awake. Sirens whined. Tires screamed. Somewhere, someone was still sleeping. Jake took his keys without a word. The engine hummed like it knew the way. He didn’t turn on the radio. There was nothing left to listen to. The only sound was the beat of his own mind, pacing behind his eyes.

It didn't scare him that he would be killed by the gangs if he took a wrong step. It irritated him that he had to live with that. He was planning to leave the city as soon as possible.

Ashford was rotting from the bones outward. And he needed to pick out the exit wound.

Police Station – 9:30 AM

The precinct smelled like old coffee, wet carpet, and something worse—like the grief that had been left out overnight. The kind of place where voices went to hang themselves.

Jake walked in and time slowed. Heads turned. Conversations paused mid-sentence and never resumed.

The board near the entrance was peeling, lined with yellowed case files and photographs faded like dying memories. Red string webbed across it, pointless connections between names long buried.

He didn’t stop.

At his desk, another stack. Faces ruined, eyes blurred, crime scene gloss on matte paper. He didn’t look away this time. He let it crawl into him.

Not one single person made a sound, even Peter, who was a living chatterbox.

“Well then, who died?“ Jake asked.

Frank slid another newspaper across Jake’s desk. No headline needed. The front page bled red.

“FORMER CHIEF OF POLICE DANNY VEGA, 49, FOUND DEAD IN ALLEY. MUTILATION SUGGESTS GANG INVOLVEMENT.”

Jake stared. Long enough for the print to blur.

Danny Vega. Gone.

He exhaled, sharp and crooked. Not a breath. A razor slice of disbelief.

The Mayor’s portrait smiled down the hall. Plastic grin. Soft eyes. A relic of cowardice.

“Peace through patience,” the Mayor once said, standing at a podium. “Ignore them, and they'll vanish.”

Jake crushed the paper in his hand.

“This city can’t be saved with bedtime stories,” he muttered.

The room stayed quiet. Even the rookies kept silent.

Frank cleared his throat like it hurt. “Found at 2:17 AM. No chance of survival. The scene was… gruesome. They seemed to have a vendetta with him.”

Jake looked up. His voice scraped the air. “I’ll take the case. Alone. This info stays here.”

Murmurs followed. Heads nodded.

Peter spoke cautiously. “One eye witness. Shell-shocked. He’s in Interrogation.”

Jake shook his head. “Not yet. First… I need to see him.”

—

Hospital Morgue 

The drive blurred. Sirens didn’t matter. Lights passed like ghosts in the rearview. Jake kept one hand on the wheel, the other clenched around nothing. The world outside looked like it had lost all color—just shades of ash and surrender.

They led him through sterile corridors humming with quiet despair. Each fluorescent light above flickered like a warning. Somewhere down the hall, a cart rattled. Somewhere else, a mother cried into folded hands.

The morgue door was already open.

Frank stood by, quiet. He nodded once.

Jake stepped in. His boots clicked against tile. The sound didn’t echo—it hung.

The sheet was white. Tucked tight. Too clean. Too respectful for the kind of man Vega was.

Jake reached out. His hand shook. Just a little. Like something inside had come loose.

He pulled.

And the smell hit first.

Not rot. Not formaldehyde. Char. Blackened meat. The scent of something sacred defiled in fire.

The thing on the table used to be Danny Vega.

But now?

Now he was scorched. His chest was caved in and burnt through, ribs blackened and warped like old iron left too long in flame. His jaw was fractured, teeth gone—shattered or melted. His left arm was fused at the elbow from the heat, the skin blistered into something alien. One eye remained intact. Just one. Wide open. Bloodshot. Staring at nothing.

Jake stumbled.

He grabbed the edge of the gurney like it might save him. His knees wanted to buckle. His spine refused to.

“Jesus…” he whispered. But even the Lord wouldn’t show up for this.

The body was more message than corpse.

They didn’t just kill him. They turned him into a warning. Burnt the justice right out of his bones.

Jake hadn’t cried when his parents died. But now—

His eyes stung.

It wasn’t a sob. It was a crack. Deep in the ribcage. Something snapping open.

One tear slid down. Another followed.

“Danny…”

It tore from him like a confession.

Frank lingered at the door, his face pale. He didn’t interrupt. Didn’t move. Some griefs deserved their moment.

Jake stared at the body like it might blink. Like Danny would sit up, reek of gasoline and grin, and say, “Told you this city doesn’t just kill—it devours.”

