Chapter 1The Dead Man’s Evidence
Rain hammered the city of Novaris like bullets against steel.
Neon lights flickered across flooded streets while giant digital billboards repeated the same sentence over and over:
“Justice sees everything.”
Inside Central Homicide Bureau, silence filled the investigation floor.
Detectives stood frozen around a holographic screen.
On the screen…
a dead man was walking.
Detective Elias Vane stared carefully.
The footage timestamp read:
11:42 PM.
But according to the official autopsy report, businessman Adrian Keller died at:
9:13 PM.
Two hours earlier.
Yet there he was.
Alive.
Walking calmly through an underground subway station.
Elias narrowed his eyes.
“Play it again.”
The hologram restarted.
Adrian Keller stepped through the crowd wearing a black coat. His face looked pale. Nervous. He stopped beside a vending machine… then slowly turned toward the station camera.
And smiled.
Not a normal smile.
A warning.
Then the footage glitched violently.
Static swallowed the screen.
When the image returned…
Adrian was gone.
The entire station stood empty.
No passengers.
No sound.
Nothing.
A cold feeling crawled up Elias’s spine.
“That footage is impossible,” said Officer Mira Sol. “Forensics confirmed it’s real.”
Elias remained silent.
Impossible things had started happening ever since the government introduced the new justice system:
PHAR.
A predictive artificial intelligence designed to stop crime before it happened.
The public loved it.
Crime rates dropped.
Courts became faster.
Police no longer searched for suspects.
PHAR selected them automatically.
But Elias hated it.
Because six years ago…
PHAR sentenced his father to death.
And three days later, the crime PHAR predicted never happened.
Too late.
The execution had already been carried out.
Since then, Elias trusted evidence more than systems.
And right now…
the evidence was screaming.
“Where was the body found?” Elias asked.
Mira tapped her wrist screen.
“Old District subway tunnel. Lower sector.”
Elias frowned.
“That station was abandoned years ago.”
“Exactly.”
The room fell quiet.
Then suddenly—
A notification flashed red across every screen in the bureau.
⚠ PRIORITY ALERT ⚠
CLASSIFIED CASE ACTIVATED
CASE: PHAR
The entire floor froze.
Even senior officers looked terrified.
Mira whispered carefully.
“I’ve never seen that code before…”
But Elias had.
Once.
When his father died.
A hidden elevator unlocked at the far end of the bureau.
Black armored officers stepped out silently.
No badges.
No names.
Only silver scales printed on their uniforms.
One of them spoke coldly.
“Detective Elias Vane.”
Elias stood.
“You’re being reassigned.”
“To where?”
The officer stared directly into him.
“Courtroom 9.”
The air changed instantly.
Several detectives looked away.
One officer quietly muttered a prayer.
Elias noticed.
Fear.
Real fear.
“What is Courtroom 9?” Elias asked.
Nobody answered.
The black-uniformed officers escorted him toward the elevator.
As the doors closed, Mira suddenly grabbed Elias’s arm.
Her voice trembled.
“If they take you there…”
She swallowed hard.
“…don’t let them read your file.”
Before Elias could ask what she meant—
The elevator doors slammed shut.
Descending.
Down.
Far below the city.
The numbers on the wall disappeared after Basement 20.
Then Basement 40.
Then…
nothing.
Only darkness.
Finally—
The elevator stopped.
DING.
The doors slowly opened.
Elias stepped into a massive underground courtroom hidden beneath Novaris itself.
The room looked ancient compared to the modern world above.
Dark wooden walls.
Bronze scales.
Hundreds of empty seats.
At the center stood a single judge beneath dim golden light.
Judge Orion Vale.
The most feared man in the legal system.
He never lost a case.
Because somehow…
he already knew every verdict before trials began.
Orion slowly lifted his eyes toward Elias.
“You took longer than expected.”
Elias stepped forward carefully.
“Why am I here?”
The judge pressed a button.
A holographic case file appeared in the air.
CASE PHAR.
Then Elias’s blood froze.
Because under the suspect section…
was his own photograph.
Judge Orion folded his hands calmly.
“Detective Elias Vane.”
His voice echoed through the courtroom.
“You are officially under investigation for a future murder.”
Silence.
Elias stared in disbelief.
“What?”
The judge’s expression never changed.
“The victim dies in four days.”
A pause.
“And according to PHAR…”
He looked directly into Elias’s eyes.
“…you kill them.”
The courtroom lights suddenly shut off.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Then a distorted voice whispered through hidden speakers:
“The future has already testified.”
TO BE CONTINUED.
