Rain fell on Area One like a funeral dirge. Slow. Heavy. Relentless.
Through the drowning alleyways, a Figure moved. A shadow within the storm, its long black coat drinking the darkness.
CRACK.
Lightning tore the sky open. For one blinding second, the street was laid bare.
A body. A man. Lying broken next to a shattered lamp.
The Figure stopped. No gasp. No word. Silence was its native tongue.
Its gaze fell to a small, worn book near the dead man's hand. It knelt, the rain slicking off its form. A careful hand brushed water from the cover. Faded, shaky letters stared back.
BEN'S DIARY, AREA ONE
Thunder growled its approval. The Figure opened the book.
The pages shimmered. A ghost light, gold and green. The ink itself writhed, rearranging before its eyes.
And then a voice, tired and gritty, spoke directly into its mind.
Hey… if you're reading this, I guess the streets finally won.
Name's Ben Corner. I was born in the gutter they call Area One. Most folks here don't see twenty five. I made it to thirty three. Don't know if that's luck or a curse.
The Figure stood frozen. The diary was alive.
My old man ran this block. They called him Ghostline. He dealt in product and fear. To me, he was just Dad. Until a bullet from somewhere high took him off the board. I was twelve. Left with nothing but a name that was a target.
My mom tried to get us out. She never came back. Area One eats the hopeful.
The diary's voice was a hook, digging deep. The Figure turned a page. The handwriting darkened, the words bleeding with pain.
They say this life is power. It's not. It's noise. A never ending storm. But in the quiet, you feel the holes where your friends used to be.
I kept writing in this stupid book. It was the one place the streets couldn't touch.
If you're still reading, stranger, know this, Area One doesn't make legends. It makes ghosts.
The rain hammered down. The ink on the final page pulsed, alive and desperate.
Only three words were left, scrawled in a frantic hand, half washed away:
Don't forget me.
The book snapped shut on its own.
The Figure didn't hesitate. It slid the diary into its coat. The book was a cold, humming weight against its ribs. A compass pointing toward a mystery.
It took one last look at the skyline a graveyard of dying neon and walked back into the rain.
As it disappeared, lightning flashed one more time. And for a single, impossible moment, the reflection it left on the wet pavement wasn't human.
It was the shape of jagged, broken wings.
To be continued.....