Rain fell over Ash District without pause.
Thankfully not the violent kind that flooded streets or shook windows. Just the persistent and cold one.
It drifted from the dark sky like endless strands of silver thread and covered the city in a restless sheen. Neon signs reflected across the wet pavement in broken colors while water flowed slowly through cracks in the old roads.
The people of Ash District had long stopped noticing the rain.
They walked through it with lowered heads and tired eyes, moving beneath rusted pipes and flickering advertisements like ghosts following routines they no longer questioned.
Cael Veyr stood beneath the roof of an old tram station and watched them pass.
A digital billboard nearby buzzed with static.
Half the screen was dead.
The remaining half showed a smiling woman holding a cup of coffee beside the words:
REMEMBER WHAT MATTERS.
The slogan flickered twice before vanishing into gray distortion.
Cael looked away.
The city had become stranger lately.
Or maybe he was simply beginning to notice things other people ignored.
A tram rail groaned somewhere in the distance.
The sound echoed through the narrow streets between tightly packed apartment towers before fading into the rain.
Cael slipped a hand into his coat pocket and pulled out an old silver pocket watch.
8:43 PM.
The second hand ticked steadily.
He stared at it for a few moments longer than necessary before snapping it shut.
The watch wasn't his.
Actually, almost nothing he owned belonged to him originally.
The coat came from a dead man's storage unit.
The watch was found inside a flooded apartment three months ago.
His kitchen table had once belonged to a restaurant that burned down in Sector Eight.
Ash District worked like that.
Objects stayed longer than people did.
Eventually the city forgot who things belonged to.
Then someone else picked them up and continued using them.
Cael honestly preferred it that way.
New things felt uncomfortable.
Too clean and temporary. Something that Cael can't really put into words.
A cold gust swept rainwater beneath the tram station roof.
Cael adjusted his hood slightly and looked toward the street again.
Something felt wrong tonight.
The feeling sat quietly beneath his skin.
Not fear.
More like pressure.
As if reality itself had become slightly uneven.
It had been happening more frequently these past few weeks.
Small things at first...
A stranger finishing his sentence before Cael spoke...
A hallway in his apartment building seeming longer at night than during the day...
Street clocks showing different times despite standing side-by-side...
Three days ago, he saw a child drop a glass bottle onto concrete.
The bottle shattered.
Then, for a split second—
the pieces returned together again before breaking a second time.
Nobody else reacted.
Not even the child.
Cael told himself exhaustion was the cause.
Too many late shifts. Too little sleep.
But deep down, he knew that was a lie.
Something in the city was changing.
Or waking up.
The distant hum of machinery grew louder.
A tram emerged slowly through the curtain of rain.
Its yellow headlights cut across the wet streets while sparks flashed briefly beneath the rails.
The tram looked ancient.
Its faded metal exterior was covered in rust marks and old maintenance numbers barely visible beneath layers of grime.
It slowed with a harsh metallic screech before stopping at the station.
The doors opened.
Warm stale air drifted out immediately.
Cael stepped inside.
The smell hit him first.
Wet clothes. Dust. Old cigarettes. Machine oil.
The tram lights flickered weakly overhead.
Half the passengers looked half-asleep.
The other half stared blankly at their phones or out the windows.
Nobody spoke.
Nobody smiled.
Commuters has high respect for silence which were common sense after all...
Cael moved toward the back and sat beside the window.
Rainwater crawled slowly across the glass beside him.
Outside, the city drifted past in blurred fragments: stacked apartment blocks, narrow alleyways, glowing shop signs, bridges tangled with hanging electrical wires.
Everything looked damp.
Everything looked tired.
Across from him sat an old woman carrying two grocery bags filled with canned food and medicine packets.
Her gray hair was partially soaked from the rain despite the hood over her head.
She kept glancing toward him every few seconds.
Cael noticed immediately.
People usually wanted one of three things: money, help, or trouble.
He for sure hoped it wasn't the third.
The tram began moving again with a low mechanical hum.
For several minutes, nothing happened.
The passengers remained silent.
Rain continued tapping softly against the windows.
Cael leaned his head slightly against the cold glass and closed his eyes for a moment.
Then—
the lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The tram suddenly became silent.
Not ordinary silence.
Total silence.
The mechanical hum disappeared.
Rain vanished.
Even breathing stopped.
Cael's eyes snapped open instantly.
Every passenger inside the tram had frozen completely.
A man near the door remained locked mid-motion while adjusting his glasses.
A child beside him sat motionless with half-opened candy in her hand.
Nobody blinked.
Nobody moved.
Cael slowly looked toward the window.
The rain outside had stopped falling.
Thousands of droplets hung motionless in the air beyond the glass.
The entire city had frozen.
His heartbeat became louder.
Slow. Heavy.
A strange pressure filled the tram.
Cold spread through the air like invisible water.
Cael's instincts screamed at him to stand up and run.
But where?
The world outside no longer looked real.
