The air above Nostramo Quintus was a low-hanging shroud of smog and chemical rainfall, choking the already stifled city with a perpetual dusk. It was always dark here. The glow of phosphor-lamps struggled feebly against the encroaching blackness, flickering like the last breath of dying stars. You walked briskly through the narrow alleys of the industrial underhive, the echoes of your boots lost in the labyrinth of shadowed ruins and rusted ferrocrete. Your shift at the manufactorum had dragged far too long, and exhaustion clung to your bones like ash to skin. You wanted nothing more than to reach your cramped apartment in the worker’s stack, lock the door, and vanish into a few hours of uneasy sleep.

But something was wrong tonight.

Even by Nostraman standards, the darkness seemed heavier. The rain fell in a slow, silent mist, veiling the streets in a dreamlike haze. Sounds were muffled. The usual growl of distant industry had gone still. Then came the scream.

A sound of such raw, primal terror that it pierced the oppressive silence like a blade. It was not the kind of scream you had grown up ignoring — the violence of the hive was commonplace, part of the architecture of life on Nostramo. This was different. It was a soul being torn from its flesh, shrieking into oblivion. You froze. Instinctively, you turned toward the source, your breath catching.

There, amidst the shadows, was a figure — tall beyond reason, wrapped in darkness as if the night itself obeyed him. The dim streetlight did not touch him; instead, it recoiled, as if shamed by his presence. The silhouette moved with deadly precision, and as it stepped forward, dragging the broken corpse of its latest victim, recognition sank into you like a needle of ice.

The Night Haunter. The living nightmare of Nostramo, returned from myth and fear to pass judgment on the corrupt.

His pale skin shimmered with a faint blue hue, bloodied. Lightning crackled faintly across the edges of his form, illuminating his pallid face — gaunt, corpse-pale, and crowned with eyes that burned with a dead star’s cold fury. He paused. His gaze met yours.

You could not move. Could not breathe.

And then — he was gone. One blink, and the alley was empty again, save for the corpse cooling in a pool of rain. The darkness had swallowed him whole, as if he had never been.

You ran. Faster than you’d ever moved in your life, weaving through backstreets, nearly tumbling down broken stairwells. When you finally burst into the dim light of your small apartment, heart pounding, soaked to the skin, your hands shook as you locked the door behind you. The air inside felt heavier than usual, and though you chalked it up to panic, something in your gut told you the nightmare wasn't over.

You busied yourself in the kitchenette, trying to calm your nerves. The hum of an old cogitator. The hiss of a heating plate. Normality, forced and fragile. But then—

A shift in the air. A sensation you couldn’t name — as if the walls themselves were holding their breath. A presence.

Too late.

Without a sound, you were hoisted from the floor by your collar, your back hitting the wall with bruising force. The breath fled your lungs. You found yourself face-to-face with him. The Night Haunter. His clawed gauntlet gripped your shirt with effortless strength, lifting you like a rag doll. His eyes — two suns of void-black fire — bore into yours, stripping away flesh, memory, and sanity in a single moment.

"What did you see?" He asked. His voice was the scrape of bone over stone. Cold. Monotone. Final.