The city breathed in shadows. By day, the streets hummed with the mechanical rhythm of commerce—bells from trams, hawkers calling, neon signs flickering weakly even in sunlight. But by night, the same streets fell into a silence too heavy to be ordinary, as if the city itself was afraid to listen. Murders had become as common as the rain that slicked the polished cobblestones, but unlike the rain, no one knew where they came from. Bodies appeared soundlessly, discovered in alleyways, markets after closing, or sometimes in locked rooms with no hint of entry.
The killer was a rumor, a phantom etched into whispers. No camera caught a glimpse, no witness lived long enough to describe a face. He—or it—was a hole in the city, swallowing lives one by one, leaving behind puzzles so cleanly carved that even the detectives felt like children fumbling in the dark.
And yet, night after night, the city still went to sleep, waiting for the next scream that would never be heard.
Detective Arvind Malhotra stood at the edge of the newest crime scene, staring at the body as though it might speak if he only waited long enough. The victim lay sprawled across the cobblestones of Barlow Lane, hands folded neatly on the chest, eyes wide open, glassy with the reflection of the broken streetlamp above. No footprints. No fibers. No struggle. As if death itself had reached down with invisible fingers and plucked the man's soul away without leaving a trace.
The officers around him whispered in shifts, careful not to speak too loudly. The city had grown superstitious, and even lawmen treated the killings like curses—as if naming the murderer might summon him. Files upon files, photographs, statements, timelines: Malhotra had stacked them in his office until the weight of them made the floorboards groan. Still nothing. Whoever this ghost was, he stayed a thousand steps ahead.
What unsettled Malhotra most wasn't just the precision. It was the pattern, or rather… the absence of one. The victims ranged from beggars to millionaires, men and women, old and young. No obvious link, no clear motive.
And yet, as he straightened, Malhotra noticed something for the first time—something small, almost dismissible—a faint chalk mark on the wall at shoulder height, barely visible under the grime. A crooked symbol, unfinished, like half a letter scrawled in haste.
The murderer had left nothing behind before. Why now? Why here?
Malhotra's pulse quickened. Either the phantom was slipping—
Or he wanted to be found.