Raindrop Reverie

The rain had always been falling, soaking the city in a cold, relentless downpour. I pulled my coat tighter around me as I stepped out of the vehicle and looked at my surroundings. The wet pavement reflected the flashing red and blue of squad cars.

A uniformed officer lifted the crime scene tape. His face was strained. “Detective Gray,” he said. “Captain’s already inside.”

I nodded, shaking off the water as I ducked under the awning of the alley. The smell of damp concrete mixed with something coppery. A forensic tech worked a camera over the body, flashes lighting up the grim scene.

Maria Lenz lay in a crumpled heap, her throat slit. Blood had pooled beneath her. Her lips were tinged blue, her skin pruned like she’d been pulled from a bathtub. But there was no water here. Just the rain.

I crouched beside her, careful not to disturb the scene. A slip of paper stuck to her fingers, half-dissolved by the rain. I eased it from her grip, but the words were gone, washed away. She had tried to tell us something. Now it was lost.

“Mugging gone wrong,” Captain Delacroix’s voice cut through the static of the rain. He loomed over me, hands in the pockets of his trench coat. “No wallet, no jewelry. Poor girl fought back, got her throat opened up.”

I looked up at him. “Then why does she look drowned?”

His jaw tensed. “Autopsy will tell us.”

I glanced at Maria’s face again. The rain clung to her skin, tracing lines like tears. It felt wrong. The water wasn’t just falling. It seemed to linger, as if reluctant to let go.

A whisper brushed against my ear. I turned sharply, scanning the alley, but there was no one there. Just the rain running down the brick walls, its soft murmur filling my head.

“You okay, Gray?” Delacroix asked.

I swallowed hard. “Fine. Just tired.”

“Good. Then wrap this up. We’re calling it a robbery. No need to dig deeper.”

He walked off, leaving his words hanging in the air. No need to dig deeper. The rain whispered again, too faint to understand.

Maria Lenz had a story to tell. And the rain wasn’t done speaking—

The city never dried.

Water smothered the streets, seeped into the cracks, pooled in the spaces where light should’ve been. It carried voices, too, muffled and distant. If I listened too long, I started to hear things that weren’t there.

I needed answers.

At the precinct, I ran the records, searching for a pattern. Muggings gone wrong. A body that wasn’t a random victim. Waterlogged corpses, always the same. Same silence. Same message.

Then I found it. The Rain Letters, buried in old unsolved cases. Notes showing up in the hands of dead victims who had drowned despite being found dry. Someone had figured it out before, but nothing came of it.

Victor Ruiz was next. A journalist whose name had come up in my search. He was the only one who had published any real investigation into these deaths. He’d been chasing The Rain Letters for years, but people thought he was crazy.

His office was above a run-down café. The smell of cigarettes and regret lingered on him. He didn’t offer coffee, just lit a cigarette like it was part of him.

“I’ve been expecting you.” His voice was dry.

I dropped Maria Lenz’s file on the desk. “You’ve been following this?”

Ruiz leaned back, his chair creaking. “Of course. It’s all connected.”

“What’s all?”

“The Rain Letters.” He exhaled smoke. “Same note with every victim. Same strange death. They drowned, but no water.” He paused. “Some of them were involved in a project called Nyx.”

“Project Nyx?” I repeated.

“Won’t find it in any records. The higher-ups made sure of that.”

“Tell me what you know,” I asked.

“Not much.” He pushed a folder across the table. “Just the bodies. The whispers. It’s tied to some government mess. Top-secret stuff. People who got too close are dead or hiding.”

“You know anyone who can help?”

“Hmm… you can check this guy. Call him Drifter,” he replied. “He doesn’t talk to me, but he might talk to you.”

The phone buzzed. I picked it up without thinking.

“The rain is trying to tell you something,” the voice said, thin and distant. “Listen, before it washes you away.”

The line went dead—

The Drifter wasn’t hard to find. He was the guy who wandered through alleyways like they were his home, mumbling to himself. The locals didn’t talk to him. I didn’t expect him to talk to me.

I followed the lead through street informants, piecing together a trail that led to the city’s slums, where the rain always seemed heavier. There, the Drifter was waiting.

“You heard it, didn’t you?” he rasped, staring at the rain with wide, desperate eyes.

“Hear what?” I squinted at him.

“The rain,” he whispered. “It speaks. Listen. It will show you.”

I frowned, not sure whether he was about to say something useful or scream at me to leave.

“I saw her,” he mumbled. “A woman, drowning. Gasping for breath. She’s next.” He shuddered, eyes darting around as if the rain itself was watching.

My head turned, trying to process what he meant. “What woman?”

His lips trembled. “You’ll see her. If you’re listening.”

He handed me a photo. Blurry. Taken in some alley. I didn’t wait for more. The rain was pulling me under.

