Statement Begins

Jonathan Sims/The Archivist 

January 8th, 2011

Apartment number 025, the domicile of one Nathan Ennis, at least, according to the one lead I was able to scrounge up. Mr. Ennis is either a remarkably careful man or an unremarkably forgettable man as though I was told he lived here, I’ve yet to find any actual proof of that fact. His name isn’t listed among this complex’s residents and in fact this apartment is supposed to be vacant.

It’s possible I’ve been lied to, it’s not like I have my team with me to help sort through it all. Still, it’s unlikely.

I don’t enjoy the footwork of my job, going door to door, speaking with the dregs of this city, it isn’t exactly the most safe work. But it pays the bills.

I reach up to my neck, making sure that the plain turtleneck is covering my mouth and nose before I look over the rest of my costume. It’s not much of a costume if I’m being frank, just a near blackish green overcoat, an almost equally drab turtleneck, slacks, and dress shoes. None of it screams cape but I’m rather content with that actually, I’m less a spandex wearing hero and more just a power-assisted detective.

I snort to myself as I make sure everything fits right. Georgie would take the piss if she heard me saying that, would probably make a vague comment about how capes possess an unearned grandeur and then cough something that sounds suspiciously like ‘Archivist’ on her little radio show.

Checking over my pockets, I cringe as the tips of my fingers ghost over a mask on the inside of my coat, the ceramic smile inside is… sticky for lack of a better word.

I pull my hand away from the cursed thing and try my best to wipe away the residue that isn’t actually on my fingers. I hate the thing and every time I find myself needing to put it on, it becomes harder and harder to take off.

Not in that it’s difficult to part with, it’s hardly a pretty thing to wear, but literally. Every time it sits on my face, it’s a battle to get off, like the inside of it is coated with some kind of glue that rips out my five o’clock shadow. 

I’m not quite sure what the mask is honestly, I think the Americans have a code for it, a Case 04 I believe. It’s an umbrella term for items that started popping up in the early nineties, certain knick-knacks, devices, the odd book or three, the sort’ve things that might as well be Tinkertech. The only constant found amongst them is that all of them have certain… peculiarities. 

Theories amongst their creation vary, with some claiming they’re made by the same shadowy group that makes Case 53’s and others saying that they’re just items that were present when a cape gains their powers.

Regardless, the mask is one such item I’ve come to possess, an old theater mask that one of my associates found on some underground stage. Personally, I hate the damn thing but if I’m to find the least popular capes in Brockton, I need to become acquainted with some less than stellar people.

I pat the pocket with a quiet respect. I don’t like it and though it might just be personification, I don’t believe it cares for me either. Ugly as I find it, it’s only because of it that I was able to speak with the gentleman of the Empire for long.

I clear my throat once and prepare myself for what I’m about to do. According to his associates, Nathan Ennis was a former Empire grunt and mule and if he’s anything like the rest of his colleagues, I doubt he’ll take kindly to someone with my complexion.

I reach up a hand and knock on the door, wincing when two bright spotlights shine from either of the top corners, bathing me in enough light that spots grow in my vision. 

“Who are you?” Someone, likely Nathan, calls from the other side of the door, his voice muffled and a fair bit shaky. “What do you want from me?”

“I—” I pause, reaching up and tilting my hat a bit to block the light. “I’m the Archivist, a… consultant for the PRT. I’m following up on an… encounter you may have had.”

There’s silence for a good moment, the quiet constantly breached by the droning of the lights when Nathan finally speaks, his voice quieter and dead still.

“Are you talking about the Man in the Dark?” he asks me and I nod.

“Yes, that sounds about right, I—”

“I’m not going down to your fucking rig you understand? Ain’t going to the PRT building neither, I’m not stupid, it’s too late in the day!”

His words get me to pause and I look down the hall to the sole window, the bright blue sky shining in. Too late in the day? It’s not even 2pm yet.

“That won’t be necessary,” I reply, trying to ease his nerves. “I can take a statement here if you’d prefer.”

With my bargain said, I wait with baited breath. My power might be good for loosening tongues and making people more comfortable but I’m afraid to say that it’s rather easy to counter. This door for instance, is just about thick enough that it gets the job done.

The moment stretches and just as I think he’s decided to give me the cold shoulder, several heavy locks start to turn in their places, the metal clanking and clunking when the door finally opens, revealing a shirtless blonde man and a rather large kitchen knife clutched in his grip.

