Stheno, Transoxiana-Kashmir Administrative region, Alayan Federation.
21 June, 2212.
Leaden clouds hung low over the city, a bruised expanse of charcoal and slate that seemed to press the very breath from the skyline. Beneath this oppressive canopy, a young man sprinted from the parking area.
His black trench coat flared behind him like the tattered wings of a scavenger bird, catching the damp air as he weaved through the burgeoning crowd. His pale skin, nearly translucent against the dark fabric of his collar, was slick with a thin sheen of cold sweat. In his right hand, the weight of the suitcase acted as a pendulum, anchoring his frantic movement.
He snapped his wrist up, his dark eyes—void of warmth but brimming with a desperate urgency—colliding with the ticking face of his watch. Late. The word echoed in his mind, not as a mere observation, but as a sentence of doom.
The skyscraper loomed ahead, a monolithic spike of glass and steel piercing the gloom. As he reached the threshold, the frantic momentum of his flight died an abrupt death. He skidded to a halt before the Identification Checkpoint, the cold, metallic scent of the lobby rushing to meet him.
Reaching into the depths of his coat, his fingers trembling almost imperceptibly as they closed around his ID. He then presented the card to the optical eye of the security scanner. A thrum sound vibrated through the floorboards.
A momentary heartbeat of silence followed—a sliver of time where the world seemed to hold its breath. Then, a flicker of emerald light danced across his iris.
"Identity confirmed," a female voice droned. It was a sound devoid of soul, a synthetic rasp that carried the chill of the clouds outside.
"Welcome, Mr. Rain. Rank-6 Agent."
The synthesized greeting hung in the air, cold and antiseptic, as the heavy security doors parted with a mechanical sound.
"Thank you, Sion." Rain muttered, tucking his ID card in his trench coat pocket as he breached the threshold. Behind him, the doors sealed with a pressurized thud, locking out the storm.
Rain served as a agent in the vast organization of PROMO. As a Rank six operative, his existence was defined by the mundane: filtering distressed calls, archiving grim data on domestic violence which he hated the most, and chasing paper trails that led nowhere. The higher echelons—the enigmatic ranks above his own—remained shrouded in bureaucratic mist.
He traversed the lobby, his silhouette cutting through a sea of stiff, formal attire. As he moved with the practiced confidence of a man commanding center stage, though the reality was far more pedestrian.
At the heart of the atrium in the reception desk sat a young woman with a nameplate Elise Archinev. Her fingers danced across the keyboard with frantic precision, her chestnut hair catching the sterile overhead glow. When Rain reached the mahogany desk, she jerked her gaze upward, her emerald eyes widening in startled recognition.
"Oh! Good morning… Mr. Weynard," she stammered, an awkward, fragile smile flickering across her lips.
"Good morning, Mrs. Archinev," Rain replied, his tone deceptively casual. "What's the agenda today?"
"Nothing extraordinary—merely… the usual requisitions. For someone of your standing, at least." She slid a thick, manila dossier across the surface, its weight promising a long afternoon. "Your assignments."
Rain stared at the folder, a silent groan escaped from his mouth. "A long day ahead, then. Farewell, Mrs. Archinev."
He pivoted, weaving through the crowd toward a secluded corridor. The air grew stagnant as he reached the elevator bank. He then pressed the call button, watching the floor indicator begin its slow, vertical descent.
Then, the atmosphere shifted. A sudden, inexplicable weight settled in the air beside him as a chill ran down his body. Rain rotated his head precisely ninety degrees.
A young girl between nine to ten years of age stood there. She was a jarring anachronism, clad in a Victorian mourning dress that seemed to swallow the light which he only saw in a book given to him by a friend of his. Her hair was a cascade of unnerving white, her complexion more alabaster than his own, and her eyes… They were twin apertures of piercing crimson. To Rain he had never seen a red eye in his life, except maybe in movies where vampires or demons have red eyes but again she might be affected by the nuclear radiation which is still present in the earth since World War III. Looking back at her he saw a rabbit with black button eyes which she clutched in her arms tightly.
Rain's gaze swept the hallway. Emptiness. Only the two of them. Again a primal shiver traced the length of his spine. Perhaps watching that midnight horror movie was a mistake…
Suppressing his trepidation, Rain set his suitcase down and knelt, forced warmth blooming on his face. "Hello, little miss. Why are you here all alone? Are you lost?"
The moment the words left his lips, he winced. Inane. Moronic. No child bypassed Sion's security protocols by accident. She had to be an outlier, a stowaway, or a ghost.
The girl did not blink. Her expression remained a frozen mask of indifference.
"It is coming," she stated. Her voice was a flat, haunting monotone that lacked the cadence of youth.
Rain's intellect stalled, his mind grappling with the cryptic utterance. "Eh? …What do you mean?"
The girl ignored his confusion, her crimson eyes boring into his soul.
"You should be ready…." she whispered, the air turning frigid. "When 'It' awakens!"
Rain stared, his eyes widening. He blinked once, then twice, the dry air of the hallway stinging his retinas. In that fractional second of darkness, the space beside him emptied.
The girl was gone. No footsteps, no rustle of fabric of the dress, only the oppressive silence of the corridor.The elevator doors slid apart with a metallic scrape.
I am definitely hallucinating from overwork, he thought, the internal monologue sharp and cynical. Sleep deprivation is finally eroding my sanity.
"Also I should really stop watching horror movies at night..." he muttered under his breath, his voice sounding thin in the vacant space. He reached down, his fingers curling around the cold handle of his suitcase. But what he saw felt real, grounding him as he stepped into the mirrored box of the lift. He extended a finger and jabbed the button for the 6th floor.
As the doors glided shut, sealing him into the flickering light of the elevator, he let out a jagged breath. He leaned against the wall, staring at his own reflection in the polished brass. He looked exhausted and pale.
Unknown to him, the girl was stalking him.
She stood partially obscured by the shadow of a vending machine at the far end of the hall. Her crimson eyes remained fixed on the spot where he had stood. The fluffy rabbit in her arms seemed to stare with her, its glass eyes mimicking her terrifying stillness. She didn't move; she simply watched the floor indicator above the elevator begin to climb toward the darkness of the upper levels.