Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQSEBDSJ8QGNVRX7CFZV2P

The rain was relentless, hammering down in stiff sheets that blurred the city’s flickering neon and dim streetlamps into smeared streaks. Detective Harlow Quinn parked her battered Ford just outside what looked like an abandoned tube station, its dark entrance yawning like a maw into the earth. A security barrier, flimsy but functional, blocked the door, and an uneven glow of flickering candles seeped from beneath the rusted grate. The scent of damp concrete and something sharper—perhaps old blood or something else—hung in the air. Harlow stepped out into the drizzle, her sharp jaw clenched tight. She adjusted her worn leather watch on her wrist as she approached, her boots splashing on the uneven pavement. Peering through the fence, her eyes locked onto the scene inside: a small perimeter had been established by uniformed officers, but their hurried, distracted presence suggested they didn’t quite know what they were looking at. Behind her, a voice called out: “Quinn. Over here.” She turned sharply, her brown eyes narrowing as she found her colleague, Detective Mark Sullivan, leaning against a battered metal railing, flipping through a battered notepad. “You’re late,” Sullivan said, voice low, with that familiar tone of nervous excitement. “No cameras, no witnesses. Looks like some kind of... ritual.” Harlow’s gaze swept the scene again. A makeshift altar lay in the center—a toppled crate covered in black cloth, candles scattered across the floor, some still smoldering. Near the altar, a circle of strange symbols, hastily drawn, had been etched into the concrete with what looked like chalk, or maybe ash. There was no sign of forced entry, no obvious signs of violence apart from the streaks of dried blood that spattered the ground. She crouched slightly, inspecting the symbols. They didn’t match anything she’d seen in the file cabinets or her past cases. Not simple graffiti, not gang markings. Still, they had a certain… energy. A pulse that made her skin crawl. She glanced at Sullivan. “No sign of a struggle? No personal effects?” He shook his head. “Nothing. No wallet, no phone, no obvious identification. Just this stuff. It’s almost as if… someone wanted us to find it, or maybe not even us.” Harlow’s gaze flicked over the scene once more. Her sharp eyes caught the faint imprint of something unusual. There, beneath the edge of the cloth covering the altar, a faint indentation, almost like a circle pressed into the concrete, too clean for the surrounding chaos. She reached out, kneeling carefully, her gloves brushing cold stone. The mark was too precise, not natural, almost like it had been carved after the fact. The rain intensifies, pattering against her coat and pooling in the uneven cracks. She could smell the metallic odor of blood, but it was faint, almost like a smell manufactured, not fresh enough for real murder. She looked up at the ceiling, where the tunnel’s arching concrete faded into darkness beyond the candlelight’s reach. “What’s your take?” she asked Sullivan, standing again. “This looks staged. Like someone was trying to make us see what they want us to see.” He hesitated, nervous. “Yeah, but I think there’s more here. I checked the perimeter identifications—they’re all locals, no outsiders. Still, I kept thinking, why hide here? Why not somewhere more... accessible?” Her brow furrowed. “Maybe because it’s protected, or tucked away in a place no one would bother to look. Or maybe they’re hiding something here.” She moved, slow and deliberate, scanning the walls, the ceiling. Her eyes caught faint, almost obscured symbols scratched into the concrete—too faint to make out clearly. She pulled out her phone, tapping a quick picture, knowing she’d have to analyze later, once she had a good lead. But then her gaze snagged on something else: a small brass compass lying at the edge of the altar, half-buried beneath a scattering of broken candles. She knelt again, brushing rain from her fingers and carefully retrieving it. The casing was tarnished, patina of verdigris creeping across its surface, the face etched with tiny protective sigils that shimmered faintly in the candlelight. Her eyes flicked to the needle—pointing, unwavering, toward the darkness beyond the tunnel, as if pulled by an unseen force. She frowned, eyes narrowing. “That’s new.” Sullivan looked over her shoulder, brow raised. “What, the compass?” “Yeah. It’s also locked onto something supernatural. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.” She pocketed the compass, feeling the faint warmth of its metal under her fingertips. “This is no ordinary setup. Someone’s trying to tell us something — or hide something.” He hesitated, returning to the perimeter. “But if it’s supernatural… why here? Why under Camden?” Harlow’s gaze sharpened. “Because whoever staged this knew exactly what they were doing. They want us to look in certain directions—not just at the symbols or the scene, but at what’s beyond.” She pulled out her handheld, switching to her city map, marking the nearby exits and tunnels. Then, her eyes landed on a detail Sullivan hadn’t noticed: a faint smear of ash trailing toward one side of the tunnel, as if someone had moved through, hurried or purposeful. She followed the line with her eyes, a fleeting suspicion gnawing at her. “We’re missing something,” she said quietly. “Something bigger. Whoever did this wants us to think it’s just some ritual, some ritualistic killing. But the signs don’t add up. Not with the way it’s staged.” She looked back at the symbols, then at the compass, feeling that familiar prickling along her skin, the sense that unseen eyes were watching her. Shadowed corners seemed to whisper secrets in the flickering candlelight, secrets she was only beginning to grasp. The rain seemed to loosen, finally, as if veiling the truth beneath its heavy curtain. But Harlow Quinn knew better: beneath the surface of something so simple as a crime scene, something dark and ancient slumbered—and she’d find it, tonight or in the depths to come.