Northcrest, November 3rd, 1962

6:12 PM

The wind rolled low through the city like it was dragging chains.

Northcrest was gray that evening—gray sky, gray concrete, gray breath spilling from mouths too tired to complain. The sun hadn’t gone down yet, but nobody looked up. Streetlamps blinked to life early, flickering like nerves on edge. The city didn’t feel alive. It felt haunted.

On paper, Northcrest was thriving.

The mayor—a tall, always-smiling man named Walter Penbrook—had said as much on the radio just hours earlier. His voice was bright. Rehearsed. “This is a city of innovation,” he said. “Of structure. Of hope.”

But the people on Grayson Boulevard weren’t listening. Not anymore.

Grayson used to be the jewel of downtown—clean storefronts, curved balconies, jazz from open doors. Now it was a street of ghosts. Pawn shops. Boarded cafés. Posters peeling off walls. A woman coughed into her sleeve and kept walking, past a flickering lamppost and the chalk outline still etched faintly on the sidewalk.

Across town, things looked better—on the surface.

Glenmere Heights glimmered behind glass and brushed metal. W.H.O. banners hung from government buildings in proud navy and silver. Drones floated lazily above intersections, tracking movement, measuring silence. In Ellison Green Park, a family posed by the fountain while officials in pressed uniforms stood just out of frame.

They didn’t see the man sleeping on a bench behind the bushes. Or maybe they did—and just moved the shot.

Every corner of Northcrest had its place. Its illusion.

The west side still stank of factory soot and wet rust—Marrow Row, where the steel never stopped screaming. Smog blackened the windows. Even the stray dogs looked tired. But deeper into the city, Stonebridge South buzzed with smugglers and late-night deliveries. Nobody asked questions there. Nobody liked the answers.

And then there was Fallow End—a name spoken like a curse.

Fallow was the graveyard of old projects: shattered apartments, cracked roads, and whispers in the stairwells. Kids vanished there. Gangs ruled the rooftops. Even cops walked faster through it. And yet, candles still burned in some windows. People still fought to live, even in a place already condemned.

W.H.O. claimed they were fixing it all.

Billboards said so: STRENGTH THROUGH STRUCTURE.

The mayor said it on repeat: “We are not afraid of the future.”

But the alleys said otherwise. So did the missing posters. The empty phone booths. The news that never made it past the editorial desk.

It was the year of silence.

Three assassinations in eleven months. Eight disappearances tied to “unrest.” One police precinct locked down from the inside—and never reopened. The official report said power failure. People knew better.

At 6:17 PM, in the heart of Charter Hill, a girl in a yellow coat stood alone at a bus stop. The bus didn’t come. It hadn’t for three nights.

Above her, the sky began to darken. Streetlights buzzed faintly. Far off, somewhere behind the clouds, the low hum of a distant engine whispered across the rooftops—too slow to be a plane, too steady to be wind.

She didn’t notice it. Nobody did.

But someone else did.

Not the mayor. Not W.H.O.

Someone off the record. Off the system. Off the grid.

The kind of person who only shows up when the plan breaks.

He wasn’t in the light yet.

But he was already here.

Northcrest Daily Press

November 4th, 1962 – 9:42 AM

By Marla Keene, Senior Correspondent

They pulled him out just after six. The lake was still black, fog clinging to the surface like skin. A duck drifted by, paying no mind. One of the officers cursed quietly under his breath. Another turned away and retched into the grass.

“No sign of trauma,” a voice said behind them. It was the coroner, buttoning his coat higher against the cold. “No wounds. No bruises. No water in the lungs. He didn’t drown.”

Detective Byron Meritt knelt beside the body, fingers hovering just above the man’s jacket. “So how the hell did he get here?” His voice was low, tight. He wasn’t talking to anyone in particular.

The body was strange. Clean. Too clean. Still dressed for the office—slacks, loafers, corduroy jacket with a stain near the cuff. No wallet, no ID. Just a diner napkin folded in his coat pocket. Blue ink, scrawled in a frantic hand: They’re already here.

Meritt stood and looked out across Lakehurst Park. Sunlight was beginning to bleed through the fog, thin and pale. The playground swing creaked in the breeze.

“We don’t talk to the press,” he muttered. “Not until we know what this is.”

Two hours later, the press knew anyway.