“Fine,” he says, his voice getting shakier. “You can—” he gulps, his eyes rake over me and then around the brightly lit hallway. “You can come in but only if you take off your coat, leave it on the floor, right where I can see it, alright?”

I cringe behind my disguise, this isn’t the first time someone’s demanded something of me at knife point and that isn’t what’s bothering me. My coat is just a thing, a bullet proof thing that I paid a tidy sum for but just a thing. The real problem is my… tools.

The mask isn’t the only odd item I’ve found myself needing to carry around these days. Just on me I have an old lighter that doesn’t need fuel, a torch that doesn’t cast shadows, and an old trowel that’s remarkably good at making things fall apart.

I don’t expect Mr. Ennis to take them consciously but… they have a tendency to wander.

“Alright,” I say, careful to keep my voice respectful but not teetering on ‘you are crazy and I’m trying not to set you off.’ “I can do that.”

He nods and gestures for me to follow with a jerk of his head, standing right in the doorway until I’ve passed him. My heart picks up speed when I hear the door lock behind me but that brief spike of fear is tempered by the curious decor. 

The apartment isn’t very large, with the front door leading right into an open living room and with a singular door on the other side of me, probably with a bedroom behind it.

The living room only has two stools in the dead center and while that is undoubtedly odd, it’s the rest of the room that takes my attention. Wall to wall, ceiling to floor, the entire room is bathed in light.

Fairy lights hang from the ceiling and line the edges, all of the corners have lamps stacked on top of lamps and just above the stools is a singular, large, spotlight, bathing both of them in an eerie white glow.

Nathan steps around me and to the stool opposite the door and that’s when I really take him in.

He’s… well, he isn’t in the best of shape. His skin is clammy and shines with sweat, his hair is short but matted to his skull, his blue eyes are bloodshot and with bags that make mine look well rested. He brings a hand up to wipe at his nose and I look at his fingers, the nails have been bitten down almost to the quick, red and scabbed over like he was dragged across a floor.

His beard is patchy and unkempt and I can’t help but notice the lightning bolts on his neck, the Schutzstaffel I think they’re called. The hate symbol has been scratched enough times that it’s almost unrecognizable. 

All in all, both the room and his health paint a very clear picture. Nathan Ennis is likely insane or on the edge of being so.

I take off my coat and discreetly take a deep breath. Piggot isn’t paying me to do nothing, so crazy or otherwise, I have to make do with what I have.

“There,” Nathan points to just under the window, the light from outside seeming like nothing to the light in here. “Lay it there, flat as you can, don’t let it bundle.”

“Right,” I nod, stepping over and careful to keep one eye on him as I try to start a conversation. “Can’t imagine the electric bill this must drum up.”

“My aunt owns the place,” Nathan tells me, letting his knife clatter to the floor as he places his hands on his jeaned knees, rubbing the worn fabric. “She’s nice, doesn’t care what I do.”

I hum and resist the urge to roll my eyes, that’s an American for you, never able to pick up on the subtleties of British humor. I lay the coat down as flat as I can, making sure none of the pockets have opened up before turning back to my lead.

“Yes, well—” the stool wobbles a bit beneath me and I compensate for the shift before clearing my throat. “I’m here to—”

“You already said,” Nathan interrupts me. “You’re here to find the Man in the Dark.”

I nod, my ears pricking up at his terminology. There’s something in the weight of what he says, something that makes ‘dark’ sound like a place.

“You’re not gonna find him,” a nervous laugh laces his voice and he gives into it, his eyes going manic as he chuckles. “If Armsmaster couldn’t find him, w-what the hell can you do huh? Gonna use your power? Gonna find something the robofucker didn’t?”

That… is something I didn’t know. Damnit all, I know the Protectorate can’t share their resources with me but it would’ve been nice to know I’m not retreading old ground.

Withholding the sigh takes a lot more strength than I care to admit but silently, I pull out a tape recorder from my front pocket, ready to begin when Nathan reaches out to me, hands clenched on nothing.

“Wait,” he gulps and points to the front of my jeans, “turn them inside out. The pockets. T-turn them out, turn them out right now!”

“Okay, okay, alright,” I grumble, setting the recorder on my thigh and showing him the inside of my slacks. He nods at them and with a pointed look from me, he nods again, gulping as I click start.

“Statement of Nathan Ennis, a…” I look up, gauging my words carefully. “Former Empire 88 gang member, statement taken directly from subject, January 8th, 2011. Statement begins:”

Nathan looks at me and like everyone under the effect of my power, he releases a shuddering breath before he starts. 

