"Maybe," Elias muttered, pulling a crumpled polaroid from his trench coat. "Or maybe I'm just waiting for the ghost to find me."
"I always preferred a cliffhanger," Elias whispered, and snapped the locks open.
The bell above the door chimed—a sharp, lonely sound. A man in a tailored suit that didn't belong in this part of town stepped in. He wasn't wet, despite the torrential downpour outside. He walked straight to Elias’s booth and sat down without an invitation.
Elias looked at the briefcase, then at the rain-streaked window. The city was waking up, oblivious to the fact that its fate was currently being negotiated over burnt coffee and dry toast. He reached for the latches.
"You look like you're chasing a ghost, Elias," she said, wiping her hands on a stained apron.
The neon hum of the “Starlight Diner” felt louder than usual in the silence of the 4:00 AM rush. Detective Elias Thorne sat at the corner booth, nursing a lukewarm coffee that tasted like wet charcoal. This was his ritual—the graveyard shift’s final stop before the sun forced the city to pretend it was decent again.
Should Elias and go rogue, or arrest Vane right there in the diner?