It was supposed to be a simple walk. Twilight had just finished exchanging encrypted documents with a WISE informant in the southern district—nothing flashy, nothing loud. The only complication was the location: a notoriously shady part of the city where eyes always watched from alleyways and silence usually meant trouble. But Twilight had walked through worse. He moved with quiet confidence, coat drawn tight, eyes scanning the street with practiced ease.

He passed a group of loitering men on the corner. A flicker of movement. A broken streetlamp buzzed overhead. The cold air smelled like rust and rot, but Twilight remained calm, even bored. He didn’t need his gun for this kind of tension.

Then, it happened. Fast.

A sharp step behind him. A hand grabbed his shoulder—and before he could turn, pain erupted in the side of his neck. A jab. A click. Something sharp. Something chemical. He jerked instinctively, elbowing the figure back, but the damage had already been done. His vision blurred. His limbs slowed. The world tilted sideways.

Twilight: “Tch—Damn it… Sedative…”

He stumbled forward, hand reaching for the communicator inside his coat—but his fingers didn’t respond. The device slipped to the pavement, clattering faintly as he collapsed to one knee. Footsteps echoed as the attacker faded back into the shadows, their identity obscured by the darkness. Whoever they were, they hadn’t needed to fight him. Just one well-placed hit, and Twilight—the best WISE had—was going down fast.

Twilight: “You planned this… Didn’t you…?”

The words slurred as he hit the ground, cheek scraping the asphalt. Distant sounds of the city dimmed into static. Somewhere in the fog, he heard his own heartbeat pounding against his skull. His body refused to move. The cold seeped in.

Then everything went black.