“I wouldn’t call myself a member, I mean, I did work for them from time to time but it was more like I was hired help, a little less than a grunt I guess. I’m not with them any more though, to be honest, I didn’t even mean to be a part of it to begin with, it just sort’ve happened y’know? Like, you have a buddy who tells you how he managed to afford going out so much and he brings you along and ‘oh, everyone has shaved heads here.’ I know that probably sounds like a weak excuse to you but it really was just that.”

He’s right it sounds like a load of bollocks but I’ll keep that to myself for now.

“For a while, I guess I was kind’ve a grunt but that was when I was kid, fresh out of highschool with ideas of being hotshit before I was twenty. That’s young blood though, every newbie thinks that they’ll go from pusher to Kaiser’s right hand man in just a week. I got smart eventually, got tired of capes knocking me around and started distancing myself from the streets. I had enough favors loaded that I could get out with just a few more years of down low work.”

“I’m sorry,” I interrupt, “‘down low’ work?”

“Yeah man, the little shit y’know? Guarding storehouses, maybe moving shit in your own car, shit like that, shit that’s quiet and on the down low. That’s…” he gulps and looks up to the light beating down on us, his eyes not even wincing under the harsh glow. “That’s actually what I was doing when it all happened.” 

A sudden tightness invades his body, his wiry muscles flexing as he forces himself to look away from the light.

“It wasn’t supposed to go down like it did man. I should’ve known it was fucked when the other group didn’t show but Jacob just told me it was cause they were pussies and that it was just gonna be a bigger take for us. It’s the kind of shit that gets the newbies in line and I should’ve known better but I didn’t, I should’ve said something but I learned a long time ago that’s how you end up doing the job anyway with a split lip or a busted nose.”

He sighs and shakes his head, his knuckles clenching and the scab over his left index finger cracking open.

“We were at the docks down on the far southside of town, as far away from the gooks as possible and we were waiting for a shipment. I know that sounds impossible given the beached freighter out there but the graveyard is easy enough to get through if the boat’s small and you’ve got a map. We were supposed to be taking in some…” 

Nathan trails off, his mind slapping against my power as he looks up at me.

“You can’t arrest me for the shit I say here right? This isn’t gonna count as a confession?”

“No,” I answer, “I don’t have any jurisdiction in the states, even if I wanted to, I have no grounds.”

The answer placates him and he nods once before reaching up to scratch at the back of his neck.

“It was girls man, that’s what we were taking in that night, a whole boatload from one of the touristy places in Europe. All that shit you hear about the ABB being the human traffickers and the Empire only doing white collar crime? It’s a load of shit, crap Allfather started and Kaiser kept going, we all do the same stuff. The Empire sells just as much heroin as the Merchants, the Merchants have their own protection racket going on, and the ABB does as much insurance fraud as any of us. Gangs are gangs are gangs.

“Anyway, that’s all it was supposed to be, the same job I’d done a hundred times before, just stand at the edge of the dock, shout when it shows up and maybe slap a few girls if they try anything. That’s it but that night… it just didn’t feel right man, the water was too quiet and with the moon being covered up, I couldn’t see shit out there. It was like the docks were on a fucking cliff, with just… nothing on the other side.

“We must’ve sat there for maybe half an hour or so before the boat finally showed up. I remember thinking the captain must’ve been fresh because he didn’t have any of the lights on. Sure, in New York or Saint Paul you might need to keep them off but this is Brockton. Nobody gives a shit as long as you’re not honking the fucking horn.

“It was a dinky little thing, the kind of boat that a rich asshole might buy to sleep away in if the feds come knocking. I didn’t think much of it at the time though, just thought that Jacob fucked up the job and there were gonna be maybe a third of the girls he said there’d be. I remember being glad it was so small actually, it meant that we’d get it done quicker and maybe I could go to bed early.

“But then fucking thing had to crash.”

“I’m sorry,” I interrupt, “Crash?”

“Yeah it fucking crashed, it didn’t break nothing, it wasn’t going fast enough for that, but it hit the dock and I ended up dropping my pistol into the drink. Jacob and a few of the others were pissed but when we hopped on board and started yelling at the driver’s cabin, the captain just told us to hurry the fuck up.

“I remember being pissed when I heard him, he was black, with that kind of pronunciation they all got. I wasn’t pissed with him but with the others, the younger ones, the morons still in high school, they wanted to pull him out and teach him a lesson and it’s only cause Jacob gave em a good smack that they didn’t do that.

