"Who do you think is the masked devil?"
The hooded teenager's voice echoed softly in the narrow alley, his words hanging in the thick evening air like cigarette smoke. He leaned against the brick wall, shadows dancing across his young face as the last rays of sunlight struggled to penetrate the gap between buildings. Ironclad Street lay just beyond the alley's mouth, its fading light casting long fingers of amber across the cracked pavement where the two gang members stood waiting.
His counterpart, a weathered man in his forties with a dark vest stretched tight across his barrel chest and a red bandana knotted around his graying hair, shifted his weight and pulled out a crumpled cigarette. "No one knows," he said, striking a match that flared briefly before settling into a steady flame. "Rumor has it that even the boss has never seen his face."
The teenager's eyes widened, disbelief washing over his features like cold water. "What!" He snatched the offered cigarette with trembling fingers. "You mean the boss, who controls nearly half the town, has never seen his face? You got to be kidding me."
He took two desperate puffs, the smoke burning his throat as he tried to process this revelation. The cigarette was already half finished when he passed it back, his hands still shaking slightly.
The older man's chest swelled with pride as he accepted the cigarette. There was something deeply satisfying about being the keeper of secrets, especially when sharing them with someone who'd only joined their ranks two months ago. "For real, man. You're new here, you wouldn't know."
He took a long drag, savoring both the tobacco and the moment. "I heard some punks claimed they were going to remove his mask. The following morning, they were found brutally beaten to near death in some alley downstreet. Since then, they call him the masked devil. No one dares confront him nowadays."
The words carried weight in the still air, heavy with the promise of violence and the certainty of consequences. But from the adjacent pavement on Ironclad Street, a young man walking slowly toward home let out a small, nearly inaudible chuckle. The sound was so soft it might have been mistaken for the whisper of wind through the alley, but it carried a knowledge that neither gang member could have imagined.
Zane Ling continued his unhurried pace, his footsteps echoing off the empty street as he made his way toward the northeastern edge of Arshburn. The conversation faded behind him, but the irony of it lingered in his mind like an inside joke he could never share. He walked several blocks before reaching his destination: an old building that seemed to lean against the sky itself, its brick facade crumbling like ancient parchment.
The building stood at the very end of the street, forgotten and forsaken, the last structure before Arshburn surrendered to empty lots and broken dreams. Zane climbed the long, winding stairs to the second floor, each step groaning under his weight like the building itself was sighing. The hallway stretched before him, dim and narrow, leading to the last door in the partition.
His small apartment waited beyond that door, and with it, the promise of rest after what had been the longest day of his week. Friday was always his toughest day, a relentless marathon of obligations that left him drained and desperate for solitude. Two classes before noon, one in the afternoon, and then the gym where he worked not as a member, but as a trainer who had to endure the endless parade of college girls who came not to exercise, but to gawk and flirt and make his life a living hell.
If he'd had any other option, any other way to earn the money he desperately needed, he would have quit long ago. But poverty was a prison with invisible bars, and Zane was serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole. Today had been especially torturous because Mia Monroe had attended his session, and Zane could swear he hated her, though he couldn't help but admit how devastatingly beautiful she was.
Mia was the most beautiful girl in Arshburn Community College. No, that wasn't accurate. She was the most beautiful girl in all of Arshburn, perhaps in the entire state. Zane had harbored a secret crush on her since middle grade, though he'd never admitted it to anyone, not even himself most days.
How could the daughter of the richest man in Arshburn ever be with someone like him?
As Zane collapsed onto his narrow bed, the springs protesting under his weight, he couldn't stop thinking about Mia. She had spent the entire evening bossing him around the gym, treating him like hired help, which technically he was. But during their workout session, Zane couldn't help but steal glances at her sleek, petite body held tight by the revealing gym clothes she wore like a second skin. Even after she'd left, trailing expensive perfume and casual cruelty in her wake, Zane couldn't stop thinking about her.
The ceiling above him was a map of water stains and cracks, each mark a reminder of his circumstances. Zane was only a poor guy whose luck had run out before he'd even had a chance to earn any. His mother had died while giving birth to him, her last act in this world being to bring him into it. His father, Zeng Ling, had worked as a janitor at the community college until three years ago when he'd slipped while cleaning and suffered a serious injury that left him hospitalized and in a coma.
The college had been kind enough to pay for his father's medical expenses, a gesture that Zane was grateful for every day. But he still had to pay for his father's nurse, a cost that consumed most of his earnings and left him scraping by on ramen noodles and day-old bread.
It had been three years since his father's accident, and Zane had been in his final year of high school then. He wasn't completely unlucky though. The head teacher had given him food money and a scholarship, and just like that, he'd graduated high school. But then came the real challenge: working multiple part-time jobs while attending college.
Zane had earned high enough grades to study at a national level university, but he lacked the funds and had to settle for the community college that offered him a full scholarship. He didn't complain, at least not out loud. He believed that if he worked hard enough, if he sacrificed enough, maybe in the future he could earn enough money to take his father to a hospital in the city where he might receive better treatment.
He didn't expect anybody to help him. The help he'd already received was more than he'd ever dared to hope for. He had to work hard in his education to have a chance at a better life, but he also had to earn a living in the present.
