I Should Have Brought My Coat

“Every scar holds a truth, and in their healing, wisdom takes root.”

— Gayus Mariuous,

Seventh Prophet of the First Order

The Book of Unspoken Prophecies, Archives of the Midnight Council

***

The world was dark and drained of color, painted in shades of shadow and light, save for the faint ruby glow of my cigarette.

A breeze moved through me, playing waves on my shirt as I surveyed the scene. It was one of those old city winds that moved unashamed through the nooks and crannies of the streets, carrying mischief in its wake. It was the type of night that made my hair stand on end and my bones ache in anticipation, where no one needed to say it, because everyone sensed it. The air swelled and seemed to hold its breath while the boundaries of normal and rational thought gave way, leaving one word to stand in their wake. A word more dangerous and profound than all the others combined. It sat at the tip of my tongue, unspoken but felt. I sensed it clawing for escape, begging me to give in to its desires. The wind, the strangers’ footsteps in the distance, and the bustling of city sounds all entangled to spell this one word... “Magic.”

The world exhaled in a torrent of rain. Horrible night for a hunt. But I was paid not to mind.

I usually welcomed the rain. It washed the filth off things. Only problem—it also smeared the rift-soot trail, the monochromatic warning sign to get the hell out of there. Unless, of course, a door to Hell was what I was looking for.

I leaned down to study the creature’s tracks before the rain had its way. The alley was the kind of place where shadows have shadows and the rain feels like it’s sneering at you. The creature’s tracks were fading fast, turning into a mess of mud.

Rift-soot and gravel clung between my fingers like glitter at a bachelorette party—both an omen and evidence of poor life choices, and impossible to scrub off no matter how many paper towels you throw at it. Except, instead of sparkling in neon pink and gold pixie STDs, this stuff was gray and dismal, painting everything in fifty shades of cigarette ash.

But just like glitter, the stuff’s as tenacious as a family curse. Once you touch it, it’s with you for life. You think you’ve cleaned it, vacuumed it, burned the evidence—but give it six months. You’ll be sitting in your living room, minding your own damned business, when there it is; a rogue fleck glaring at you from the carpet—unkillable, ubiquitous, and definitely judging your life choices. You can banish a poltergeist or ward off a ghoul, but rift-soot and glitter? That shit’s forever.

Anyway. I digress.

I stood up, flicked a particularly stubborn fleck of rift-soot from my sleeve, and sighed. The night was young, the city was mean, and somewhere out there, a demon was laughing at me.

“This way. Stay close and be quiet. Do not engage it. And if it gets out of my control, run. Got it?” The two men exchanged a look and a smile that only wealth and pampering could buy.

“Got it,” they grinned.

Jac and Jean were twin brothers and identical one-hundred percent Grade-A prats. The kind of man-children who had never seen a day’s work in their combined lives. I wondered if they wiped their own asses or if the maid did it for them. I also wondered what it would be like not to worry about money or where my next meal was coming from. I didn’t care what the college kids said—ramen and beer didn’t make a diet. My stomach growled indignantly, protesting the ramen and beer within.

“Focus,” I told myself. I needed to concentrate if I was going to find the creature we were after and give these guys a good show. Business had been slow, after all. I wasn’t sure if my head was hurting from dealing with the twins or the lack of coffee.

We were tracking what looked like a lower demon—barely more dangerous than a stray cat. It was small, maybe one or two feet tall, with claw marks scarring the cement as evidence of its presence. This little terror had been raiding warehouses downtown, snatching up leftovers and unguarded lunch boxes. The plan was simple: catch and release, sending it back to the Otherworld where it belonged.

I didn’t usually take an audience with me on my hunts. It was dirty work. But these two were… financially persuasive. Ever since “Grayson Shade: Demon Hunter” hit the small screen, rich kids were pouring out of their mansions, trying to buy a guided tour. Tele-Spectra-Vision wasn’t enough. They wanted to see the real thing.

Sadly, the real thing was almost never as exciting as the shows. There were no explosions. No scantily clad girls brandishing longing looks and torn dresses. And the hunters weren’t rippling-muscled heroes. At least, I wasn’t. “Dad-bod” they called it. No, hunting wasn’t all that exciting. Not that it didn’t have its benefits. My own hours. No boss to micromanage me. Freedom.

Oh, who was I kidding? It was pest control for the underworld at best. Garbage disposal at worst. But it had to be done. And these kids wanted “the real thing.” They wanted danger and darkness wrapped up in a fedora hat.

And who was I to say no to rich stupidity? Worst case: the world would be short two mouths to feed. Best case: I’d make a hefty chunk of change and could pay my plumbing for the next month. How the hell did I get here? I used to be somebody. I think.

“It’s going to be a tough one. Dangerous,” I said.

