The streets of Old Town always smelled faintly of salt and rust. Even in the spring rain, the scent lingered—like something dead buried beneath the pavement. I walked them anyway, each step echoing under flickering lamplight, heels clicking like the ticking of an old grandfather clock. Steady. Measured. Just like I had trained myself to be.
My name is Aesira Vale, and I'm a detective.
They say I have a gift for solving the cases that others fear to touch—those tangled in shadows, soaked in blood, shrouded in silence. I suppose they're not wrong. But what they don't know is that silence has always been my companion. A comforting, whispering thing.
A woman passed me on the opposite sidewalk, her umbrella catching the wind. She didn't notice me watching. People rarely do. I've made a habit of vanishing in plain sight, of being the quiet presence in a room that no one remembers until it's far too late.
I reached into my coat pocket, fingers brushing the familiar coolness of my pocket watch. I flipped it open—12:17 a.m. The time didn't matter. I just liked the sound it made when it clicked shut. It reminded me of control. Of boundaries. Of cages.
Back at the station, the coffee was stale, and the light above my desk buzzed incessantly. I sat down anyway, letting my eyes drift over the case files stacked in organized rows like gravestones. I kept everything neat. Precise. Order was essential.
"You're still here?" Detective Marlow asked, stepping into the bullpen. His tie was crooked, as always. His eyes lingered too long.
"I don't sleep much," I said, not looking up.
"Yeah, no kidding." He gave a low chuckle. "You're like some kind of machine."
A machine. If only he knew.
I forced a smile, the kind that doesn't reach the eyes. "Machines don't bleed."
He raised a brow. "Right. Well, just… don't burn yourself out. You solved the Halstead case in three days. Maybe take a break."
I didn't reply. Instead, I turned my attention back to the autopsy photos on my desk, the ones from the latest closed case. Neatly slit throat. Clean. Almost elegant. Too elegant. I tilted my head.
They always said I was cold. Precise. Detached. They didn't realize that detachment wasn't a choice—it was the only way I knew how to live.
When I went home that night—if you could call it that—I didn't sleep. I never did, not really. I sat by the window of my apartment, watching the fog roll over the city like a soft shroud. My reflection stared back at me, ghostlike in the glass.
I reached for the small wooden box beneath my bed. I opened it slowly, reverently. Inside were the things no one knew about. Photographs. Dried petals. Newspaper clippings with red circles drawn in careful ink. A file labeled simply: Her.
My hands trembled as I touched the petals—white lilies, preserved from long ago, and a single dark rose, almost black now. The contrast was... poetic. I once thought it beautiful.
That was before I learned beauty could kill.
I shut the box.
Outside, the night swallowed the last of the city lights. And deep inside me, something stirred. Something I had buried long ago.
A whisper.
A memory.
A hunger.