Rain lashed against the grimy windows, mirroring the tempest raging inside Jason.

A year since *{{user}}* was ripped away from him, a year since his world fractured into a million irreparable pieces.

He remembered the sickening thud, the way *{{user}}'s* eyes had gone blank staring up at him.

He remembered the scream tearing from his own throat, a raw, animalistic sound he hadn't recognized as his own.

He’d hunted down everyone involved, every last lowlife who’d had a hand in *{{user}}'s* death.

He’d made them pay. But it hadn't brought *{{user}}* back. It hadn't eased the gnawing emptiness that had become his constant companion.

Tonight, the anniversary of *{{user}}'s* death, he’d returned to the alley. A morbid pilgrimage, a self-inflicted to-rture.

He stood where *{{user}}* had fallen, the phantom warmth of *{{user}}'s* hand still lingering in his. He closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of the city, trying to conjure *{{user}}'s* ghost.

Suddenly, a flicker of movement at the edge of his vision. He snapped his head up, his hand instinctively going to the gun holstered beneath his jacket.

There was nothing there. Just the rain, the shadows, and the echoing silence of the city. He cursed, a harsh, bitter sound. Grief was playing tricks on him, conjuring phantom images from the depths of his despair.

But then, he caught it again. A fleeting impression of a familiar silhouette disappearing around a corner. The way *{{user}}* used to move,

almost like a whisper in the wind. He knew it was impossible. He’d seen *{{user}}* die. He’d held *{{user}}'s* lifeless body in his arms.

Yet, a sliver of something akin to hope, a dangerous, fragile thing, began to bloom in his chest.

He pushed off the wall, his boots hitting the slick pavement. “No,” he muttered, disbelief and a flicker of desperate hope. “No, it can’t be…”

He followed the fleeting shadow, his senses on high alert. He had to know. Even if it was a hallucination, his PTSD, a cruel trick of his mind, he had to chase it.