But he didn’t.

Jake reached out, brushed a finger against the only unburnt patch of skin—just below the collarbone. It was cold.

He stepped back.

And something inside him didn’t follow.

Something stayed with the corpse.

The part of Jake that still believed in law.

Flashbacks of Danny flooded his brain.

Jake joined the force when Danny Vega still moved like a storm in a badge—quiet, violent, unforgettable. He wasn’t just a Chief back then. He was the city’s watchdog, judge, and executioner rolled into one. And for reasons Jake never understood, Vega took to him instantly. Maybe it was the stillness in Jake’s eyes. Maybe it was the fact he didn’t flinch easily.

His first crime scene with Danny still haunted the back of Jake’s mind like a nail under the skin. Blood baked into the pavement. The stink of burnt flesh curled through the winter air. Limbs scattered across the road like spilt grocery entrails trailing toward the gutter. The other rookies retched behind their hands. Some turned away, choking. Jake just stared, trying to breathe through it.

Danny stood beside him, unmoved, as if death was a language only he could read. A cigarette dangled between his lips, smoke curling into the stink. He nudged a hand with his boot and exhaled slowly.

“Don't let it get to your head. There's a lot more you have to endure.”

A few weeks later, Jake saw the same alley again. Same gutter. The same pattern of blood. But this time, the killer was the corpse—killed in the same way as the previous guy. When Jake asked what happened, Danny didn’t blink. He just let a slow grin creep across his face. It was always a rare opportunity to see him smile, so Jake decide to enjoy the moment instead of questioning any further.

Danny didn’t brag. His stories came out like shrapnel, and never from him, only his fellow colleagues, shell-shocked to even serve him tea. 

One night in a car, Kevin, one of Danny's colleagues told Jake how he once chased a gang biker barefoot across six blocks after losing his boots in a flooded alley. Said he caught the guy by leaping off a dumpster and dragging him down in the middle of the road.

No one else ever heard that story.

—

Rooftop of Jake's House, 12:07 AM, 

Jake had heard some footsteps on the rooftop. Elena was fast asleep near him, so he decided to go check it out.

He walked up half-asleep and saw Danny, standing at the edge, arms folded, his coat fluttering slightly in the night wind. Below, the city blinked in dull neon—tired and twitching. He lit a cigarette like it was a ritual he’d performed a thousand times, the flame briefly catching in his eyes.

Jake approached, his feet clicking against the concrete. “So… what’s the master plan now, Hero? Gonna join the vigilantes or just haunt the alleyways looking dramatic?“

Danny didn’t smile. He took a drag, eyes still pinned to the skyline. “ You'd know I'm in a good mood when I didn't gut you for asking me to join them.

There’s a difference between being done by them and being them. I’m not gonna try either.”

Jake leaned on the ledge beside him, asking for a cigarette. “ You always like speaking in riddles, or is that a new post-suspension skill?”

Danny gave him one, removed his cigarette from his mouth and tapped it against the edge, watching the ash spiral into the dark. “They want us neutered. They wanted us to be vigorously murdered by the so-called gangs. Become a criminal, no one gives a shit. Even if you just murder the entire city population, you'd be lucky if you even get noticed.“

“The badge used to mean something—now it’s a leash. But the ones out there…” He nodded toward the city. “They’re still bleeding. Someone’s got to pick up what they dropped.”

Jake raised a brow. “So, you're going straight to martyrdom.”

Danny ignored that. “I had tracked one of the gang heads. Slipped through my hands once. I didn't want it to happen again.”

Jake tilted his head. “You’re serious. You’re really gonna go lone wolf on these psychos?”

Danny finally looked at him. “Yes.”

Jake scoffed. “Remind me to write that on your gravestone.”

Danny exhaled. “Just promise me something. When your time comes—don’t be scared. This city smells fear.”

Jake glanced at the burning end of the cigarette. “That thing’s gonna kill you before the gangs do.”

Danny threw it over the rooftop without a word. 

Jake asked, “How did you even get in? It's impossible to climb my house. And I would have known if you entered my home.“

Something surprising happened. Danny smiled again. “Goodbye, Mr Sterner. This may be the last time I see you. I recommend you go to sleep now. Convey my greetings to your wife.“

Jake was sceptical but he did what he said. When he entered the house again, he glanced back to see Danny light another cigarette. 

