Rain did not fall that day.
It descended—heavy, deliberate, as if the sky itself had chosen mourning over mercy.
The old mall stood where the city had abandoned its ambitions. Concrete peeled. Glass hung broken like unfinished sentences. Water ran through cracks in the ceiling, dripping steadily into the darkness below.
The pit waited.
It always had.
Daniel stood alone on the fifth floor, coat soaked, hair plastered to his forehead, breath steady despite the cold creeping into his bones. He listened to the rain and thought—not of violence, not of power—but of paper.
Ink drying too fast.
Pages rejected.
Stories no one read.
A normal scriptwriter, once.
A man who believed words could save people.
He took out his phone.
THE GRAVEYARD
Alfred was kneeling.
Mud soaked through his trousers, but he didn't notice. His hands rested on the wet earth, fingers trembling as if the ground itself might collapse if he let go.
Jessica's name was carved cleanly into stone.
Too clean.
Too final.
Flowers lay crushed beside the grave, their colors bleeding into the rain. Alfred's shoulders shook—not violently, not theatrically—just enough to show that something inside him had broken beyond repair.
"I didn't protect you," he whispered.
"I promised I would."
The phone vibrated.
Alfred looked at the screen.
Unknown number.
He answered without thinking.
THE CALL
"Come," Daniel said.
One word.
Nothing else.
Alfred closed his eyes.
He knew.
He didn't ask where.
He rose slowly, brushing mud from his hands, touching the stone one last time as if committing the shape of her name to memory.
"I'll finish it," he told the grave.
The rain followed him.
THE ARRIVAL
The car tore through the city like a scream that had finally found lungs.
When Alfred reached the mall, the rain was so thick it blurred distance itself. Headlights cut briefly through falling sheets of water before dying.
The car skidded.
Water exploded upward as tires fought concrete.
Alfred stepped out without closing the door.
Inside the mall, Daniel waited.
THE FIGHT
They saw each other at the same moment.
No words.
No warnings.
Alfred charged.
The first punch landed clean—years of restraint releasing at once. Daniel staggered but didn't fall. He didn't counter immediately. He absorbed it, as if testing whether pain still mattered.
It did.
He smiled faintly anyway.
They collided again—fists, elbows, shoulders. Concrete scraped skin. Breath left bodies in sharp bursts. Every strike carried something heavier than intent.
Grief.
Guilt.
Recognition.
Alfred fought like a man trying to undo time. Every blow screamed why didn't you tell me, why didn't I see, why her.
Daniel fought like a man closing a book he had written himself.
His nose broke under Alfred's fist. Blood mixed with rain, streaking down his face. He wiped it away absently, almost amused.
"You should hate me," Daniel said quietly between breaths.
Alfred slammed him into a pillar.
"I do," Alfred roared.
Daniel nodded. "Good."
They moved through the floor like ghosts repeating an old ritual—stairs, broken railings, puddles reflecting flickers of lightning. Daniel slipped once. Alfred grabbed him—not to save him, not yet—but to hit him harder.
Daniel coughed, blood filling his mouth.
"I didn't tell you," Daniel said, forcing the words out, "because you wouldn't survive the truth."
Alfred struck him again.
"I didn't want you to become me."
That punch slowed.
Just for a second.
Daniel took it.
"You still won't know," Daniel added softly. "That's my last mercy."
Alfred screamed—an animal sound—and shoved him backward.
THE FALL
The edge came suddenly.
Concrete ended.
Air began.
Daniel felt it before he saw it—the weightlessness, the brief mercy of falling.
Five floors.
Time stretched.
He thought of Joseph—not dying, but laughing.
Of unfinished scripts.
Of stories that demanded endings.
As his body struck below, pain arrived everywhere at once.
Bones failed.
Breath left.
Vision dimmed.
Rain poured through the shattered ceiling, washing blood across the floor toward the pit.
Daniel smiled.
"My death," he thought dimly, peacefully,
"was written by me."
His eyes closed.
"Isn't it good," his mind whispered,
"to be the writer of your own ending?"
One final image surfaced.
Joseph.
Standing.
Whole.
Waiting.
"Goodbye," Daniel breathed.
The rain covered the rest.
FIN
THE END