I made my way through the city to find the woman, a survivor, who remembered the experiment done to her. She knew about the project and was prepared to tell me everything.

The trail led to a run-down motel. Rain pounded the streets, the world feeling wrong, bending. Then it hit me. A vision. The alley twisted. The face. A woman, gasping for air. Reaching for help. Her eyes looked wild.

I knew that face. The photo. I knew where to find her.

But I was too late.

The door to the room was ajar. Inside, silence. I stepped in. Her body lay on the floor, a bullet in her chest, but it appeared she had died from drowning.

Another note. The handwriting was the same as before. The same warning.

I didn’t need to look at the note. I knew what it said.

I exited the building, and before I could process anything else; the sound of a gun being fired. It was close.

The street was eerily quiet. I ran. My breath was shallow, panic creeping in. Then it came again. The crack of a gunshot followed by the screech of car tires.

Someone wanted me off the case. Someone wanted me dead.

The rain whispered louder now. It wasn’t just a warning. It was a threat—

I went to see Drifter again, pressing him for another lead. He cracked the moment I told him the woman was dead. Fear settled into his eyes. He knew he might be next.

Half an hour later, a name slipped out.

Gabriel Vaughn.

He had been part of Project Nyx, the same project that had put me on this path to begin with. Now I knew he was the key. Hiding in an old warehouse at the edge of the city. Forgotten, like him.

With that, I turned and set my sights on the road ahead. The answers I needed were just a step away. But at what cost?

I finally tracked Gabriel Vaughn down to an abandoned building. His eyes were dark and hollow, the look of someone who had seen too much and survived despite it all. A former scientist from Project Nyx. Now a ghost, hiding in the ruins of his own past.

“Vaughn,” I said, stepping into the dim light of the empty warehouse.

He didn’t flinch when he saw me. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

I let the silence stretch before speaking again. “I’m Detective Gray, and I need answers.”

Vaughn leaned against the cold brick wall, his hand trembling as he wiped sweat from his brow. “You won’t like this,” he mumbled.

“I don’t care,” I replied. “I need to understand why this is happening.”

He sighed, his voice fragile. “The government used water as a medium. Memory storage. The idea was to trap human consciousness inside water and preserve memories.” He paused. “But it failed. The subjects didn’t just lose themselves. They were trapped, forever reliving their worst moments. The horror, the pain, the terror. It never stopped. It just kept looping in their heads.”

My mind struggled to process the impossible. It was too surreal to grasp, but something deep inside me knew it was true.

“The rain,” I whispered. “The rain carries those memories?”

Vaughn nodded. “The rain absorbs their suffering. When they die, it isn’t just water that falls. It’s their agony, their torment, their memories. That’s why the victims, the ones who died without drowning, look like they’re gasping for air, like they’re still fighting for life. The rain holds them. Every victim is a piece of someone’s last moments, suspended in time. It’s trapped in the rain itself.”

This was bigger than I had imagined. My mind scrambled to piece together the implications of his words, but I barely had time to process them before Vaughn’s next revelation sent a shock through me.

“Delacroix,” he spat, his voice laced with disgust. “He was the enforcer. The one sent in when things went south. When the project failed and people started dying, Delacroix was the one who cleaned up the mess. And he silenced anyone who knew too much. People like me.”

“Delacroix? The captain?” My brows furrowed.

Vaughn’s eyes hardened. “Yes. Your captain is deep in it. He’s the one who’s been covering up the bodies, making sure no one connects the dots. He’s just as dirty as the rest of them.”

Before I could say anything more, a sound cut through the stillness.

Boots.

Heavy. Fast. Getting closer.

I turned, instincts flaring. It was too late.

A dozen officers, uniformed and armed, stormed the building. I cursed under my breath and dove for cover as the first shots rang out.

Gunfire erupted, the sound bouncing off the concrete. I returned fire as best I could, but I was outnumbered. The odds were stacked against me.

Vaughn shouted something, but his voice was lost in the chaos. I moved through the shadows, barely staying ahead of the bullets.

Then I saw him. Vaughn, too slow, too weak, being dragged away by two of Delacroix’s men. His face was the last thing I saw before they disappeared with him into the night.

I didn’t know how long I had before they came for me next, but I had no choice. I ran—

Captain Delacroix was waiting in his office, his face unreadable. But the tension in his posture told me everything. He knew I was coming.

I didn’t waste time. “It’s over, Captain. I know what you’ve done.”

He didn’t flinch. He only sighed and brushed his fingers along the rim of a glass. “You know nothing, Gray.”

I slammed the file onto his desk. Maria Lenz. The Rain Letters. The victims. All of them. The ones who had died without water.

His expression shifted as he looked at the file. The mask slipped.

“I know everything,” I said, my voice ice-cold. “You have been silencing them. Killing them to stop the rain from revealing their memories. To keep the truth buried.”

