Log 00
Initial Anomaly
Night isn’t black.
Not in this city.
Here, darkness is just leftover light. Torn apart by neon. Drowned out by traffic and late-night voices. Thinned by rain that never quite washes anything clean.
My name is Loke Tin Kay.
Forty-six. Divorced. No kids.
To me, love is like a fingerprint. Everyone’s got one. Sooner or later, it gets worn down.
I run the Major Crime Special Unit of the New City Police Force. We handle the cases that don’t fit. The ones that can’t be solved, can’t be traced, can’t even be explained properly.
Put simply—we deal with what nobody else wants to touch.
September 18, 2021.
2:00 a.m.
Taka Plaza.
An eighteen-year-old girl was sitting on the steps outside the main entrance. Head tilted slightly, resting against a column.
People walked past her.
They figured she was asleep.
At seven in the morning, when the first sunlight hit her face, someone finally looked close enough to notice—she wasn’t breathing.
No wounds.
No signs of struggle.
No weapon.
No clear cause of death.
Forensics said, “It’s as if she chose to leave.”
I’ve seen too many bodies that “chose to leave.”
This wasn’t one of them.
The wind that morning carried something strange. Sweet, with a bitter edge. Like burnt sugar. Like blood.
I remember looking up at the glass façade of the building and catching my reflection. Eyes that hadn’t slept properly in years.
That’s when I knew.
This wasn’t just a homicide.
It was a setup.
A game already in motion.
Someone had arranged the board long before we showed up.
The real question wasn’t who died.
It was who was moving the pieces.
And who thought we were just pieces to be moved.
In my world, light never comes clean. It always drags something with it.
But every time I close my eyes, I still see her face.
Calm.
Clean.
Without a trace.
And most of the time, it’s the absence of a trace
that tells you someone worked very hard to erase one.