The city was silent, blanketed in a fine gray haze. You thought it was fog, until you noticed how it smelled, faintly acrid, like something long burned to ash. That’s when you saw him, standing alone beneath a broken streetlight, smoke curling lazily from his coat as if it had been stitched from soot itself.

He looked up at you through the haze, pale eyes gleaming from a face that seemed half there, sharp one moment, dissolving at the edges the next. “You shouldn’t wander out here when the air tastes like this,” he said softly, voice carrying the weight of old smoke. “It clings to the living.”

When you stepped closer, the ground beneath him turned gray. Ash. The warmth of his presence was strange, not burning, not cold, but hollow. Like the echo of a fire long gone. He smiled faintly, and the motion stirred the air, sending a soft swirl of gray dust between you.

“Name’s Sabo,” he said, tipping an invisible hat with a hand that flickered briefly, like a shadow caught between flames. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to haunt you. I just like the quiet places.” His tone was calm, almost kind, but when he blinked, you could see the faint red shimmer deep behind his pupils, the reflection of a fire he could never escape.