Delivery at Midnight
The rain turned the city into a smear of neon — reds bleeding into blues, signs flickering like tired eyes that hadn't slept in years. Dante Cruz didn't mind the rain. It drowned out the noise, blurred the edges, made him feel like the only one still awake in a city that never really slept.
He worked nights, running deliveries on his electric bike for whoever paid best. Cheap meals, fancy packages, sometimes stuff people didn't want traced. The grind kept him moving — no time to think about how small his apartment was or how fast the months blurred by.
That night, the job was simple — a late order from a pho shop on the south side, one of those spots with good soup and bad lighting. He slung the delivery bag over his shoulder, earbuds in, hood up, and pushed through the wet streets.
Halfway down West Halsted, he caught something weird out the corner of his eye. Two people stood under a broken streetlight. One looked like they were folding in on themselves — trembling, muttering. The other… didn't look real. Not in the sense of filters or edits — she looked too still. Like the air was holding its breath around her.
She wore black, head to toe, and the way she stood — it was calm, sharp, dangerous. The kind of presence that made the world step back.
Dante slowed his bike. "You good?" he called out, thinking maybe the person was hurt.
No answer.
Then the air rippled. Like heat rising off asphalt, except it was cold — bone-deep cold. His stomach flipped. The hunched person's shadow stretched the wrong way, thin and liquid.
The woman moved before he even processed it — one flash of motion, something bright in her hand. Not a gun. A blade, but it looked alive, glowing like folded light. She swung it through empty air — and the shadow screamed.
It wasn't sound, not really. It was pressure — like the world's volume dropped and the city stopped breathing for half a second.
Dante froze. He should've run. Any sane person would've. But curiosity was always his weakness.
"What the hell…" he muttered, stepping closer.
The woman's eyes snapped to him. They were a strange gray, the kind that seemed to see more than they should. "Stay back," she said, voice smooth but heavy with warning.
He didn't listen. The person on the ground looked terrified, mumbling words that didn't make sense. Their eyes — empty, white around the edges. A pulse of darkness leaked from them and crawled across the street like oil.
The woman slashed again, clean and silent. The blackness peeled away and burned into smoke. The person gasped, like they'd been underwater for too long.
Dante's phone buzzed in his pocket — some notification from work — but when he reached for it, the woman's glare hit him.
"No cameras," she said.
Something in her tone wasn't human. It made his heartbeat trip.
"Okay," he said quietly, both hands up.
The person who'd been attacked was crying now, but still breathing. The woman crouched beside them, muttered something soft in a language Dante didn't know, and the darkness faded completely.
He should've walked away. Pretend he saw nothing. But something near his feet flickered — a small shard of light, about the size of his palm. It was warm, humming like it had a pulse.
He reached down before he could stop himself.
The world blinked.
Colors inverted, sound thinned, and the city peeled open like a mirror cracking down the middle. He could see things now — faint outlines drifting through walls, ghostly shapes perched on rooftops, the edges of the world bending like heat waves.
"What… the hell just happened?" he whispered.
The woman turned, eyes catching the light. "You touched it."
"What is it?"
She walked closer, her steps silent even in puddles. Up close, she looked human but… off. Her skin had faint luminescent veins that pulsed when she moved. A scar traced down her jaw like a seam.
"That shard doesn't belong here," she said. "Neither do I."
Dante stared at the glowing piece still trembling in his palm. "Then what does that make me?"
Her gaze lingered on him for a long moment. "Marked."
She reached for the shard, but it pulsed brighter — reacting to him, not her. She stopped, hand hovering inches away. "It's bonded to you," she said under her breath, like she hated the words.
"Bonded?"
She looked at him again, her expression unreadable. "You shouldn't have been able to see me. Or the Dross. But now you can."
"The what?"
"The shadow that tried to eat that person's presence." She nodded toward the now-unconscious stranger. "The things that feed on what people leave behind."
He shook his head, trying to process it all. "You're saying there's… monsters in the city?"
She almost smiled — just barely. "There are monsters everywhere, Dante. Some of us just see them sooner."
The shard in his hand cooled, dimming until it looked like solid glass. He shoved it into his delivery bag, right next to the pho container. The irony made him laugh — quiet, breathless.
"So what now?" he asked. "Do I hand this thing over or—?"
She tilted her head. "You could try. But it already knows your name."
That hit weird. "Knows my name?"
"Everything in the Veil feeds on identity," she said. "Now that it's touched yours, it'll follow you until it burns out… or until you do."
The rain thickened again. Somewhere, a car horn echoed. The city was back to normal — at least, it pretended to be.
Dante looked at her, still gripping the bag. "You got a name?"
She hesitated for half a heartbeat. "Crystal."
It fit her somehow — sharp, cold, but beautiful in a way that demanded distance.
He nodded. "Guess I'll see you around, Crystal."
"You will," she said quietly. "Even if you don't want to."
And then she was gone — no footsteps, no sound. Just gone, like the night folded her back into it.
Dante stood there for a long moment, rain soaking through his hoodie, the shard humming faintly in his bag. He didn't know what the hell he'd just witnessed, but one thing was clear — the city wasn't what he thought it was anymore.
He climbed back on his bike, turned up the throttle, and rode through the empty streets, neon lights flickering off puddles like portals.
Behind him, something invisible whispered through the rain — his name, stretched thin by the wind.