Rain poured down, turning Pirouzi Street into a silver river. Each droplet danced on the asphalt, breaking the streetlights' glow into fractured shards. Parsa pulled his hood tighter and stepped cautiously, the rhythm of rain on his coat like drums beating on the bones of a dead city.
Then he saw her.
Across the street, a girl in a black hoodie stood perfectly still. Her eyes locked onto his, but there was something… wrong. Not human, not entirely alive. Like a shadow of something else.
A car passed between them. And just like that… she vanished. As if she had never existed.
Parsa froze.
His heart pounded.
"Am I… hallucinating?" he muttered under his breath.
But something in his gut screamed otherwise.
Something dark, intangible, whispering from the depths of his mind: This is only the beginning.
He moved on, but the street, the rain, the shadows—they all felt alive, conspiring against him.
A sudden rustle of leaves from a nearby alley stopped him dead. Someone—or something—was lurking there.
Parsa clenched his fists. His fingers wrapped around the knife he always carried. He was ready.
A low, rasping laugh came from the darkness. Not entirely human, not entirely animal.
A jagged shadow emerged, its form shifting impossibly, rain sliding off its body like liquid metal.
Parsa held his breath. The world around him blurred, reality bending into a waking nightmare.
"They are coming for you…"
A voice whispered inside his mind.
Not from outside. From within.
Before he could react, the shadow lunged, moving faster than reason allowed. Parsa realized, with a cold certainty:
This world… was no longer safe.