Tss..!

  A can of energy drink opens with a sharp hiss that slices through the silence. A short, restrained grunt follows.

  A broad-shouldered man with dark hair—tie loosened, white shirt stuck to his sweat, office pants still creased from the day—drops into his desk chair like a falling boulder.

  He takes the folder; the papers crackle. Photos of children. Snippets of maps. Crossed-out notes and coffee-stained fingers spread across the desk: a fragmented map of a problem that refuses to yield.

  He flips through the images with his thumbs, holding them up to the lamplight until the glare hardens them into something merciless. The sigh that escapes him smells of exhaustion and stale caffeine.

  Dark circles carve his face—rings of sleepless moons—proof of nights spent before security monitors, reading statements, chasing leads that all turned to dust.

  Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  Of all the cases he’d worked, he had never expected to face one this monstrous. The press was still gagged for now. But one slip, one headline, and the dogs would be howling again. And every time they did, chaos followed.

  KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

  The main door took three blows that echoed down the corridor: too hard, too urgent. The man froze, pulse stuttering. The noise struck his chest like a hammer.

  He set the can on the edge of the desk, pushing it until it rattled off the corner. Reflex. The hand went to the drawer, tense. The service weapon came out in one practiced motion. Metal clinked. Being a blank limited his options for self-dense.

  His breathing quickened. Gun in hand, he advanced in slow, measured steps toward the door. The weight of silence pressed against the walls.

  He peered through the peephole—blurred vision of the corridor—but could make out nothing more than shadows on the other side.

  Silence. Then more pounding, sharper this time. And a voice—cracked, trembling—splintered against the wood.

  “Inspector Vans! Inspector Vans, please, open the door!”

  The voice quivered between blows. Vans tightened his grip on the gun; his knuckles whitened. He moved forward, pistol raised, every step a whisper of sole on parquet.

  With the ease of habit, he slid the lock, leaving his leg braced as a stop, the door open just a slit, revealing an untrusting eye.

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  The gap widened with a slow creak. The figure that appeared was pale, glasses askew from the sprint through the streets. Eyes wide. Sweat glistening as though the night itself had drenched him.

  “I–I’m Sebastian Davies…!” the man stammered in hoarse, desperate gasps. “I work at the Larion Academy of Magic! I–I’m a first-year professor of Arcane Defenses! Y-You know Astera, remember?! The Headmistress?! I-I work with her!”

  Vans narrowed his eyes. The door remained half-blocked by his leg; the gun never dropped an inch from the man’s head. His brow furrowed in disbelief. A professor? At this hour? From the Academy?

  “You’re not coming in until you tell me what the hell you’re doing here,” Vans said through clenched teeth, voice low to avoid waking the neighbors. An officer’s tone, heavy as a command.

  Sebastian wiped his forehead with a trembling hand; his glasses slipped. He was breathing in ragged bursts, spilling words like a man who no longer had time for riddles.

  “I don’t have much time left. I—I have information… about the disappearances. I’ve been collecting everything I could…”

  The sentence dropped like a stone. Vans swallowed hard. His pulse hammered against his ribs.

  “What…?” The question came out thin, disbelieving. “You’re fucking joking.”

  Sebastian struck the door again—not forcefully now, but with the urgency of someone counting their final minutes. His pupils locked onto Vans’s face.

  “Damn it, there’s no time! You have to let me in before she finds out I’m talking to someone!”

  The feminine word fell, and the air froze. Vans repeated it in his head: she. Who was she? What kind of woman could make a grown man shake like this?

  “Wait,” Vans said slowly. “She? Who are you talking about?”

  The professor swallowed hard. His hands trembled. The light from the hallway glinted off the sweat on his shoes as he shifted his weight, summoning the courage to speak a truth that might cost him his life.

  His lips trembled. Then, finally, he forced the word out—quiet, but deadly.

  The name hit the air like a curse. For a heartbeat, neither man breathed. Vans’s finger twitched on the trigger, instincts screaming louder than thought. The name didn't ring any bell, yet it sounded loaded with pure evil.

  Sebastian’s shoulders sagged with the confession, as though the act of speaking it had ripped something vital out of him. He glanced over his shoulder toward the stairwell—dark, still, empty—but his voice carried the certainty of a man who knew the hunt was already on.

  “The missing children—they’re not dead, Inspector.”

  Vans’s pulse slammed in his ears. “What the hell are you saying?”

  Sebastian stepped closer to the crack in the door, eyes frantic but clear.

  “They’re stored. Preserved. W-What’s left of their souls is being harvested. She’s using them for something far worse than resurrection.”

  The words chilled Vans’s spine. The city outside was silent, but the world suddenly felt like it was spinning backward.

  “How do you even know all of this?”

  Sebastian’s final answer came in a whisper.

  “Because I built part of the machine that’s keeping them alive.”

  ?