I paused dramatically and sniffed the air. I thought I’d seen them do that on the show once.

Its tracks wound around Skid Row, back to the docks, and through the old warehouses. Its scent twisted across the city like the twine in grandma’s knitted socks.

“You smell that?” I asked.

I took a deep breath, holding it for a moment, and this time, I actually smelled something. “Sulfur. We’re close.”

“I hope so,” Jac said.

“We’ve been walking around this shithole for hours,” Jean added.

“I told you, we can’t risk using the car. Demons hate the smell of Nightstone. Spooks ’em.” That, of course, was a complete lie. Demons actually loved lurking around gas stations and refineries, the stink of their realm blending perfectly with the acrid tang of rift fumes. But the wonder boys didn’t need to know that. They also didn’t need to know that my car was stuck in the shop, held hostage by an unpaid bill. Or that even if I had it back, I couldn’t afford an ounce of the stuff with the prices these days. No, there was plenty Jac and Jean didn’t need to know.

The scent led us toward an abandoned street hidden away near the dock. Tall brick buildings loomed on either side, their jagged edges reaching for the sky like dying giants. If you squinted, you could almost see the grandeur of their past, now long forgotten.

Once-grand buildings stood tall, their ornate architecture now covered in a thick layer of grime and graffiti. The sound of our footsteps echoed off the decaying walls as we walked. The only source of light came from a flickering streetlamp ahead, casting eerie shadows and revealing shards of broken glass scattered along the pavement like sharp jewels. A chill wind blew through the empty streets, carrying with it a sense of unease. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching us from the shadows, lurking just out of sight.

The light flickered, sputtered, then faded out for a few heartbeats before grudgingly flaring back to life. Damned Infernum fluctuations. Could mean a rift was tearing open nearby, or maybe this side of the city forgot to pay its dues. Either way, it was a bad omen.

Infernum hummed through the bones of the city, a low, unyielding thrum that kept the lights flickering and the machines grinding. It was the pulse of this place, flowing through blackstone veins buried deep beneath the streets, connecting everything in a web of dark energy. Most didn’t think about it—until it stuttered. That’s when you realized just how fragile it all was, how much of this world depended on a force that didn’t give a damn if we lived or died.

It was as much a part of the city as the bricks and grime. When that pulse faltered, it wasn’t silence—it was absence. The kind of void you feel in your chest when you realize you’ve stopped breathing.

For people like me—Enhanced, they called us, part machine, part flesh—Infernum wasn’t just a sound. It was a vibration in my skull, a low, unrelenting thrum that rattled my teeth and buzzed through my frayed synthetic nerves, a constant reminder that even my body wasn’t entirely my own.

I activated the System and ran a Status Check.

SYSTEM STATUS: OPERATIONAL (CRITICAL ERRORS DETECTED)

User: Jack Callaghan

Designation: Hunter-Class – Human/Enhanced

System Integrity: 63%

System Rank/Version: Unranked, Version Classified, Code Name: Project Methuselah

Warning: A recall has been ordered on this System. Report to nearest FedClinic for immediate replacement.

CORE VITALS

1. Vitality: 71% — Moderate ( Scarring detected in thigh, shoulder, and abdomen. Reduced flexibility and strength. )
2. Resilience: 68% — Moderate ( Previous breaks in ribs, shoulder blade, and arm create weak points under stress. Long-term wear increasing strain. Blood toxicity at 4%; effects; minimal. )
3. Fatigue: 42% — Stable ( Mechanical supports compensating for muscle atrophy; power reserves—holding. )
4. Humanity: 57% — Reduced (Cybernetic Enhancements account for 41%, Corruption accounts for 2%). Warning: Vital System Updates Incompatible. Please upgrade firmware to avoid long-term degradation risk and potential system failure.

GLITCH DETECTED / ERROR

1. Ghost File Identified: Sarah.Presence persists within neural interface. Memory node remains locked.
2. Interaction Frequency: Elevated.
3. Unauthorized Task Log Entries:
4. “Find Sarah” repeated 17 times.
5. Task Log Error – Status: Impossible, Cannot Delete: “Find Sarah.”(Entry timestamp does not match user input.)

ENVIRONMENTAL CORRUPTION LEVELS

1. Infernum Exposure: 13% (Low)
2. Rift Residue Detected: Active. Recommendation: Cleanse immediately to prevent interface degradation.

GEAR AND RESOURCES

1. Primary Weapon: Dark Blade Mk-II ( Rank C ). Edge integrity at 71%. Recalibration suggested.
2. Armor Status: Modular chestplate compromised; right forearm plating missing.
3. Credits: 460 remaining.

