Smoke Beneath the City
1249 Words
The address led her to an old industrial block, four stops past downtown—past the boutique coffee shops and corporate condos, past the curated grit of trendy decay. Out here, the city looked tired. Abandoned. Like it had given up trying to pretend.
The skyline cracked and dipped like broken teeth, factory spires gnawed down by time. The rain hadn’t stopped, only softened to a heavy drizzle that made everything gleam—the asphalt, the dumpsters, even the rot-eaten fences curling in on themselves like dead things. It smelled of oil, rust, and something acrid Bella couldn’t name.
She parked half a block away, engine idling as the heat barely pushed back against the cold damp clawing through the windshield. Her pulse tapped out a rhythm in her ears, too fast, too loud. The scrap of paper in her hand had smudged in the rain, ink bleeding along the edges—but the number was still clear:
1721 Goldrow.
She looked up.
The building loomed like a punchline. Three stories of decay. Brickwork scabbed with moss and graffiti, its windows dark and jagged like broken glass teeth. The kind of place squatters avoided. The kind of place even the rats got tired of.
But someone was here.
She could feel it. The quiet told her.
A flickering neon beer sign blinked red and yellow across the street, throwing fractured light down the alley like a bad omen. She scanned the doorway. Fresh cigarette butts littered the steps—recent. One still smoldered near the bottom, wet but not extinguished. A security camera, barely visible behind a soot-smeared casing, tracked just a little too slowly as she approached.
And on the concrete landing—footprints.
Not many. But clear. One large, booted. Another smaller. A faint tread with a limp.
She slid the dagger from her coat into her bag and zipped it halfway shut. Its weight was reassuring. Familiar.
Just in case.
Bella pulled up her hood, pressed her hand to the door.
It wasn’t locked.
Inside, the air hit her like a wall—musty and chemical, thick with the scent of mildew, old paint, and something sharper beneath. Formaldehyde? Gasoline? It lingered on her tongue. Her throat tightened.
The lobby was skeletal. Ripped carpet peeled in strips across warped wood. A water-stained ceiling sagged overhead like it might finally collapse. The fluorescent light above flickered once, then gave up completely.
Somewhere deeper: a hum.
Not loud. But steady. Mechanical. Like a compressor. Or a generator.
She moved softly. Step by careful step, heartbeat crouched between her ribs.
The hallway narrowed. Long. Rotting. Peeling paint curled from the walls in sheets like sunburnt skin. Mold slicked the corners in green-black veins.
She passed a vending machine with shattered glass, its coils empty, wires exposed like veins. Next to it, an elevator shaft yawned open, cage doors broken. The inside was a hollow chute of darkness, cables swaying ever so slightly like a noose in still air.
Then—voices.
Low. Muffled. But sharp enough to cut through the hum.
Bella flattened against the wall, her breath cinched in her chest. Two, maybe three people. The voices echoed off the crumbling plaster in hard bursts.
One was sharp. Nasal. Speaking in a language she didn’t know—slippery, staccato syllables full of hard consonants.
The other voice came slower. Deeper. Male. Calm in a way that made her stomach clench. The kind of calm that wasn’t peace—it was control. Precision. Violence waiting to unfold.
She edged forward, inch by inch, until she could see the doorway.
The room was lit with yellowing fluorescents, buzzing faintly above the stacked crates that lined the walls. All of them stamped in black stenciled codes—some letters, some numbers. Untraceable.
In the center: a metal table.
Covered in weapons.
Not just the dagger.
A dozen of them.
Some gleaming, some tarnished with age, all arranged with surgical care on black velvet cloth. Daggers of varying shapes and sizes—but all bearing the same emblem.
The broken locket.
Or at least, variations of it. Some fractured. Some whole. Some etched deeper, filled with gold or black enamel. One was scorched. Another still had dried blood along the hilt.
Bella’s breath caught in her throat.
But it was the wall above them that made her step back in instinctive horror.
A corkboard.
Covered in photographs.
Faces. Names. Dates.
Dozens.
Some were Polaroids, others blurry stills from security footage. A few were printed photos that looked ripped from passports or licenses. Some had red string connecting them. A pattern forming.
And there—
Near the center.
Emily.
Bella’s knees nearly buckled.
It was her. Taken from the side. Blurry, low-res—but unmistakable. Her smile crooked. Her hair caught in mid-motion. Her favorite red jacket. The one she’d worn the night she died.
Bella’s fingers curled around the edge of the wall as her chest heaved.
They’d watched her.
Followed her.
Targeted her.
And she’d never known.
She took a step back—too fast.
Her heel caught the edge of a warped floorboard.
Crack.
It was small. A whisper of sound.
But it was enough.
The conversation stopped.
Silence, thick and abrupt.
Then—the scrape of chairs. The rattle of crates. Heavy footfalls. A quick command barked in that same strange language.
They were coming.
Bella ran.
Her feet slammed the floor, breath jagged in her throat, the hallway blurring around her. She flew past the dead vending machine. Past the shaft that seemed to lean toward her like an open mouth.
Behind her—shouts.
A door burst open.
She didn’t look back.
She hit the front door with her shoulder, shoved through it, stumbled down the stairs. Someone shouted behind her. Another voice, cold and clear, called something sharp and final—like an order.
She flung herself into her car, heart hammering, fumbled the keys, and twisted hard. The engine roared to life. She peeled away from the curb just as a figure reached the top step of the building behind her.
The street blurred.
Rain smeared across the windshield like oil paint, and she barely saw the lines on the road. Her hands shook so hard they slipped on the wheel. Her coat was damp. Her hair stuck to her neck. Her teeth clenched to hold back the scream rising up from somewhere deep inside.
She drove.
No destination. Just movement.
The city flickered past in fragments—traffic lights bleeding red through the mist, faceless pedestrians under umbrellas, storefronts closing for the night. But Bella saw none of it.
All she saw was the wall.
The photos.
The knives.
Emily.
Tracked. Watched. Chosen.
This wasn’t chance.
This wasn’t a robbery.
It was a ritual.
It was a list.
And her sister was one name among many.
Bella pulled the car into an empty lot two neighborhoods away, cut the engine, and sat in the quiet as the rain traced fingers across the roof.
She’d found them.
Morvana was real.
Alive.
Organized.
And worse—still killing.
She pressed her forehead to the steering wheel.
This wasn’t justice.
This was war.
And she had just entered the battlefield.
She opened her bag. Touched the iron box inside. Her fingers shook, but her resolve didn't.
They thought they were hunters.
But they just gave her a target.
Bella lifted her head, eyes raw, breath steadying.
They marked Emily.
Now Bella was going to mark them back.
- Writer
