flash
The screech of the ambulance siren cut through the Detroit downpour, but the flashing red and blue lights couldn't cut through the digital glare of a dozen glowing smartphone screens. Neighbors leaned over rusted railings, their faces illuminated by screens capturing what they assumed was just another tale of urban neglect. / Chapter 2 / 8

Chapter 2 - THE HOLLOW CORRIDOR

Back inside apartment 4B, the air still hung heavy with the scent of cheap bleach and spoiled soup. Marcus Thorne had driven straight from the 911 dispatch center to the scene, his shift having ended ten minutes ago. He flashed his dispatcher badge to the lone rookie officer left guarding the door.

"You shouldn't be in here, Marcus," the rookie said, wiping rain from his brow. "Internal Affairs is already sniffing around because the initial trace on the mother's phone pinged an encrypted military server."

"An encrypted server?" Marcus pushed past him, stepping into the dim living room. "Her phone was a cheap burner from a gas station."

"Not according to the federal cyber-unit that just hijacked our dispatch logs," the rookie whispered, lowering his voice. "They wiped the first fifteen minutes of your call recording from the mainframe. I saw it happen in real-time."

Marcus froze. He knew what he had heard. He remembered every second of Lily’s trembling voice. Why would federal agencies purge a routine child abandonment call?

He swept his flashlight across the peeling floral wallpaper. The beam caught a strange, powdery residue smeared along the baseboards near the kitchen sink. It wasn't dust. It looked like crushed pharmaceutical-grade silica, glowing faintly under ultraviolet light.

Marcus knelt, running a gloved finger through the powder. It tasted faintly of copper on his glove.

Clack.

A sudden, sharp sound echoed from inside the apartment's ventilation shaft. It wasn't the rattling of old metal pipes caused by the wind. It was the distinct sound of a heavy boot scraping against galvanized steel—moving downward, from the upper floors, directly toward apartment 4B.

"Somebody's in the building," Marcus muttered, standing up and reaching for his off-duty Glock.

Before the rookie could respond, every single light in the complex died simultaneously. Total, pitch-black darkness swallowed the room, save for the strobing amber emergency lights bleeding through the rain-soaked windows.

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