Then—
someone sat beside him.
Cael froze immediately.
The seat had been empty.
Now it wasn't.
A man wearing a gray coat sat calmly at his side.
Middle-aged.
Black gloves.
Pale skin.
His face looked ordinary enough that it became strangely difficult to focus on specific details.
Every time Cael tried remembering his features, his mind slid away from them.
The man stared quietly through the window at the frozen rain.
He showed no reaction to the impossible scene around them.
As if this was normal.
As if the stopped world belonged to him.
Cael's throat tightened slightly.
"…Who are you?"
The man smiled faintly.
"You noticed."
His voice was soft and calm.
Cael slowly straightened in his seat.
Nobody else moved.
Nobody else seemed capable of seeing this man.
The stranger continued looking outside.
"Tell me, Cael Veyr," he said quietly. "Do you think memories disappear when people die?"
Cael's pupils contracted.
How does he know my name?
He forced himself to stay composed despite the cold sweat gathering beneath his collar.
"…I don't know."
The man nodded once.
"Good."
Silence returned.
The frozen rain outside looked almost beautiful now.
Like countless silver stars suspended above the city.
Cael carefully studied the stranger again.
Something about him felt deeply wrong.
Not the dangerous kind of wrong, but the strange familiar feeling that came with it.
As if part of Cael had met him before.
Somewhere impossible.
The sensation lasted only a second before fading away.
The stranger reached into his coat.
Cael's muscles tensed immediately.
But the man only removed a thin black card.
The card was literally fully black with no symbols and words carved on it. Its surface seemed slightly deeper than normal black, like light itself disappeared inside it.
The man held it out calmly.
"Keep this."
Cael did not take it immediately.
"What is it?"
"A door."
"That explains nothing."
A small smile appeared on the stranger's face.
"Most doors don't."
The tram lights flickered violently overhead.
For a moment, the entire cabin dimmed.
Outside the windows, something enormous moved behind the frozen rain.
Cael only caught a glimpse of it.
A shadow larger than buildings.
Its shape twisted unnaturally through the distant skyline before vanishing again.
Every hair on his body stood upright.
The stranger calmly placed the black card into Cael's hand.
The instant their skin touched—
the whispers began.
Countless overlapping voices exploded inside Cael's mind.
Not around him.
Inside him.
Men. Women. Children.
Thousands of distant voices speaking at once.
—remember—
—please—
—don't let me disappear—
—someone has to witness—
Pain stabbed through Cael's skull.
He jerked backward violently.
The whispers vanished instantly.
His breathing became uneven.
The black card remained in his trembling hand as he held the ice cold card.
The stranger stood slowly.
For the first time, emotion appeared in his expression.
Not cruelty.
Not anger.
Pity.
Deep pity.
"You have the kind of face the world loses," the man said quietly.
The sentence sent an inexplicable chill through Cael.
Before he could respond—
the tram lights exploded.
Darkness swallowed everything.
A violent screech filled the air.
Then—
sound returned all at once.
Rain slammed against the windows again.
Passengers shifted normally.
The mechanical hum resumed.
The child beside the door continued opening her candy.
Nobody screamed.
Nobody reacted.
It was as if nothing had happened.
Cael looked around sharply.
The stranger was gone.
Only the black card remained in his hand.
His heartbeat pounded loudly inside his chest.
Across from him, the old woman stared directly at him now.
Her eyes slowly widened.
The grocery bags trembled slightly in her hands.
"…Tomas?" she whispered.
Cael frowned.
"What?"
Tears suddenly formed in the woman's eyes.
Like grief returning after years.
"My son…" she said shakily.
For several seconds, she simply stared at him.
Not seeing Cael.
Seeing someone else.
Someone dead.
The woman slowly reached trembling fingers toward his face before stopping halfway.
Then confusion appeared in her expression.
The grief vanished.
Just like that.
Like waking from a dream already fading.
"…I…"
She blinked several times.
Then looked away.
"I'm sorry," she murmured weakly. "I thought you were someone else."
Cael said nothing.
The tram continued moving through the rain.
Outside, Ash District stretched endlessly beneath the dark sky.
Cold apartment towers.
Flooded alleyways.
Broken neon reflections.
For the first time in years—
the city no longer felt merely depressing.
It felt alive.
Not alive in a comforting way.
Alive the way deep oceans were alive.
Cael slowly looked down toward the black card again.
The surface remained completely blank.
But now, faint whispers echoed quietly from somewhere deep inside it.
Soft enough to almost mistake for imagination.
Almost.
He stared at the card for several long seconds.
Then suddenly noticed something else.
His reflection in the tram window looked wrong.
The other passengers reflected normally.
The old woman. The sleeping worker near the front. The child with candy.
But his own reflection looked slightly delayed.
Just half a second behind.
Cael's breathing slowed.
The reflection stared back at him.
Then—
it smiled first.
The tram lights flickered again.
And outside the window, rain continued falling over Ash District.
Endlessly.