Smoke curled lazily from the alleyways, coiling around the edges of shattered signs and charred crates. The city smelled like ash, metal, and mistakes. Somewhere above, a faint wind carried the echoes of chaos distant screams, hurried footsteps, the kind of background noise that made a place feel alive in all the wrong ways.
Soft crackle… distant dripping… low hum… faint footfall…
The burned sigil glowed faintly in the half-light, its edges jagged, precise. "I see you." Whoever had left it knew exactly what it would do: stir the imagination, rattle nerves, and mark territory without firing a single shot. I studied the lines, the angles, the deliberate imperfections. Someone wanted to make a point, and they did.
I crouched, pressing a finger into the soot at the base of the wall, letting it smear over the sigil. A subtle counter-statement: noticed, acknowledged, but not intimidated. If the Architect thought this was a message that could scare me, he clearly underestimated my taste in irony.
Soft metallic scrape… distant footfall… hum…
Around me, civilians shuffled through the wreckage, eyes darting, shoulders tense. Syndicate foot soldiers paced unevenly, checking corners and whispers, unaware that I was cataloging every twitch, every hesitation. Fear was contagious, but it also had patterns, predictable ones if you had the patience to see them. And I did.
The sigil's power lay in the reaction it provoked. One soldier froze mid-step, fingers brushing the hilt of his blade. A civilian flinched at a shadow, then glanced at the smoldering crates behind me. Every movement, every micro-reaction, became part of my mental map. I stored it, indexed it, and smiled at the irony: chaos orchestrated to control, but the observer remained in charge.
Soft crackle… drip… low hum…
I stepped back, letting the soot settle in streaks over the jagged lines. Perfect imperfection. The street around me was still trembling with the aftermath of staged fires and collapsed barricades, but this little mark, this whispered taunt, would echo longer than any scream.
I tilted my head, scanning the horizon. The Architect loved his little games. Predictable, precise, and utterly theatrical. Not bad. But predictable.
"Great," I muttered under my breath, voice carrying just enough to catch my own amusement. "Someone else decorating the walls. Didn't we have enough smoke and fire already?"
I wiped my hands on my coat, leaving a faint trace of soot behind, as if signing my own footnote beneath the message. The Veins hummed beneath me, impatient, restless. Ready for a spark, ready for someone who knew how to strike at the right time.
"Message received," I whispered, smirk curling the corner of my lips. "Now, let's see who blinks first."