The city didn't just rain. It wept..
It wept for the forgotten corners, where dreams drowned in the gutters and children learned to stop hoping before they even learn to speak. The rain here wasn't poetic- It was sharp,cold,and honest. And tonight, it soaked Elara through her bones as she walked home with numb fingers and a tattered coat that had seen too many winters.
Her boots squelched against the flooded cobblestones. Every step echoed her exhaustion. Around her, the slums curled in on themselves—crumbling buildings leaning like weary souls, graffiti clinging to faded brick, broken windows covered with plastic instead of glass. This wasn't a place people lived in. It was a place they survived.
She tightened her grip on the thin paper bag in her hands—inside it, two pieces of bread and a bruised apple. Dinner. For her and her sister.
The streetlight above her flickered once, then gave up. She didn't flinch.
She was used to darkness.
Elara's world was heavy. Not just with rain, but with things left unsaid—bills unpaid, mouths unfed, memories unhealed.
But still, she moved. She always did.
She passed by a rusted gate covered in creeping vines, and her gaze flicked to the wall just beside it. There, carved into stone long ago, was a single word: Wilt.
It was the name of the alley. Fitting, she always thought. Everything here wilted eventually—flowers, hearts, hopes. But she clung to that irony like a thread. Like maybe something beautiful could still grow here, even in decay.
She didn't notice the black car parked in the shadows at the far end of the street. Not yet.
High above her, in the part of the city that touched the clouds, Lucien Dorne stood at his balcony with a glass of untouched scotch in hand. The liquid inside trembled—not from the cold, but from the storm raging inside his chest.
The rain here was softer. It fell like silk instead of stone.
His eyes followed the skyline down, down, past the velvet mansions and glass towers, down into the places he wasn't supposed to look. The districts his father called "irrelevant noise."
But Lucien had always listened to noise more than silence.
And lately, silence had become unbearable.
He didn't know why, but something about tonight—something in the rain, in the dark—felt different. Heavy. Expectant.
He leaned on the railing, his jaw clenched. His cufflink shimmered gold under the balcony light, the family crest engraved like a brand. Legacy. Power. Prison.
In his pocket, his phone buzzed. Another message from his father. More orders. More chains.
Lucien didn't answer.
Instead, he whispered to no one, "What are you hiding down there?"
And somewhere below, Elara stepped into the glow of a broken streetlamp and paused. Something—no, someone—was watching her. She could feel it.
She didn't turn around.
She just tightened her coat, exhaled slowly, and pressed forward. But her thoughts refused to obey.
Lately, she'd been dreaming of him again.
Not his face—she never remembered his face—but his voice. Always calm. Always sad. Like he'd been waiting for something he was too afraid to touch.
She didn't believe in soulmates.
But sometimes, in the quiet, when her sister was asleep and the wind sounded like a lullaby, she believed someone out there was bleeding the same way she was.
Someone from the other side of the glass.
Back at the top of the world, Lucien set his drink down and whispered, "I need to disappear."
The thunder replied.
And far below, the rain washed over Elara's face like a vow.
A single rose fell from her coat pocket—wilted, bruised, and red as the last light before nightfall.
She didn't notice it had fallen.
But he would.