Across town, at the Blue Cow Diner, old men stirred their coffee and shook their heads. “Told you,” Malcolm Stokes said, tapping his spoon hard against the ceramic mug. “It’s starting again. You think this is the first one? Pfft. You think this city doesn’t bury things?” He laughed once, sharp. “They just bury the ones that can’t talk.”

A young waitress hesitated, glancing toward the window. “You mean the W.H.O.?” she whispered.

Stokes didn't answer. Just stared out at the trees across the street, where the fog was still thick. “They’re not the ones you see. They’re the ones who see you.”

Northcrest PD issued their official statement around 9 AM. “An isolated incident,” they called it. “No cause for concern.” But it was already too late. The city had started to whisper.

At the corner of Lakehurst and Jubilee, a woman stood wrapped in a wool shawl, her arms tight around her chest. She’d seen the body when they brought it out. “His eyes were open,” she said quietly. “He wasn’t scared. He looked… aware. Like he was watching something. Like he knew something was coming.” She looked down, voice shaking. “And the cops… they didn’t hide it well. One of them was crying.”

Two blocks away, schoolchildren were let out early. “Maintenance,” the letter said. “Precaution.” But parents weren’t buying it. Not with police tape still fluttering in the park. Not with reporters watching from across the street.

Inside Precinct Five, Meritt sat at his desk, the napkin sealed in a plastic sleeve. He stared at it for a long time. Didn’t touch it. Didn’t move.

His phone rang once. Then stopped.

Ten minutes later, the lights flickered.

At 11:02 AM, the city morgue lost power for exactly thirty-four seconds.

When the backup lights kicked in, the body was gone.

Angela Faye was the only tech on duty. She hadn’t moved from her chair. “I didn’t hear anything,” she said. Her face was pale, eyes unfocused. “But something was in the room.”

She pointed toward the door.

A wet trail smeared the tiles. It led from the autopsy table across the floor, through the exit… and vanished.

No fingerprints. No damage to the lock. The security camera feed? Dead. Wiped.

The coroner called Meritt himself. “It’s gone,” he said, not even trying to hide the shake in his voice. “Jesus, Byron, it’s just gone.”

Meritt didn’t respond. He was already standing in the alley behind the precinct, staring at something small and black lying beside the dumpster.

A coin. Round. Smooth. Metal cold to the touch.

Etched on one side were three words: Observe. Correct. Disappear.

He pocketed it without a word.

Meanwhile, downtown, Marla Keene tapped her notes into her typewriter, listening to the city shift outside her office window. Car horns. Dogs barking. A door slamming far below. But underneath it all, something else. A hum, maybe. A breath.

“I went to the park again,” she murmured aloud, just to hear the sound of her voice. “Something’s wrong there. The grass… it didn’t bend. Where the body was. Like the earth didn’t want to touch him.”

Her editor knocked once before stepping in. “You done with the copy?”

Marla nodded. “Almost.” Her fingers hovered over the keys. “But I want the last line to matter.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he grunted. “They’ll run something soft under it. Weather. A sports column. People forget quick.”

That night, as the city dimmed beneath yellow streetlamps and boarded windows, someone sat alone in a windowless room. A map stretched across the table. A red circle around Lakehurst.

Notes scrawled in shorthand.

Photos arranged.

A flicker of static on an old reel-to-reel recorder.

The voice, distant, warped: “Subject escaped before processing. Protocol failed. Eyes still open.”

The room went silent.

Then, a whisper. Not from the recorder. From the air itself.

“We’ve been seen.”

In the dark of the city, someone closes a folder.

And somewhere nearby, something wet moves across the floor.

November 6th, 1962

1:14 AM

Furnace Alley, Stonebridge South

The night stank of gasoline, piss, and burnt matchsticks. Thick fog rolled between the broken bricks like breath from something too big to name. A slow jazz number—Sinatra, maybe—floated down from a third-floor window, scratchy and warped, as if the air itself had grown tired of music. Nobody paid it any mind.

Two long-bodied black sedans angled at either end of the alley, engines off but headlights burning through the fog like twin spears of heatless fire. The doors hung open. Steam curled off hoods still warm.

Behind the cars, crouched low and breathing heavy, were men in mismatched suits—baggy trousers, untucked dress shirts, fedoras soaked through with sweat. Fingers worked clips into empty guns. Palms slapped shotgun barrels. Shouts flew fast, hot, half in English, half in something else—something old and bitter.

