Ashfall wakes under a cold dawn that doesn't reach the gutters.
Before the city roars, before the sirens wail — there's only breath and rust and secrets in the walls.
---
Selene Kain stands alone in the refrigerated hush of the city morgue.
She ties her dark hair back tight, pulls on thin latex gloves that stick to old cuts on her knuckles. The smell of formaldehyde is soaked into her bones by now — better than the stink of the city outside.
Dr. Edwin Rourke barks from his cluttered office, the door half-open, stale cigar smoke curling out. "Kain! Body from Fifth and Dyer's in. Truck'll dump it at your feet any minute — don't mix it up with last night's politician. You got it?"
She doesn't answer. She never does. She just nods, scribbles a note on the clipboard, and slides another drawer open — a nameless corpse staring at the ceiling with glassy eyes. Another Ashfall statistic. Another loose end in a city full of them.
In the break room, a black-and-white TV hisses static between shaky news reports — Ash TV News, the same plastic anchor every morning, lying about how crime is "stable," how the mayor "has it under control."
Selene's eyes flick to the corner where the floor drain leaks rust. She wonders, idly, how many secrets have spilled down that drain while Umbra's suits polish the city's smile.
---
A few miles east, Detective Iris Calder stands in her kitchen with a mug of burnt coffee and her wedding ring spinning on the table. Her kids are fighting over cereal — Liam shoves Maya, Maya squeals, milk splashes across the tile.
Nathan Calder — husband, federal badge, sleep-starved eyes — tries to corral them with one hand while scrolling his phone for Umbra chatter with the other.
Iris watches him over her mug. Wonders how many lies they're both living now.
She kisses Maya's head, swats Liam's ear. "Be good. Listen to your dad. I'll be late tonight."
Nathan arches a brow. "Another late night, huh? Can't let the city rot alone?"
She snorts. "This city's been rotting since before you were born, Fed Boy."
He smiles — that tired, same-old smile — and watches her badge vanish into her jacket as she steps out. The front door closes. He locks it behind her like a ritual that means nothing anymore.
---
On the edge of Dockside, in an alley that doesn't appear on any official map, a girl runs barefoot over wet concrete. Her name is Cassie Drew, but the city won't care enough to learn it if she dies here.
She's seventeen, ribs poking through a torn hoodie, blood streaking one shin. Behind her, a van door bangs open — a man in a crow mask slides out, humming an off-key nursery rhyme. Two more figures follow, knives glinting dull in the half-light.
Cassie trips, scrambles to her feet, slams into a chain-link fence — dead end. The Flock closes in, masks tilted like curious birds.
---
Above them, hidden in the drip and fog of an old fire escape, Selene Kain watches.
Not Selene the quiet morgue ghost — not anymore.
Tonight she wears her other face: leather cowl, matte black, feathered plating hugging her ribs. Her gloved hands flex — hidden talons slip into place like extra knuckles. She doesn't breathe until she must.
One of the masked men drags Cassie by the hair. She screams once — too loud, it echoes down broken brick.
Then something moves above them.
A slip of black. A hush of wings.
They look up — too late.
Selene drops like a nightmare. One talon hooks the first man's jaw — bone cracks like wet driftwood. She pivots, knee to the second's throat — a hiss of steel feathers follow. They never see her face. They see the knives. They see the void between her eyes.
Cassie just stares — stunned, half-mad with terror — as the last man begs behind his mask. Selene tilts her head, studies him like a lab rat on a slab. He rasps "Mercy—"
But she's not built for mercy.
Her talon rips across his throat in one cold stroke.
She kneels in the mess, checks Cassie's pulse. Still alive — good enough.
She fishes a black feather from her belt — smooth, real — and pushes it into Cassie's trembling hand.
"When they ask who did this," Selene whispers through her mask, voice low and hollow, "tell them a bird came for the wolves."
Cassie nods, mute. She'll remember. She'll talk. That's the point.
---
A mile away, in a cracked basement lit only by dead computer screens and cables like spider webs, Micah Torres chews cold instant noodles and watches it all through city traffic cams. Most feeds flicker black — he's already looped them, erased them, fed them static.
His fingers fly over cracked keys. His eyes flick to an old, dirty monitor that shows Selene's last location: Dockside — gone dark.
He mutters to himself, half a grin: "Careful, Featherhead. Leave 'em something to find."
---
An hour later, Cassie Drew sits wrapped in a dirty blanket on the curb outside the alley, an Ashfall PD patrol car strobing blue around her bruised knees.
Detective Iris Calder leans down, shows her badge, voice soft.
"Tell me, honey. Tell me who did this. Who killed them?"
Cassie shivers, holds out her palm.
A black feather sticks to her skin — slick with someone's blood.
Iris feels her stomach drop.
"What did she look like?"
Cassie's teeth chatter, eyes wide.
"A bird. She was a bird. Black wings. Knives. She killed them all."
Iris closes her notepad, glances at the alley — no footprints, no clue except the bodies cooling in the dark.
Behind her, crime tape flaps in the night wind.
In her pocket, her phone buzzes — Nathan texting you okay?
She doesn't answer. She pockets the feather instead.
---
Back at the morgue, hours later, Selene Kain returns with a tired face, hair down, gloves clean.
Dr. Rourke squints at her from his office door, cheap whiskey bottle half-hidden behind a stack of reports.
"You look like death, Kain."
She just nods, pulls another body tray from cold steel.
Inside her pocket, her phone vibrates once — an encrypted ping.
A ghost voice in her ear: Wraith.
No words — just the hiss of static.
A promise.
A storm building under Ashfall's rotten skin.
---
END OF CHAPTER ONE