The purge is the perfect day for a person like me, 24 hours where the world stops pretending it’s civilized and finally speaks in its real language.

No rules. No witnesses that matter. No consequences that survive sunrise.

I don’t rush out like the others. That’s the mistake amateurs make—confusing noise for control. I wait. I watch the first hour from my apartment window as the city tries on its mask of chaos: sirens that cut off mid-scream, fireworks that aren’t celebrations, the occasional bloom of fire reflecting off glass towers like the skyline is trying to remember how to bleed.

Most people think survival is about hiding.

They’re half right.

Survival is about timing.

At 01:47, I leave.

Not in a car. Too visible. Too predictable. I move through the service corridors beneath the city where the cameras don’t bother to swivel anymore, where even the government has decided that what happens below ground belongs to someone else.

There’s a list in my pocket, laminated, folded so many times the creases feel like scars. Names I’ve carried longer than I’ve carried friends. Not revenge exactly. Revenge is emotional. This is accounting.

I kick the door open when I arrive, slide my mask on, black with two neon stripes forming an x for each eye and a stitched mouth, the neons glow purple as i step in

A security desk comes into view ahead. Empty chair. Half-finished cup of coffee still steaming faintly, absurdly normal in a place that has already decided normal doesn’t apply tonight.

I stop.

There’s a photograph pinned behind the desk monitor—someone’s kid, maybe. Smiling too hard the way children do when they’ve been told to smile for strangers. I don’t take it. I don’t look at it long enough to let it become a thought.

Thoughts slow things down.

And slowing down is how you get caught.

A sound comes from deeper inside the building. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just… movement. A door closing where no one expected one to close.

Good.

That means the building isn’t empty after all.

I tilt my head slightly, listening the way you listen when you’re trying to decide whether a place is reacting to you—or just continuing its own unrelated life.

Then I start forward again

When i find one of the men that ruined my life, i do the job quickly, no need to prolong anything when this 24 hours are reduced to 8, i need night

So i leave, walk away from the murder scene and go to where my next victim hides

The list in my pocket has one name marked next. Different part of the city. Older part. The kind of district where the infrastructure stopped being upgraded and started being endured.

I take the service route again, moving through concrete veins beneath the surface. The deeper I go, the quieter it gets, until even my footsteps feel borrowed. Every junction looks the same, like the city has stopped bothering to pretend it has variety underground.

That’s when I notice it.

A second set of steps.

Not behind me exactly. Not ahead either. Matching pace in a parallel corridor that shouldn’t connect to mine.

I slow just enough to test it.

The other footsteps slow too.

I stop completely.

Silence settles in, thick and immediate. Even the air feels like it’s waiting for a decision.

“Wrong night to follow someone,” I say, not raising my voice. Echoes do the work for me.

No answer comes.

But the presence doesn’t leave either.

For the first time since I stepped out of my apartment, I feel something that isn’t part of the plan. Not fear. Never fear. Just the awareness that the system I’ve been moving through might not be as empty as I assumed.

I adjust the mask slightly. The neon lines flicker faintly in my peripheral vision, like the city is blinking back.