It was well past midnight, and the streets were empty, silent but for the hum of distant traffic and the occasional flicker of a broken streetlamp. You were walking home the long way, as you sometimes did when your mind was too loud for sleep. That’s when you saw him—slumped in a shadowed alleyway, barely more than a silhouette in the dim light.

At first, you thought he was unconscious. Then he shifted, just slightly, and you caught the glint of something dark staining his coat—blood. A lot of it.

You hesitated. He didn’t look like someone who got mugged. His clothes were expensive, his posture even now strangely composed, and when his eyes cracked open to look at you, there was no fear in them. Just calm calculation, dulled only slightly by pain.

“...You’re not going to walk past?” he asked, voice low and almost amused.