Int. Hospital Rooftop (Night) November 6th, 2025
Crestfall was usually a beast of steel and neon, but tonight it was holding its breath. Most nights, the streets rattled with honking horns, revving engines, and the grind of tires. The heat clung to skin from the baking asphalt; the air that usually reeked with thick exhaust fumes and fried food was chaos almost rivaling New York's restless buzz of life.
Scents always wafted through the air: grilled foods from street vendors, perfume hanging in the wake of a passerby, smoke curling from open windows. Music poured from nightclubs and sometimes from houses where no one felt the need to go out. Sirens were a common chorus, called up anytime trouble wove its way into the crowd. Yet for all of the noise, Crestfall was usually at peace-a city alive with cultures mingling, people weaving their lives together in one restless, joyful community.
Tonight, that unity was breached. The city lay unnaturally still, its voice cut off. Only the ocean spoke, waves brushing against the rocks at the edge of the silence. The neon signs were dark, smothering Crestfall in shadows where light usually screamed. The streets were empty, the hollow echoes that bounced between buildings the only sound as a crumpled newspaper scraped down the pavement. The stench of damp trash and gasoline clung to the air, mixed with the faint sweetness of rotting Halloween candy from decorations that now sagged, broken and abandoned, waiting for the city to sweep them away. Above, the sky was pitch black, filled with rain clouds that suddenly swelled into a heavy downpour, each raindrop striking needles on skin, metallic in taste when it hit lips. It was as if heaven itself cried for the souls lost these days.
High above the quiet road, a lone figure stood. He leaned against the guardrail, rain soaking through his long trench coat until the fabric stuck heavy against his frame. The wind was a cold, biting thing, howling through the gaps in the rooftop, tearing at the coat and whipping it around his legs. The sharp tang of smoke still lingered on his tongue, though the cigarette between his lips had drowned, its glow smothered beneath the storm. Still, he lingered. His eyes glimmered with regret, rain streaming down his face like tears. His knuckles blanched white as he clutched the railing, the metal slick and freezing beneath his grip. In one ear, a radio crackled through the static, its tinny voice cutting through the night.
"Over the past few days, several lives have been taken," an announcer spoke in a hollow and distant tone. "The murder rate in the city keeps rising as investigations into the bodies found across Crestfall heighten.
The man exhaled a long, ragged sigh into the chill air, thick with the scent of ozone and rain. He closed his eyes as if to shut out words, but he didn't look away. His gaze remained on the city below, listening to its silence, feeling its absence.
The rain started, finally becoming a downpour that cleaned the dirty streets, as if the sky was trying to wash away the sins of the city. The town's streets blurred into long, shimmering streaks, and for a moment, the world looked as if it were melting. The man's vision blurred, but whether it was tears or the rain-you couldn't tell.
"Sources say the suspect was a vigilante escaping police after setting a bomb off," the reporter's voice continued, a slight tremor in its tone. "Though the police commissioner refused to comment at this time."
The man on the rooftop said nothing. He simply watched, his mind a thousand miles away. Maybe if he did things differently, maybe if he would have killed the man when he had a chance when he had him in custody, then maybe so many people wouldn't have lost their lives. Every death that happens, it feels as if he was responsible for it. The man could hear a few cars driving on the road, the last of the stragglers trying to get home before the city-wide curfew of 9:00 p.m.
"Amongst the murders, city-wide crime has dropped by over fifty percent in the last week," the reporter announced, a hint of awe in her voice. "Though police have advised people not to leave their homes after 9 p.m. for safety, with people being caught after 10 p.m. being considered aiding the murder and arrested."
A grim smile touched his lips. He finally turned, and in the dim light, his face was a mask of weary resolve. The man was Blake, one of the serving officers from the Clearview police precinct. Another officer named Gabriel, a detective that joined homicide only a few years prior survived the chaos as well, though he laid stuck in coma, in a room below the roof Blake was standing on,
He thought, "The whole city is holding its breath," as rain began to blur his vision. "And they think we are the heroes. That we can save them, but after everything I saw, I don't think we can save ourselves.