It's the week before Christmas, and the campus empties like a held breath finally released. Dorms go dark, fraternity houses lock their doors, and the usual buzz of twenty thousand students fades to nothing. I wake to a stillness that should feel peaceful, but doesn't. Instead, it presses against my chest, heavy and wrong. I walk through the neighborhood surrounding campus, past houses with drawn curtains and empty drivew...

A week had passed since discovering the phone. Seven days of checking locks, testing windows, and counting every shadow that didn't belong. I'd approached Wolf carefully. Told him about feeling watched, about strange coincidences. Nothing specific enough to sound paranoid, but enough to make him take notice. His response was immediate and thorough. The security cameras around the Reihenhaus showed nothing. The hallway lea...

The April evening painted Prenzlauer Berg in shades of amber and rose. I stood outside Martin's building, watching the light catch on old facades and turn weathered brick into something almost beautiful. Six months since I'd left this neighborhood. Six months since I'd written that letter and disappeared into this other world. The window on the third floor was open. Martin's ridiculous blue curtains billowed out like flag...

I pushed myself upright; the robe shifting against skin that still registered every texture with uncomfortable clarity. "How long have I been here?" My voice came out rough, dry. "Three days," Seline replied, uncrossing her legs with practised precision. "Give or take. Difficult to tell down here, ja?" Three days. The number hung in the air between us, too clean and clinical for the fog that clouded my memory. Flashes sur...

Our house creaked around me like an old ship, settling into the desert cold. Christmas Eve in Scottsdale, population: me. Mom had pitched the Florida thing with all the enthusiasm of a travel brochure: white sand beaches, family bonding, Grandma's famous rum cake. But honestly? The humidity down there could kill a person. Plus, I wasn't exactly in the mood for my little brother's Nintendo obsession echoing through some cr...

The black Mercedes moved through empty streets with the quiet hum of expensive engineering, its tinted windows reflecting neon signs and streetlights that painted brief, colorful streaks across the glass. I pressed my back against the leather seat, trying to disappear into its warmth while my skin burned with exposure. Naked. Still completely naked in the back of a stranger's car, with only the darkness and her studied in...

The gym is quiet. Late enough that most people have gone, early enough that the cleaners haven’t started their rounds. I like it this way: space to move without bumping elbows, space to breathe without someone watching. Outside, the last stretch of sun hangs stubbornly over the city, a thin orange blade cutting through gray. The cold still lingers from the past few days, but in here, on the treadmill, warmth builds. My sh...

Three weeks since that night in the basement, and I could still feel the buzz of that room beneath my skin. Three weeks of ordinary shifts at The Foundry, wiping tables, dodging wandering hands, and watching the familiar rhythms of Klaus's operation unfold above ground. The Crows still held their corner booth. The regulars still nursed their beers. The music still pounded industrial heartbeats through concrete and steel....

Klaus’s text had arrived three days ago, blunt and unyielding: Black. Short. Tight. Clean. No bra. Leather or latex preferred. Heels. Makeup done. I’d spent the afternoon hunting through Neukölln’s back-street thrift stores: narrow, cluttered caves wedged between döner shops and auto garages. Fluorescents buzzed overhead, racks sagged under the weight of strangers’ wardrobes. Everything smelled faintly of dust, smoke, and...

The Foundry squatted between a shuttered auto repair shop and a warehouse whose windows were crosshatched with plywood, the dark brick blackened with the kind of soot Berlin never bothered to wash away. No neon, no name above the door. Just a rusted plaque etched with a warped gear, more graffiti tag than sign. The entrance sat recessed in shadow, guarded by a bouncer with a neck thick as rebar, scanning the street like h...

Seattle doesn’t change, not really. Cold. Wet. The mist was thick enough to blur the skyline into smudges of gray. Streets slick with rain, the air always heavy, like it’s pressing you down into the concrete. Everyone walks fast here, heads low, collars up. Pretending they don’t see the things piling up in the news. The bodies show up steadily, like clockwork. Every week or two. A homeless man slumped against a wall, skin...

The November cold bit through my jacket as I leaned against the concrete wall, watching the warehouse across the street. Four weeks in Neukölln had taught me that winter crept in fast here, slipping between the industrial buildings like smoke. The streetlights cast uneven pools of yellow on the cracked asphalt, and the air carried the smell of diesel and Turkish coffee from the all-night café two blocks over. I pulled my...

Two days. Gone. I stared at the girl in the mirror, my mind clawing for any fragment of memory from the void between then and now. What had I done? Where had I been? The harder I searched, the more complete the emptiness became. Think, Alan... Think. Nothing. Just this yawning gap where forty-eight hours should have been. No dreams, no flashes, no half-remembered conversations or glimpses of sunlight through windows. Just...

The hammering inside my head dragged me back to consciousness like a rusty anchor scraping against concrete. I cracked one eye open and immediately regretted it. The pale morning light filtering through Martin's thin blue curtains felt like needles jabbing straight into my brain. Christ. What did I drink last night? I tried to roll over on the couch, but something felt... off. My limbs moved with this strange, weightless...

It’s been a long winter in Seattle. The kind where the rain never really stops, just changes in volume. Days smear into nights until you forget when one ends and the other begins. Classes. Part-time work. Grocery runs between downpours. Reality is nothing like the glossy college life they show in movies: no endless sunny quads, no picture-perfect friend groups. Just damp hair, sore feet, and laundry that never seems to dr...