He paused at the top of the stairwell, hand on the railing. “Hey,” he called out, eyes still scanning the shadows. “What was the name of that gang leader?”

Danny didn’t turn around. The hallway light flickered once—twice—and for a moment, his silhouette seemed to freeze.

He said the name, at last, his voice low, almost robotic.

The name drifted into the stale air like smoke from a half-burned page. Jake had no connection to the name. But he could notice Danny shifting uncomfortably.  

Danny threw the cigarette with a trembling hand and took a long drag, eyes locked on the wall like it owed him answers. “An old enemy,” he added, sighing. “Nothing to know about him.”

Jake caught the pause, the twitch in Danny’s jaw. That wasn’t nothing. That was too much wrapped in too little.

As he disappeared down the stairwell, the name lingered in his chest like a whisper behind a locked door.

—

Jake stood at the threshold for a second longer, eyes locked on the corpse. His breath caught—like he was still waiting for Danny to sit up, crack a joke, call him soft for crying. But the silence pressed down like concrete. 

Jake turned without a word, but the sting followed him like a shadow clinging to bone. He gripped the doorframe tighter than needed—his knuckles whitening. He’d told himself Danny wouldn’t live long in this hellhole. But still… it felt like losing the last light in a blackout city.

He wiped his eyes, took one last look at his dead mentor and left him in peace. 

But why did Jake stay? He could’ve vanished when the door cracked open. But he didn’t. He stayed—for Danny, rotting in a drawer. For the nameless innocents buried under sirens and smoke. For the few souls left worth bleeding for… and maybe, just maybe, for himself.

Jake stepped into the car, the door creaking like it resented the silence. The engine growled awake, headlights slicing through the city’s smog. He gripped the wheel tighter than necessary and let the tyres roll toward the forensics lab.

Scene 6: Forensics Lab – 12:06 PM

The lab reeked of bleach. Overhead, fluorescents buzzed in uneven pulses, casting pale slices of light across stainless steel counters and rows of neatly labelled pathology trays. It was quiet—the kind of quiet that screamed.

Jake pushed the door open with his hands, the hinges smoothly agreeing. 

His boots echoed off linoleum, each step dragging shadows behind him.  

The forensics expert, Tony, stood at the door, a good friend of Danny. He didn’t turn right away but he said, “I didn’t want it to be him.”

Jake stopped halfway in. The door clicked shut behind him.

“You’re sure?” His voice scratched out of his throat like sandpaper.

Tony turned back and nodded . Slowly. His fingers found a folder on the table and slid it toward him. He didn’t meet his eyes. “I ran it three times. Dental, fingerprints, tattoos. It’s him."

 Jake opened the folder, flipping to a page marked in red.

He read aloud. “Cause of death—exsanguination from deep abdominal lacerations."

Tony exclaimed. "This was planned so well. They stabbed him with such precision that they missed his organs. Looks like something a surgeon would have done. Five of them. Long, curved. Clean entry. Blade was wide. Single edge.” 

He paused. “They were some katanas. I’d stake my license on it.”

Jake’s breath caught. “And before that?” he asked.

Tony nodded towards another page. “He was drugged. Enough to knock out a rhino. Ketamine, diazepam, something else—something experimental. Slowed his reflexes. Messed with motor control. He wouldn’t have been able to stand straight, let alone fight back. Heck, maybe he wouldn't even recognize you or the person who did this.”

Jake’s fingers curled on the edge of the table. White knuckles, veins like ropes.

“They wanted him alive when they started,” he said. “They wanted him to feel every inch suffering."

He didn’t answer. There was nothing to say.

Silence crawled in again. Jake stared at the page. It might as well have been carved in stone.

 Tony blinked. “Jake, don't do anything reckless. If you're thinking what I'm thinking, just know this isn't what Danny would've done if he was in your place.”

They hadn’t just killed Danny. They’d fucking drugged him, pinned him like a dog, and sliced him open with ritualistic care. Five wounds. Clean. Deliberate.

This wasn’t rage.

This was maybe an art for them.

Jake could picture them—laughing over whiskey, feet on the table, blood still fresh on their shoes.

They might be thinking it was over and they’d won.

He already  who was the cause of this. It was gonna be the first people he's gonna kill ever, in his life.

The Markwells, owner of the Broken Starway, the most powerful gang in the city.