The city was dead when the rain started — or maybe it was already dead before the rain. Either way, the sidewalks were empty, the neon signs flickered half-heartedly, and our breaths came in shallow puffs like ghosts trying not to inhale.
It was the kind of night where even criminals stay home. The air smelled like drowned electricity, and every streetlight buzzed like it was clinging to life. The gutters overflowed, water swirling around trash and broken glass like the city was trying to wash away evidence of itself. I watched raindrops race down the window, each one blurring the world into streaks of color, like even the weather was too exhausted to be precise anymore. It was quiet — too quiet. Not peace. Just absence.