TASK LOG

1. Hunt Target: Rift Entity (Low-Class Demon). Take spectators. Payment agreed at 2000 credits.
2. Upgrade Gear: Overdue.
3. Pay for Vehicle Repairs: Overdue.
4. Pay Rent: Overdue.
5. Nutrient Shopping: Overdue.

ENVIRONMENTAL THREAT ANALYSIS

1. Insufficient data.

The warnings were background static, a hum that had settled into my skull like tinnitus. Always there, flashing neon on the edge of my vision, flickering like a broken bulb that refused to die. I’d considered taking the System in for a replacement, back when FedClinics still existed. But the War ended that. Now, the soldiers who’d crawled out of the fire were either dead or had upgraded, and the clinics lost their funding. Even if I did find someone to swap out the guts, the price tag was enough to make you sick—not that there’d be much left of me worth keeping afterwards.

Movement caught my eye at the far end of the alley. A flicker in the dark, a shadow shifted, and there she was—Sarah. Her eyes met mine, wide and bright, like she was seeing straight into me. Her hair hung loose in a braid, messy like it always got no matter how many times I tried to make it neat.

“Dad.”

Her voice cut through me, slicing past bone and muscle to bury itself deep in my heart. A word like a wound, and then she was gone, swallowed back into the dark.

A glitch. A Ghost. That’s all she was—a memory fragment seared into the System. A burn mark on the synapses; an echo. She’d pop up from time to time, like embers that refused to die after the fire had gone cold. Replace the System, they said, and the glitches would stop. But replacing the System would mean losing her—losing the last parts of her that I still had.

Sure, my rig was outdated. Everyone else had moved on to the new models long ago—sleeker, faster, loaded with Grid sync capabilities, user-friendly interfaces, and hell, maybe even a coffee app if you asked nicely. But this one? This one was built for the kind of work I do. Heavy, clunky, unrefined. Like me. It was military-issue tech, a relic from the War, a direct line for orders, a threat assessor, a field ops tracker—simple, functional, brutal. Perfect.

It even knew how to read people. Not true AI, not since the laws got passed—since people decided giving machines a personality was a step too far. Highly illegal, they said. Unethical. Dangerous. So the Systems stayed cold, calculations without compassion, processing without perception. Clever programming, sure, but no spark, no soul.

The new models promised better Humanity retention—less bleed-out, more “optimized for balance” garbage. Balance wasn’t what I needed. I needed something that could take a hit, keep running. This System? It took whatever I threw at it, no questions, no complaints. And I wasn’t planning to Cast, not ever.

Casters—don’t even get me started. Pulling raw aether from the Otherworld, burning their own humanity away, bit by bit, as if they would earn it all back in the end. People talk about Humanity like it’s currency—spend it on tech, or spend it on demons. Either way, it runs out. Me? I’ll stick with the metal and wire, thanks. Wasn’t like I had much humanity left to lose, anyhow.

Something shifted in the darkness ahead.

“Hear that?” Jac asked nervously.

“I don’t hear anything,” Jean replied. My retinal enhancers adjusted, zeroing in on the source of the noise.

I lifted my hand with the universal sign for “shut the hell up.”

There was an eternity of silence, and then… something shifted again. A can rolled out from around a corner. Then there was the sound of claws on metal. A dumpster. Not too unusual to find lost demons rummaging for leftovers. But something was wrong. The sound was... wrong.

I signaled them to stay back and moved forward, every step deliberate, avoiding the slightest noise. Touching the ground, I confirmed it. More rift-soot. Except this time my hand was covered. This was no small fission.

I was a few feet from the corner when I felt something sticky under my feet. It wasn’t until the streetlamp flashed again that I saw it. Blood. Not the type of blood you wanted to see alone at night. Demonic pale blood, almost white. My breathing stopped and I froze. The streetlamp flashed again, and the carnage illuminated around me. I was standing in the middle of countless chunks of flesh, bone, and blood. This was the demon I was hunting—something had gotten to it before I could. I heard the sound of a low growl, scraping, and wet gnashing teeth in the darkness.

I slowly started walking backward toward the twins. Inch by inch, I moved back with the silence of a trained cat burglar.

“Hey! What’s taking you?” One of them shouted from behind me.

The alley went silent and my face must have turned pale as the moon.

I frantically held up my hand again, mouthing for them to be quiet. We stood there in silence for a heartbeat.

Maybe it didn’t hear them. Maybe it went away. Where are you, you little piece of…

As my body flew sideways across the street and slammed into the hood of an abandoned car, I got the answer to my question. Blood stained my shirt as adrenaline quickly numbed the pain. It was going to be a long, cold night. Too cold for this time of year. I should have brought my coat.

