The city was a labyrinth of shadows, a tapestry woven upon the hues of midnight blues and bruised purples. Up above it, the moon, pearly sentinel, cast on the urban expanse strange, distorted fingers of rays. Silas Thorne (a.k.a. Viper), a ghost across the night, glides through this maze with hushed steps like a shadow. He didn't walk, he became shadows; absorbing darkness within and letting it fuel both as disguise and tool. He possessed senses, finely sharpened by years of practice and countless missions, as the most effective of all weapons.
He chose his victim, Zephyr, a warm speck on the thermal scan of high-powered glasses. The image was but a faint warmth against the cool night-stand to Silas all that was needed. The alley he knew by heart-a rat-run twisting its way through the underbelly of the city -it was one of those places where secrets fester and whispers die in suffocating darkness. Just perfect for an assassination.
Silas paced out at almost a predator's cadence, the screech of his footstep disturbing little enough of the night as to be not much a sound at all. He counted every step, weighed every movement, creating his silent symphony of efficiency and lethality. His gear: silenced pistol. Marvelous engineering, that; reassuringly solid against his palm. The little compact knife was tucked on in against his thigh-there was that whisper of death. He was a ghost, a specter, a phantom of the night who slid through the city's underbelly with deadly precision.
The air was replete with the stench of wet earth, rotting waste, and something else-fear. It was a subtle scent, almost imperceptible, but Silas's heightened senses picked it up instantly. It was the city's collective fear, a low hum resonating from the concrete canyons, feeding his own predatory instincts.
In this regard, Lyra never knew that she was pursued as she walked down twisting alleys with the ease of a phantom herself. She was not using her powers to run but was subtly gliding through winding alleys. The wind shared secrets with her as she moved through narrow passageways, revealing shortcuts unknown to her and warning of unseen obstacles. She thus had the wind for company, her silent friend-a comforting presence in the darkness that oppressed her.
The air was stale with beer and garbage, metallic with the stink of blood – a past violence left behind. Lyra's senses were quickened by her wind magic: she felt changes in the currents of the air, eddies of temperature and pressure, even minute shifts in weight on stone. She floated through the dark, steps nearly silent on damp cobblestones.
The alley was claustrophobic, a maze; its walls closed in upon her, the darkness pressing down on her as a physical weight. And yet, Lyra felt a strange, almost inexplicable sense of calm. The wind had become her shield, her protector, guiding her to her destination: the rendezvous point, the forgotten corner of the alley where she and Zephyr had first met.
She rounded a sharp bend. The wind was momentarily stilled, a sudden lull in the usual symphony of whispers. A shadow detached itself from the wall, a fleeting glimpse of movement in the periphery of her vision. She felt the skin pricking for a split second and an aura of danger-a warning, instinctive, but not quite explicit.
Then came the jarring collision, the crash that sent her off balance, backward. A hand large and calloused brushed across her arm with a lingering chill. She turned her eyes up, straining to peer through the dimness. All she caught was the shadow, which flitted away, vanished into darkness.
And once again, the wind stirs; a gust whips round her, carrying that elusive tang of iron and.something else. Subtly metallic, somehow sinister in its sweetness, something's riding the darkness that gathers about the alley.
Now, the alley was altered; heavy air bore within it a menace, dark, unseen, like an oppressive presence lurking behind it.
Lyra extended a shaking hand, brushed with trembling fingers against the brick wall's cold damp. She could feel warmth lingers from the body she bumped into, a shadow trace of his presence. He was gone however and vanished without leaving any sort of clue behind but chills of silence and something that made her feel so uncomfortable as if she's not alone. The dark held its breath and made Lyra know, at a certainty that made her bones chill, that something terrible was about to befall. The wind, which would normally be on her side, seemed eerily silent, holding its breath…
Lyra took a step backward, her heart pattering inside her chest like it was trying to claw free. Panicked cold fear was clawing at the back of her throat as she worried that they discovered the secret-the sneaky trysts with the villain, this uneasy partnership made in the darkness of night-and she's been caught. That shiver down her spine chilled her like a sheet of ice. She stood there, head reeling from the shock of what had just occurred to her, for a moment.
But something struck her, leapt out against the fear-attested thought-it was a flicker of curiosity, nagging suspicion. The shadow. it came too fast, too fast; quiet. It wasn't a thump without some shape. Was she the only one in this alley who was with Zephyr? The question burrowed into her mind like a persistent itch she could hardly ignore. Instincts screamed at her to follow, to investigate, to uncover the truth that hid in the darkness. Her hand moved involuntarily toward the concealed dagger at her hip. This familiar weight offered but small comfort.
She took a nervous step forward, her eyes straining to the point at which the shadow disappears while wrestling in her head all conflicting emotions. That excitement of the hunt; the thrill of mystery sheered against the words said by Zephyr-now lost in her head for an urgent rendezvous and appointment. Shall she turn back, to succumb to her gut-feeling, and run off everything? The weight of the decision was crushing her, crushing her in the choking darkness.
But then there was Zephyr's voice, echoing in her head-a warning, a command. The meeting was important. She could not afford to get caught, or worse yet, the repercussions for disobedience. With a sigh, she set her curiosity aside, her instincts momentarily stifled by the weight of responsibility. She turned, walked fast and determinedly to the agreed meeting place; that nagging question hanging in the air, a promise of some future reckoning. The alley was dark still, its mystery unsolved, the challenge mute and waiting for her return.