“Fucking up delivery men is a good way to get yourself on a list and while I might not have gave much of a shit, Jacob actually wanted to move up, stop commanding the freshies and part timers and maybe go into the veterans, the people right under the capes.

“So Jacob ended up having to apologize to the fucker and then we all made our way to the other side of the boat, to the hatch that led downstairs. It… we all had flashlights with us but they weren’t very strong. The hatch… Jacob told me to open it up and when I did, the handle was ice fucking cold, cold enough I could feel it through my gloves. I didn’t expect the door to give if I’m being honest, I thought it would’ve stuck with how cold the lock must’ve got but it just swung open with barely a pull.

“That’s when I first saw it… the Dark.”

Nathan brings his knees up on to the stool, his overgrown toenails clicking against the metal as he hugs his legs.

“At the time, I said it was just the angle. That’s why I could only see the first few steps into it, that’s all it was but… in the back of my head I knew better. I could see the stairs fine but it was everything else that didn’t light up. The actual inside of it, the floor under the metal stairs, all of it might as well not have been there.

“I shouted for the girls to hurry the fuck up and when they didn’t come out, one of new guys tried saying it in German. I remember rolling my eyes at that, that’s something every new guy tries to do, learn German and maybe that’ll get your bosses to be impressed. It didn’t work on me and Jacob was two years younger than I am.

“We shouted for maybe another half a minute before Jacob started giving out orders, he wanted to keep schedule and he said that somebody needed to go in there. I was busy trying to make myself boring enough not to pick when one of the new guys stepped up, some fucker named Bruno. Well, Bruno might’ve been his name but it also might’ve just been what we called him, he was Italian, just a kid trying to prove he was white enough to join the Empire.

“He decided to be the big man and go in first, stepped down the spooky steps like they weren't anything to be afraid of. Fucker still jumped when his foot hit the water.

"He shouted at us and said that the fucking thing must've hit or a rock or something because there was maybe about three inches of water all over the floor. I remember Jacob was pissed about that, he mumbled something about the stock hurting itself and yelled for Bruno to hurry the fuck up.

“For a while we just talked after that, swapped war stories about dealing with some of the capes in the bay, Jacob talked about how bad the guy before Skidmark was and some of the newer kids lied about beating up Oni Lee but none of us really gave a shit. We just talked but after a while… we realized Bruno wasn’t back yet.

“I’ll be honest, I was spooked right then, thought about lying and making up some reason to go home but before I could do that, another new guy, maybe a friend of Jacob’s cracked his knuckles and went for the hatch, saying something like ‘this is why you don’t leave the guinea with the girls.’

“That got a few laughs and… look, I didn’t find it funny okay? It’s just when you’ve got a lot of people laughing in a room together, anything’s gonna sound funny if you’re bored enough and— I don’t even know why I’m telling you this anyway— he didn’t come back either.

“So then they sent another guy and two more after him and after that… well it was just me and Jacob, waiting on the boat. He was pissed, kept saying shit about how he had to get the most incompetent people on this job. He told me to wait there and he was going to go find the captain and ask him what the fuck this was about.

“I listened of course, he was the one with the gun and friend or not, I’m not saying no to bullets. So I’m waiting there and the thing is, before, I hated looking out at the ocean. It was too dark out there, without the moon I couldn’t tell where the sky ended and the ocean began but that dark… it was almost comforting compared to the hatch. Out there, it was just something that happens. It's dark, that’s normal but inside… inside it was like an animal, I’m telling you man, it ate light!”

Nathan’s stool rocks as he screams, the tendons in his neck straining against the skin as his blunt nails scratch at his skin.

“I was just watching it, I could feel it, that Dark, it wanted me, wanted me like a snake wants a kid. It was waiting, waiting for the second I put my guard down and then I’d be in there.

“I ain’t gonna lie, I was about to bolt when Jacob came back, swearing under his breath. He was pissed and the captain was gone. I asked what the fuck he meant by gone and he got pissy with me, said the fucker was just gone, that the shit Bruno and the others said must’ve spooked him, that he ran off when we weren’t looking.

“I asked if he wanted me to go find him and he saw right through me… I think that’s what made him point the gun at me. He told me to go down into the hatch, said that he’d lead the way as long as I didn’t try anything smart.

“I went in first and then him right after and the first thing I noticed was the lack of smell. I remember thinking it was odd, the ship had taken on water and I know what it’s supposed to smell like when it fills up a boat. But it didn’t smell like anything, not even rust or salt. 