“And what do you think you are going to do with that truth, Detective? Expose me?” He laughed. “The rain does not care about justice. It only exists to erase what is left of us. The memories. The guilt. I killed them to stop it from exposing us. I did what needed to be done.”

“You killed them because you’re guilty. You tried to bury your sins, and now the rain is making you pay for it.”

The rain outside picked up. It tapped harder against the windows, almost as if it were alive. Delacroix didn’t seem to notice, but I did. Water had seeped through the cracks in the window, forming a small puddle on the floor that began to shimmer.

I saw them. The reflections. Faint at first, then clearer.

Maria Lenz, writhing and gasping for air after she was killed. The woman in the motel, struggling after being shot. Their deaths were woven together with the agony of the experiment. Each crime rippled through the water’s reflection. The rain whispered their stories as Delacroix talked.

“You see?” His voice broke. “You think you can save them? You think this will bring them peace? The rain is a curse. A punishment. It knows everything. It remembers everything.”

His face twisted in desperation. His eyes went frantic. I took a step toward him, but before I could move again, his men burst through the door.

Everything happened too fast.

I was surrounded. There were too many of them.

They dragged me out of the office.

“This is your end, Detective.” Delacroix’s parting words carried no doubt. “You will be washed away just like the others.”

They threw me into a storm drain. The metal grates clanged shut behind me.

The water rose fast.

I fought to keep my head above the surface, but the current was strong. My breath shortened. The world around me narrowed. Panic clawed at my chest. I tried to focus, but the rain poured from above.

It was everywhere.

It pressed on. Cold and suffocating.

Then something changed.

The rain, which had once felt like a curse, shifted. It pulled at me, not with force, but with a strange guiding tug. The water changed its flow. It swirled beneath me. It pushed me toward an opening in the wall. A crack in the drain.

I kicked against the current and pulled myself toward the gap. The water was rising fast, but the rain above had stopped overwhelming me. It led me out.

I emerged gasping for air. Wet and freezing, but alive.

Then the rain whispered again.

Its voice was clearer now. Insistent.

“This is where it ends.”

I staggered to my feet.

A vision bloomed before me. It was not just in my mind. The rain had revealed it.

Project Nyx. A location. An address. The last piece—

The water treatment plant was abandoned. It should have felt like a graveyard, but the hum of the old pumps and the smell of rusted pipes made it feel alive. This place had seen horrors. I could feel it in the cracked concrete beneath my boots.

I called Delacroix to meet me here. I had not expected him to come so easily and alone, but he had no choice. He thought he could silence me like he had silenced everyone else. But I had the truth now, and I was not running.

“You know what this place is, don’t you?” I asked as we reached the central chamber where the floodwaters had pooled.

He did not answer. He did not need to. He knew.

“This is where it all started,” I said, stepping closer to the water’s edge. “The test subjects. This is where you ran the experiment.”

Delacroix took a step forward. His voice was low and dangerous. “I am the one who controls this. I always have.”

I did not flinch. “Not anymore.”

A violent rush of water swirled around us, the floodwaters inching higher with every passing second. I saw it before he did. The reflections in the water. Faces contorted in agony, all of them Delacroix’s victims. The water began to carry their memories, his crimes. Their faces hovered in the ripples, blinking, staring up at him.

Maria Lenz, her eyes wide with terror as she fought to breathe.

The others. Each one, another name on a list Delacroix had buried.

The rain whispered in a language I could not understand, but I knew what it was saying. It was showing him what he had done.

Delacroix staggered back, fear in his eyes. His breath came in ragged gasps. The rain had become his mirror, reflecting the sins he had tried to bury. He could no longer escape the past.

“No,” he gasped, his voice breaking. “No, I didn’t—”

I saw it. The distraction was all I needed.

I lunged forward, grabbed his arm with all my strength, and shoved him toward the surging flood.

“Let it take you,” I said through clenched teeth. “Let it consume you.”

The water swept around him, pulling him in, rising faster. Delacroix fought, his hands clawing at the surface, but the rain kept pushing him under, dragging him deeper into his own sins. The water churned, the past drowning him in its memory.

And then it was over.

He was gone. The floodwaters receded, leaving only silence in their wake.

The storm began to clear. The rain slowed, then stopped altogether. I stood in the remains of the flood, my feet planted firmly in the water that had claimed him.

For the first time in years, the sky was breaking open. The first rays of sunlight pierced through the clouds, casting long shadows across the city. It was as if the sun had not seen the world in so long it did not know how to look.

I took a step back, breathing deeply, feeling the weight of everything lifting from my shoulders.

But then, a whisper.

I froze.

The rain was gone, but the voice remained.

“Camilla.”

My father’s voice. Soft and fleeting.

I looked up.

The rain had called me to this moment. It was not just about the murders or the conspiracy. It had been about me all along. I had been chasing ghosts. I was part of the story, the one the rain had been writing all this time.