“Motherfucker owes me three grand and a pound of respect!” someone screamed.

“You shot Louie first, asshole!” someone else bellowed back. “You broke the truce!”

The first reply was a shotgun blast that punched a hole clean through the back window of the nearer sedan. Glass rained. Metal howled.

It had started, as these things always did, over a debt. Someone shorted someone. Someone owed protection. Someone crossed a line. Nobody remembered the details now. Only the heat.

“You f*ckin’ rat—come out and face me like a man!”

“Eat shit and choke!”

Muzzle flashes burst against rusted walls. Sparks shot from dumpsters. Bullets punched into brick. Somewhere, a man dropped with a grunt and didn’t get up, blood dark and fast beneath his ribs.

Another ducked behind a trash can, reloading one-handed while muttering fast in Polish. The curses came out cracked and wet. He was bleeding from the scalp.

They looked like gangsters from an old movie—pinstripes, suspenders, cigars clenched between teeth—but the faces were real. Twisted. Feral. No makeup. No rehearsals. Just rage and survival layered thick over fear.

Someone shouted in Russian. Another answered in Sicilian. Nobody translated.

Then the sky went white.

No sound. No warning. Just a pulse—brilliant, searing, white as magnesium—that dropped over the alley like the hand of God.

For a heartbeat, everything froze.

Guns stopped barking. Mouths stopped cursing. The world blinked to silence.

Then came the ringing.

Sharp, high-pitched, screaming through their skulls like metal tearing through bone.

A heavy thump landed somewhere near the front sedan. Metal groaned. A hood crumpled inward. One headlight blew with a soft pop.

Someone blinked away the blindness just in time to see it—black coat snapping in the wind, boots planted hard in the steel, and a face.

Or what passed for a face.

Smooth. White. Featureless. Oval-shaped. No eyes. No mouth. Just a blank reflection that caught the light in ripples, like water trapped behind glass.

A scream tried to escape from one of the men. Didn’t make it.

The figure moved. Fast.

A hand snapped down and caught a gunman by the wrist—crack. Bone shattered. The pistol clattered to the ground. The man dropped with it, howling, his voice sharp and high like a child’s.

Another raised a sawed-off. Got one shot off—wild, into the wall. The blade hit him first. A throwing knife, silver-gray, buried deep in the meat of his shoulder. He spun, dropped, screamed into the pavement.

Someone turned to run—big mistake. A cord whipped down from above, looped his ankles mid-stride, yanked tight. He pitched forward like a sack of wet laundry and hit the ground hard. Didn't get back up.

Inside the car, the impact had jolted the old radio back to life. A tinny voice crooned above the chaos, low and sweet, as if the alley hadn’t become a warzone.

“Night and day… you are the one…”

Nomad didn’t flinch. He ducked under a punch, caught a man’s coat with one hand, yanked him off balance, and slammed him headfirst into the rearview mirror. Glass cracked. Blood followed.

Another man tried to plead—hands raised, mouth open, “Wait, wait, don’t—”

Too late.

Nomad grabbed the front of his coat, spun him sideways, and drove him into the trunk with the full force of his shoulder. The taillight cracked beneath the impact. The man slid down in a heap.

Three remained.

Two bolted for the far end of the alley. One never made it—tripped on a broken crate and went face-first into the pavement. The other vanished into fog.

Nomad didn’t chase him.

He turned back.

Methodical. Silent. Efficient.

One by one, he drew thin restraints from his coat—simple metal cuffs, no keys, no clicks—just a tight loop and a quiet twist. One man groaned when he felt cold steel bite his wrist. The others didn’t even stir.

When he was done, six bodies lined the brick wall. None dead. All breathing. All broken in their own ways.

Nomad straightened, coat still rippling with wind, and turned toward the rooftop. A shadow moved up there. Briefly. Then gone.

He didn’t speak. Never did.

He just stepped off the curb, boots thudding against the cracked stone, and disappeared into the fog like he’d never been there at all.

The radio kept playing.

“Whether near to me, or far…”

By the time the cops arrived—sirens slicing through the silence like razors through silk—it was over.

The alley was quiet again.

No witnesses. No shell casings.

Just a row of unconscious men. A broken car. And a song echoing out into the dark.

And in Northcrest, a new name joined the old stories.

A name not shouted, not spoken.

Only whispered.

Nomad.