“And my light… I know I said it wasn’t good before but I mean, it really wasn’t good. I could barely get a look at the end of the hall and what I could see…  It didn’t make sense man, I know that now but in the moment, I didn’t think about how long the hallway was. I just told myself I got the length of the boat wrong, that it was actually longer than I thought.

“The water was cold, I mean this was back in early December so winter hadn’t really kicked in yet but still, it was fucking freezing man, the kind of cold your dad warns you about when you’re a kid, the cold that will take your toes. But worse than the cold was it’s color.

“It wasn’t rancid or yellowed or anything like that but it was… it was black. And not black like blood or black like ink but just… black. I couldn’t see into it at all and even knowing that it couldn’t have been that thick, just looking at it I thought about the stuff you see on ocean documentaries, the deep drop offs that go into trenches.

“I got my head on straight around then, I yelled at Jacob that we needed to go, that this was clearly some cape shit but he told me to fuck off. He… he made it sound possible, the way he explained it, the water was just water mixed with oil, there’s a few of those tankers out in the Bay and the PHQ used to be an oil rig and… fuck. I know it sounds dumb now but it all made sense the way he talked.

“So we went further in, when we made it to that first intersection, I was worried he’d tell me that we were splitting up but Jacob knew better than that. He led the way into the dark, with me right behind him and feeling… something just behind us.

“I couldn’t look at it, of course. The one time I turned my flashlight around, Jacob fired into the dark, the bullet ricocheting off the hall before he started cursing at me. My job was to just hold the fucking flashlight, something any spaz could do.

“So we kept walking and… y’know how I said the dark looked deeper than it was? Well, even if it wasn’t, my brain kept fucking that up, everytime I took a step, I’d have to balance myself, it was like my feet were expecting a harsher drop than what was actually there.

“I think that’s what distracted me. We just kept walking and I kept tripping up and… we went down four stairwells. The boat shouldn’t have even had one but four, we went down four. I remember that, I remember that it was four fucking flights of stairs and somehow, even though we were going deeper, the water was always just at around two or three inches thick.

“Eventually, I got too spooked to keep going, gun or not I wasn’t gonna die to some horror movie shit but just as I started gathering up my nerves, we turned one last corner and there he was.

“Bruno was laying on his back, his eyes fixed on the ceiling and his chest barely moving and I… I don’t know what came over me but I nearly pushed Jacob over to get to him. The water was cold on my knees, colder than it had been before and when I turned Bruno’s face to look at me… he was dead.

“More of that black water was spilling out of his lips and eyes. It was like sludge inside his mouth and he gurgled as he looked at me. He was blind, mute, and trapped in the Dark and when I tried to yank him out of it, to at least pull him up against a wall, the Dark didn’t budge.

“The water wasn’t water anymore, it was like ice but harder. Like stone made out of night and it didn’t give a fucking inch.

“I turned back to Jacob, I was shouting that we needed to fucking go, we need to fucking go right fucking now but… he wasn’t there.

“I started turning the light in every direction, I was shouting for him, telling him to come out, begging him not to leave me in that Dark but he… he was gone. I didn’t even fucking hear him leave, we splashed with every fucking step but he just vanished! Just fucking gone and there wasn’t even anything left of him and when I stood up… I could hear him, in the Dark.

“Not Jacob, it was the man. I didn’t know it then but it was him, definitely fucking him and he was laughing. I was fucking frantic man, I was shouting but his laugh was just getting louder! Getting closer! And it was echoing in there, I couldn’t tell where it was coming from and when it stopped… oh god.

“The boat was dead silent, even the water that was sloshing the whole time went still and right when my light started to dim, I heard a voice, down by my legs.

“‘Help me.’

“I looked down and Bruno was staring up at me with those black pits, the white of his eyes just fucking gone and when he reached a hand out for me, the water fucking erupted. Two hands jumped up out of the dark and grabbed him around the waist and yanked him down into the water.

“It was only two inches thick but he was gone, just like that, he was fucking gone, taken beneath it and that’s when I started screaming. 

“I couldn’t hear anything but my heart in my ears and my own screams but then he started laughing again and this time, there wasn’t an echo.

“He was right behind me.

“I turned around, my flashlight barely got a bead on him before it started flickering and… he wasn’t human.

“He wasn’t parahuman either, I know that’s just some shit people say about the bad capes but man, I’m telling you he wasn’t fucking human! I’ve seen capes, I’ve seen fireballs appear in people’s hands and men turn into fucking dragons but that thing wasn’t that!

