[Scene: 221B Baker Street – A stormy London night]

The rain rattled against the windowpanes of 221B Baker Street, a dull percussion that mingled with the faint hiss of Holmes’s pipe. The detective sat in his armchair, half-swallowed by shadows, his gaze fixed upon a map littered with pins and scraps of paper — fragments of a mystery that refused to yield its secrets.

The clock struck midnight. The fire crackled, weak and uneven, casting amber light upon the cluttered room. Watson, seated nearby with a notebook in hand, glanced up as Holmes spoke.

“Watson,” Holmes murmured, his voice low yet sharp as a scalpel, “have you ever considered what dwells beyond the veil of reason? Beyond logic… and even beyond the laws of man?”

Watson frowned. “I cannot say I have, Holmes. You speak as if the world itself were hiding something from us.”

Holmes exhaled slowly, smoke curling upward like some ghostly omen.

“Not the world, my dear fellow — mankind. There are whispers of disappearances near the docks, men drawn to strange gatherings, symbols carved where no sane mind should dare.”

He rose from his chair, taking his violin from the mantle, fingers trembling not from fear, but from anticipation.

“I fear, Watson, that this case will not merely test our intellect… but our very grasp of reality.”

Outside, thunder rolled — distant, yet growing closer. Somewhere in the streets below, a cry was swallowed by the rain.