Zane was a remarkably good-looking young man, though he'd never fully appreciated this fact. He had a well-articulated face with strong cheekbones and deep-set eyes that seemed to hold secrets. After countless labored gigs and manual work, his once-lean body had transformed into a marvelously chiseled work of art. Anyone seeing him now couldn't believe he was the same weak, frail Zane Ling from high school. His character had also matured greatly as life had hit him with everything it had. His caring father was no longer there to physically comfort and guide him through difficulties.
His new physique had landed him two paying part-time jobs that, while better paying than his previous work, came with their own unique forms of torture. He was employed at McGann's downstreet gym and the Moonlight-7 bar.
He hated both jobs with a passion that burned in his chest like heartburn, but they earned him more than his other work combined. Zane was naturally shy around women, a trait that had only intensified after years of being mocked for his frail, weak-minded self during middle school and high school.
The bar manager loved Zane because he attracted middle-aged women with money to waste and loneliness to drown. They usually flirted with him shamelessly and even touched or grabbed him when he was serving them, their hands lingering longer than necessary on his arms or shoulders. Zane hated every moment of it, but he had to smile at them, had to pretend he enjoyed their attention.
The bar only paid him seven dollars per hour, which was barely enough to cover his bus fare. These women were the real source of his income through their tips. Zane had identified the wealthy women who gave him good tips and usually indulged in their little games of flirtation and innuendo. The rest he would treat coldly, professionally, hoping they would lose interest and leave him alone. He was there for the money, nothing more.
Working as a gym instructor was slightly better, though Zane had to hold his own against the college students who seemed to take pleasure in making his life difficult. He had to stay tough to avoid breaking down completely. He was terrified of girls and yet had to face a bunch of them every day. They surrounded him while touching him unnecessarily and posing revealingly in front of him while he tried to instruct them in proper form and technique. He got paid fifteen dollars per hour, so Zane had to persevere. At least the girls were his age, though an older woman would come in once in a while, forcing Zane to make himself busy and refuse their advances as politely as possible.
As drowsiness began to creep over him like a warm blanket, Zane realized he couldn't fall asleep yet. He had business to attend to. Looking at the old watch in his hand, a gift from his father that ticked away the seconds of his life with mechanical precision, he realized it was 6:30 PM. The watch reminded him that he needed to visit his father soon, even though his father was in a coma and couldn't speak. Zane still visited him at least twice every month, sitting beside his bed and talking about his day, his dreams, his fears, hoping that somewhere in the darkness, his father could hear him.
He entered the shower and let the lukewarm water wash away the stress and sweat of the day. After a brief while, he emerged dripping from head to toe and soon was clad in his usual casual clothes: baggy cargo pants, a plain blue shirt, a grey hoodie, and white sneakers with blue ankle socks.
He then reached under the bed and pulled out a black leather strap bag that contained his real tools of the trade, the items he needed for his true profession. The job that paid better than both the gym and the bar combined, but came with risks that could cost him everything.
It was 6:45 PM, just about time for Zane to leave. Soon he was out of the apartment building, heading toward the bar for what appeared to be another night of serving drinks and enduring unwanted attention.
He was halfway down the block when he heard it: the distinctive sound of metal hitting pavement.
Cling! Tang! Ting! Ting!
Reflexively he turned around, his senses heightened by years of living on the edge. A coin was rolling toward him, following gravity down the slight incline of the street. It reached near his foot, spun for a moment like a tiny golden dancer, then settled with a soft whisper against the asphalt.
Strange. Do coins just fall from the sky?
Zane thought as he scanned his surroundings with the practiced eye of someone who'd learned to always watch for danger. No one was there. Nothing was there. The street was empty except for the lengthening shadows of evening. He focused his attention on the coin.
The coin was golden, and it looked as if it was made of real gold, though Zane had never seen real gold in person. He'd heard that gold had been mined long ago in the old abandoned town mine, but that was decades before he was born. This coin had an iridescent glow and was slightly transparent at the edges, as if it existed somewhere between the physical and spiritual worlds. A large S was engraved on its surface, intricate and beautiful, unlike anything Zane had ever seen before.
It was strange and beautiful and obviously valuable. He could earn a fortune if he sold it at the pawn shop, enough money to maybe pay for a better doctor for his father, enough to finally get ahead instead of just surviving. He couldn't risk the owner arriving to claim their precious coin. He was already calculating how he would pocket it and disappear, but then something happened that would change everything.
As soon as his fingers grazed the edges of the coin, reality warped around him like heated glass. Space distorted, bending and twisting in ways that defied physics and logic. Time slowed to a crawl, each second stretching into an eternity. The ground at Zane's feet disappeared, simply ceasing to exist, and then gravity rose to meet him like an old friend with a cruel sense of humor.
Then darkness enveloped the world, complete and absolute, swallowing light and sound and thought itself.
On Ironclad Street, where Zane had been standing just moments before, only empty pavement remained. The evening air carried a lingering scent of cheap but pleasant cedar cologne, the only evidence that someone had been there at all. But in the gathering darkness, even that faded away, leaving nothing but shadows and the whispered promise of secrets yet to be revealed.