Rain hammered against the cracked windows of Elias Cross's office, a relentless tattoo that echoed through the silent room like war drums from a distant battlefield. Outside, the city of Duskmoor lay wrapped in a shroud of mist and neon sorrow, its jagged skyline blurred beneath sheets of cold rain. Street lamps flickered like dying stars, casting long, trembling shadows across rain-slicked asphalt.
Inside, time had stopped.
Elias sat alone at his desk, hunched beneath a dying overhead bulb. A cigarette smoldered between his fingers, its ash bending like the spine of a forgotten book. Smoke curled upward, coiling into ghostly shapes that twisted in the air before dissolving into the stagnant stillness. His eyes, cold and watchful, were fixed on the photograph spread before him — a blurred face, half-consumed by shadow, as if the camera itself had recoiled from the truth.
It wasn't just a face. It was a memory made flesh.
The file was thick, its edges worn and its contents heavier than paper ought to be. Pages of reports, forensic sketches, incident logs, autopsy notes. Every detail stitched together the same story — a young woman pulled from the river, skin pale and lips parted in a scream that no one heard. Another name crossed off the city's dwindling list of innocents.
But this killer didn't leave behind chaos. No, chaos would be a mercy.
This was precision. Ritual.
Each corpse bore the same signature: a symbol, carved with care into their skin. It was elegant in its cruelty, looping lines intersecting like veins feeding some ancient, unseen heart. To the public, it was a mystery. To Elias, it was déjà vu.
Everyone in Duskmoor whispered the name now, even if their voices trembled.
The Revenant.
He took a drag from his cigarette, inhaling smoke like penance. The embers flared — a heartbeat in the dark. The name didn't stir fear in him. It stirred familiarity. Recognition. As if the Revenant's violence wasn't a stranger's work, but something Elias had seen once. Maybe more than once.
Maybe in a mirror.
He leaned back in his chair, the creak echoing like a groan from the bones of the building. The rain outside blurred the world into a surreal painting — all smeared colors and half-formed shapes. Duskmoor always looked like this. Like it was mourning something it couldn't name.
The city was rot beneath perfume.
Beneath his desk lamp, the photograph almost seemed to move. Not in the way of film, but like something alive and buried was stirring just under the surface. Elias forced himself to look away, resting his eyes on the city skyline instead. Shadows shifted at the edges of buildings, figures that disappeared if you blinked too fast or stared too long. The city's secrets weren't just buried in alleys. They breathed.
A buzz shattered the silence.
Elias blinked, reaching for the vibrating phone on his desk. The screen lit up with a message — simple, direct.
"Meet me. Now. The hospital. — Dr. Vale"
Dr. Soren Vale.
The name struck something in Elias, like a bell in a cathedral long abandoned. He hadn't seen Vale in years. Not since the night he walked away from the department. Not since the Revenant's first wave of terror shattered what little peace Duskmoor ever had.
His jaw tightened as old memories clawed their way to the surface. Vale had been more than just a consultant. He was the only one who ever seemed to understand Elias — or at least pretended to. Their conversations always danced too close to the edge, like both men were tiptoeing around a deeper truth neither wanted to face.
But if Vale was reaching out now, something was wrong.
Very wrong.
Elias crushed the cigarette in the ashtray, the stench of burnt tobacco mingling with the metallic tang of rain filtering in through the cracked window frame. He slipped the file into his worn leather satchel and reached for his coat — long, black, weathered. The collar came up instinctively, a shield against the cold.
Outside, the storm had intensified. Thunder rolled low across the sky, echoing like a growl from something vast and angry. Elias stepped out into the deluge, his boots splashing through puddles that reflected the broken city.
Duskmoor welcomed him like a curse whispered in the dark.
The streets stretched before him — serpentine alleys, flickering neon signs, trash swirling in gutters, sirens wailing in the distance. Each corner pulsed with unseen life. He could feel eyes on him. Not just the paranoid sense of being watched — no. Something was watching. Had always been.
As he moved through the city's arteries, his mind began to churn.
Why now?
Why Vale?
Why him?
He stopped beneath a crooked streetlamp, its light twitching spasmodically. Rain trickled down his collar, cold and insistent. He looked up. The clouds loomed low, pregnant with more rain and unspoken truths. In the distance, thunder cracked again, as if answering the questions building in his chest.
That's when he heard it.
Not a sound, but a whisper. Felt more than heard. Like a breath against the inside of his skull.
"You can't run from what you are."
He stood still, the words echoing long after they vanished. The voice wasn't external. It was inside him. Familiar. A presence he'd fought to silence. To forget.
His hands trembled — barely. But it was enough.
Elias swallowed hard and pressed forward.
The hospital loomed ahead, a pale monolith against the dark sky, windows glowing like watchful eyes. Whatever awaited inside, he'd face it.
He always did.
Because Elias Cross wasn't afraid of ghosts.
He used to be one.
And tonight, something was coming back.
Not just to Duskmoor.
But to him.
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