“It just stared at me, from the Dark, a darker shadow than all the rest and the only parts of I could see where the fucking eyes!

“They were staring right at me, wide and hungry and I was frozen to the spot when my light went out one last time.

“It was just me and him in the Dark and all I could do was run! I didn’t have a choice man, okay?! I just had to run! He was right behind me the whole time, laughing at me, his breath was on my neck, my feet kept splashing in the dark, and my friends, I could hear them now, calling out to me, begging me to find them, to pull them out of hell but I just kept running and I… and I…

“I don’t even know how I got out.

“All I remember is waking up on the dock, with the moon shining down on me and my phone buzzing in my pocket. The boat was gone, the water was splashing against the dock and there was no one there with me.

“I looked around and it was light enough to see the streets in the city and the PHQ out on the water and my phone kept buzzing.

“I answered it and… it was the other group, the ones that were supposed to meet up with us. Their boss was calling me, yelling about how Jacob wasn’t answering his phone and that we were late as hell for the drop off and… we were at the wrong docks.

Nathan stills, his legs dropping from the stool as his hands wrap around his shoulders, a sudden chill making his skin rise in goosebumps.

“And… that’s it?” I ask.

Nathan looks up at me with angry, disbelieving eyes, the whites of them glistening with unshed tears as he shouts at me, his voice shaking with rage.

“That it?!” he asks, “I just told you all of them are dead and that the fucking Man in the Dark is real and that’s what you have to say to me?! ‘That it!?’”

“I don’t suppose you have any proof of this?” I ask, unperturbed by his anger. He might be mad, in both senses of the word but without his knife, he doesn’t pose much of a physical challenge for me. “Do you have any voice messages, an invoice, something that can actually verify any of what you’ve told me?”

“You don’t fucking believe me?” He asks, confusion overlaying his anger.

“I believe you believe what you told me,” I answer, getting off the stool and wiping my brow. The lights have made this room unbearably hot, “But believing is rarely capable of producing results alone.”

I reach for my coat and whip it around me to lay on my shoulders, my hands patting down my pockets and my recorder being tucked away.

“Just…” Nathan swallows thickly, my power stuttering and his sense of privacy coming back. “Get the fuck out of here, alright? Get the fuck out of here and never come back! You understand you creepy fuck? You—”

The door slams behind me and I shake my head, my fingers itching for a cigarette as I make my way back down the hall.

“Of course he wouldn’t tell me about this,” I grumble to myself. The reason Armsmaster didn’t manage to find anything is simply because there isn’t anything to find. My shoes are heavy on the carpet and I try my best to find some kind of silver lining here.

It’s rather difficult.

Simply put, this cape, this Man in the Dark, I find it hard to believe he actually exists. Don’t get me wrong, his persona most definitely exists but I imagine it’s something more akin to ‘The woman with the fedora,’ a Cape ghost story.

Every few years you hear about the woman with the fedora and while this Man in the Dark has hardly reached the same kind of mythos, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that’s what it is. There might be a cape or two with some kind of shadow manipulating power (just in New England we have Shadow Stalker, Shadow Dancer, Shadow Maker and so on and so forth) in the city but still, murdering a few Empire grunts hardly sounds productive.

The elevator doors close behind me and on an instinct I swore off, my hands reach for a packet of fags and my lighter. I don’t find them of course but just when the doors open up, I also don’t find one other thing.

The damn mask.

“Son of a…” I growl under my breath and hit the button for the second floor, cursing myself. I would’ve sworn I had it on me when I left the damn apartment but of course the bugger slipped out.

I stomp back to the same door, the spotlights on either corner having gone out since I left.

“Nathan,” I shout, raising my hand. “I left something and I need you to—”

The moment I knock, the lights on either side sputter out a weakly before popping, sparks jumping from worn filaments and the door swinging open as acrid smoke wafts toward me.

“Nathan?” I repeat myself, pushing the door open further and tilting my head at the change. The lights, from the fairy lights, to the lamps, and even to the brightest bulb… they’ve all shattered.

Stepping in, glass crunches under my feet, crackling unpleasantly as I step into the room, the three PM light still prominently shining in from the window.

“Nathan!” I shout but no one answers and as I approach the stool he was sitting on just moments before, I find the mask, the ivory grin shattered and split right down the middle.

I reach for the broken pieces and smile when neither chunk feels sticky against my hands.

The Man in the Dark… there might be something to him after all.