Prologue: The Last Night
The city was alive, pulsing with the rhythm of a hundred stories unfolding all at once—some reaching their climax, some just beginning. But for eight teenagers, tonight would be the last normal night they would ever know.
Kira flicked her cigarette into the wind, watching as the ember faded into the dark. She had spent the last year surviving on instinct alone—no attachments, no promises, just the silence of the rooftops above the chaos. There was something freeing about watching people move below her, oblivious to the fact that life could change in an instant.
She inhaled deeply. The air smelled off tonight.
Alex wiped the blood from his mouth, laughing even though it hurt. The guy had swung first—it wasn’t his fault he swung harder. He could still hear the bass rattling through the walls behind him, the drunken cheers of a crowd that would forget his name by morning. He stumbled onto the sidewalk, shaking his head.
Somebody shoved a drink into his hands.
“Chill, man,” they said. “You need to relax.”
The taste was wrong. Bitter. Medicinal.
He drank it anyway.
Jun kept his hood up as he walked home. His headphones drowned out the sound of the city, music wrapping him in a familiar safety. He had learned long ago that eye contact invited trouble, that looking confident made you a target.
He barely noticed the van parked ahead.
When the doors slid open, he didn’t have time to scream.
Lena sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor, headphones around her neck as she sketched frantic lines across the pages of her notebook. Every story she created was a rebellion against reality—against the loneliness, against the feeling that she was always on the outside looking in.
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown Number: Open your window.
Her pulse stuttered. She hesitated, but something in her gut told her to move. When she pushed the curtain aside, a figure stood in the alley below.
Waiting.
Watching.
One by one, they fell.
A drink left unattended. A needle in the dark. A hand clasped over a mouth before the scream could come.
No warnings. No time to fight.
Only silence.
And then, nothing.
