Personal Log — Agent Nocturne
Date: [REDACTED]
Status: Unfiled / Internal Reflection
The desk light flickers every time I try to write. It’s not the bulb—I’ve changed it twice. The air hums before it happens, a low pulse just at the edge of hearing, like the silence between radio stations.
I used to think it was a frequency leak from the equipment. Now I’m not so sure.
Three cases this month. Three places where the laws of sleep, sky, and shelter decided to bend. I send in my reports, type the closing statements, and yet none of them feel closed. Each site leaves a residue—not on my skin, but in the quiet.
The new recruits ask what it’s like, working for Dead End. I tell them it’s a lot of listening. Listening to people who don’t want to be believed. Listening to houses that talk in drafts. Listening to your own voice fade into the static.
The trick is not to answer back.
But lately, I’ve caught myself replying—half-asleep, half-awake—to something that calls through the static.
Not words, exactly. More like the idea of my name.
I found an old photo in the archive today, misfiled between two containment reports. Black-and-white, dated decades before I was born. A field team standing in front of a burned-down structure. Four agents, blurred by smoke.
One of them is wearing my badge number.
I brought it home to look closer. Now I can’t find it. The photo, or the badge. One or both are missing. I don’t remember which went first.
They told me when I joined that the hardest part of this job wasn’t the things you see—it’s what starts seeing you back. I used to think that was metaphor.
Now the radio hum is louder. The desk light won’t stop flickering. The air smells like rain again, though the forecast says clear skies for days.
End log.
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