Gritting my teeth against the sharp stab of pain, I pushed myself off the dented hood of the car, scanning the murky shadows for any sign of the demon. My mind raced, cycling through every survival tactic I’d ever learned, but none seemed promising against a creature that had massacred its own kind with such brutal efficiency.

The twins crouched behind a dumpster, their eyes wide with terror. I gestured wildly for them to run, to get as far from this nightmare as they could. But as they turned to flee, the air trembled with the heavy, deliberate steps of the beast.

The world grew colder, thick with the scent of iron and fear. From the darkness, it emerged—towering, its form grotesquely twisted, skin a sickly pale that seemed to glow under the flickering streetlamp. Its eyes, deep red, fixed on me with a predator’s focus. I knew then there was no outrunning this fate.

I drew the silver sword from my belt, the last sliver of hope. It had seen better days. But then again, so had I. My arms was lead, yet I raised the weapon, steadying my breath. The demon laughed, a sound like cracking bones. It moved with unnatural speed, closing the distance between us in a heartbeat.

The clash was brief. My blade met its mark, slicing through thick flesh, but the demon was swifter, more ruthless. Its claws raked across my chest, tearing through flesh and bone with sickening ease. Pain exploded through my body, a raw, searing agony that drowned out all else. Red lights flashed in my vision.

Warning:

1. Vitality decreased to 52%
2. Vitality decreased to 46%
3. Vitality decreased…

I mentally swiped the notifications away.

Damn, I really should have brought my coat.

With a guttural roar, it lifted me by the neck, my feet dangling helplessly. The world blurred, the edges of my vision darkening. It leaned in close, its lips peeling back into a gruesome smile, its breath cold and foul.

With a violent thrust, it hurled me through the air like a ragdoll. Time slowed as I spun, the world a dizzying swirl of lights and shadows. I crashed through the wooden railing of the nearby dock with a splintering crash, my body wracked under the impact.

With a strength I didn’t know I possessed, I pushed myself to my feet. Every muscle in my body screamed in protest, but I forced my trembling legs to move. My instincts took over, guiding me through the chaos and pain. The demon charged once more, its black eyes gleaming with malice.

With a guttural roar that was more primal than human, I confronted the demon head-on. My body moved on instinct, sidestepping as its claws swiped the air where I stood a heartbeat ago. The silver blade in my hand flashed once before it buried itself deep into the demon’s chest.

Its scream tore through the night, a sound sharp enough to freeze the blood. The demon convulsed, its twisted form casting jagged shadows that writhed across the ground, the splattered blood gleaming like molten silver as it pooled around the beast.

I fell to my knees beside it, body shaking from adrenaline and pain. I caught sight of Jac and Jean peering out from behind the dumpster, their faces ghostly in the moonlight. One of them raised a trembling hand in a hesitant wave, as pale and uncertain as the night itself.

But my victory was fleeting, slipping away as a shadow loomed over me. The demon, stubborn in its death, rose one last time, my blade still lodged in its chest.

It trembled like a dying man, but the hatred in its eyes cut through the haze, sharp and cold. With one last spiteful swipe, its claws raked from my neck to my abdomen. The pain hit like a hot iron to the flesh, searing and immediate. I stumbled back, gripping my neck as blood spilled between my fingers, the world fading to a blur at the edges.

My legs gave way, and I tumbled, the broken railing of the dock offering no resistance as I toppled over it. The icy water below embraced me with an unforgiving grip, the salt biting into my wounds like a thousand tiny daggers.

Red lights flared in my vision. I didn’t have the strength to dim them, not even a flicker of effort left in me. But they dimmed anyway—fading with the rest of the world as it all began to slip away.

The weight of my soaked clothes pulled me down, tugging at me like the hands of the damned, but the bulk I’d added over the years—an accumulation of bad habits and worse decisions—kept me afloat, skimming the edge of the abyss. Strength slipped away, my vision a narrowing tunnel of shadowy nothingness. The last thing I saw before the cold took me was a crumpled cigarette pack drifting down to the bottom of the ocean, forgotten and adrift in the vast, uncaring void. The darkness watched, indifferent, before it swallowed me whole.

Warning:

Vitality critically low. Seek immediate…

My body floated in the water, a silhouette of my former life. The waves pushed at me, relentless and indifferent. The weight of my Enhancements threatened to drag me under, locked in a grim struggle against the buoyancy of my bloating chest—a macabre tug-of-war between steel and flesh.

And then, stillness. Not the hazy lull of a sleepy afternoon, where the world surrendered to the slow, inevitable tide of its dreams. Nor the hallowed hush of a library, where secrets slumbered between the pages of forgotten books.

No, this stillness was ancient—a stillness that belonged to crumbling ruins and hollowed-out cities, where memories didn’t dare to tread.

And in that stillness, as if he had always been and always would be, stood a man.