He awoke to the sound of a ticking clock.
Not the precise tick of a pocket watch, nor the noble chime of a grandfather piece, but something off. Each tick landed just half a second too late.
He opened his eyes to a ceiling swathed in sepia haze. The oil lamp on the desk flickered weakly, casting thin, syrupy light across the room's wooden panels. Dust hung in the air like ash caught mid-fall.
He didn't remember falling asleep.
He didn't remember the room.
He didn't remember his name.
The bed beneath him was not made for comfort. The mattress was too firm, the sheets stiff and stained with faint blotches of ink—or was it dried blood? On the nightstand, a porcelain kettle sat beside a chipped teacup, both cold.
He sat up. His limbs ached. Not the sharp pain of injury, but the dull weight of disuse, as if he'd slept for weeks in a forgotten crypt.
A mirror rested on the opposite wall.
He approached it slowly. The man who stared back wore a high-collared coat fastened with silver buttons and a black cravat tied neatly at the throat. His eyes were grey, rimmed with deep circles. A vague memory stirred—not recognition, but the impression of someone watching him through fogged glass.
No scars. No tattoos. No hint of past or place.
Just him.
And then he saw it—
A letter tucked between the mirror's frame and the wall, folded thrice and sealed with a black wax stamp. The crest bore a symbol he did not recognize: a wheel with twelve spokes, each ending in a different shape—a crown, a flame, a serpent.
He opened it. The ink was red.
To the Man Who Should Not Exist,
You must leave before nightfall. The other tenants have begun to notice.
The train departs at 7:46. Do not miss it.
Burn this after reading.
— V.
He reread it three times. "The other tenants"? There were no sounds outside. No footsteps. No whispers. Yet now that he thought about it, there had been voices just before he woke up. Not clear, but muffled—as if behind walls too thick to be real.
On the desk, he found a train ticket.
First Class. The Thorne Railway. Carriage 7, Seat 46.
The date? No year. Just a string of numerals: 13·III·XIII.
He checked the fireplace. Inside was a single page torn from a book, charred at the edges. It read only:
"To erase the name is to erase the sin."
He opened the wardrobe. It was empty—except for a pair of gloves and a newspaper, dated three days prior. The headline read:
"Unidentified Corpse Found in Marrow Street Attic—Face Removed"
He looked out the window. Fog swallowed the city like a living thing. Street lamps glowed faintly through the mist, flickering like dying stars. Somewhere in the distance, a train let out a distant, shrill cry.
A question formed in his mind—not spoken, not fully grasped, but growing:
Who am I?
Why was I hidden here?
And why does the world feel like it remembers me, even when I do not remember myself?
From the hallway beyond his door came the soft sound of something shifting.
Not footsteps.
Not voices.
But something.
He did not wait. He took the gloves, the letter, the ticket. He left the room without looking back.
Outside, the fog seemed to part only for him, curling away like a curtain before a stage. And somewhere in the haze, a tall figure waited—umbrella in hand, coat long and pale, face obscured.
As he stepped into the street, the figure turned. Their voice was soft, and genderless, and familiar.
"Do you remember your name yet?"
He shook his head.
"Good," the figure said. "Then we still have time."
"I go by the name Victor Grimwell, Detective of the Tristan District. And you, my friend, are going to help me with something," he said, his voice still calm yet carrying an unsettling edge, as he slowly lowered the umbrella he had been holding, revealing his face—a sharp, calculating expression framed by dark, piercing eyes.