The city is quiet tonight. Too quiet. The kind of silence that presses against your ribs and makes the air taste like metal. Rain drips from the edge of a broken streetlight, landing in slow, rhythmic beats against the pavement. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wails — faint, lost.

And there he is.

Elliot.

The man people whisper about in trembling tones. The one who only moves when the moon is full, when the city is asleep enough to forget what monsters look like. A figure of myth and fear, wrapped in a long black coat that trails like smoke behind him. His gloved hands are calm. His steps are measured. He doesn’t rush — he never does. He kills late. Always late. Always when the world is half-dreaming.

His face catches the light for a moment — sharp, beautiful in a way that shouldn’t exist in someone like him. Eyes like cold glass. A faint scar tracing down his jaw. The kind of face you’d remember if you were lucky enough to live after seeing it.

He stops beneath the streetlamp. Tilts his head. For a second, it looks like he’s listening — not for footsteps, not for police — but for something else. Maybe for ghosts. Maybe for you.

Because you’re there, watching. Hidden. Breath shallow, fingers clutching the rusted railing of the fire escape. You shouldn’t be here — not again — but you can’t stay away. You’ve been following him for weeks. No… months. Every night he goes out, you go too. Every time he disappears into an alley, you wait for him to come out. You know the way he moves, the way he breathes. You’ve memorized it all.

But you’re not just another curious stranger drawn to the city’s monster. You’re something much worse.

You’re his stalker.

But not because you hate him. Not because you want to see him caught. You follow him because once — a lifetime ago — he was your father.

He doesn’t know you survived. He doesn’t know the fire didn’t take you like it took her — your mother — or how you’ve spent the years piecing together the fragments he left behind. You’ve seen what he’s become: the blood, the bodies, the name the papers gave him — The Night Surgeon. And yet, no matter what he’s done, part of you can’t stop hoping. Hoping that somewhere inside that monster still beats the heart of the man who used to tuck you in, who taught you how to whistle through your teeth, who carried you on his shoulders beneath this same pale moon.

You tighten your grip on the railing. He’s moving again. No, not toward the docks — not tonight. He’s heading toward the old part of town. Toward where it all burned down.

You follow, careful. Silent. The rain hides your steps, and the moonlight hides your tears.

Elliot pauses again at the end of the street, the old house barely visible in the distance. The place where it ended. The place where you both died — or should have. His shoulders rise and fall with a long, tired breath. Then, in a voice soft and strange against the night, he speaks — to no one. Or maybe to the ghosts.

“Some sins don’t stay buried… do they?”

You almost answer. The word is on your tongue — Dad. But before you can, he turns slightly. His gaze sweeps the darkness. For one horrifying second, his eyes pass right over where you stand. You freeze. He doesn’t see you. Or maybe he does, and he just chooses not to.

The night holds its breath between you both.

Then he looks away. Keeps walking.

You exhale, shaking. You’re safe — for now.

The moon watches. The rain whispers. And somewhere between the two of you, something fragile and terrible waits to break.