Here, you will find the prologue to the novel I'm currently working on, under the working title of The Walking Night:

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‘They’re saying that another Nix set themselves on fire here yesterday,’ Aton said when they walked into April’s Rain Market. 

‘Another one?’ Verna replied, feeling the safety of her baton on her belt.   

Sandwiched between the slums of Sector 11 in the Lower City, the market extending down Temple Road was completely devoid of its usual energy at four in the morning. All the stalls had been folded and tidied up, leaving only a few solitary lights on.

Verna glanced up in a sudden nostalgia, watching the system of yellowing billboards above the market. She had fond memories of walking down the same market as a child, rummaging through the stalls for cheap plastic toys with her mother. Nowadays, she could barely make enough time to even talk to her mother, the newly promoted Commander of Sector 9 City Watch.  

‘Well,’ Aton replied grimly, looking over his back. He seemed a little more tense than usual. ‘Apparently, she did it right during peak hours.’ 

Verna understood his unease. The two of them had been friends since their days at the City Watch Academy. They had been doing the same thing for three years – nightly beats around Sector 11, report back to the City Watch, and then breakfast at Trevor’s. But tonight was different. As they made their way further down the empty market, Verna could not shake off the feeling that she was being watched. The wind was motionless, but she could sense something moving from a distance, shifting around like a hound observing its prey afar. 

‘You know, my mother used to say that when a Nix dies, they don’t really pass on,’ Aton continued. ‘Their he’ka forces their souls to remain in the living world, wandering until their false gods find them.’ 

‘Is this really the best time for witchy ghost stories?’ Verna complained, but her voice did not come out as confidently as she would have liked. 

Aton’s face was pale as ash. His lips looked dry, and his eyes kept darting back and forth. ‘She said that the more pain they suffered before their death, the more determined they are to drag us to join them…’ 

‘Aton, please stop-’

‘Oh shit, Verna,’ Aton cried, pointing at something. 

Verna’s heart stopped for a beat. For a second, she felt her breath trap between her lungs. Her gaze followed Aton’s finger – right in the middle of the street, there was a splatter of red against the grey – a cat's body was spread open, its insides torn apart like a map.

‘It’s just a cat, Aton,’ Verna said, releasing her breath. 

‘But who could have done this?’ Aton bleated. ‘A Nix?’ 

Even a Nix couldn’t have the strength to do that, Verna thought. At least she hoped.

‘Even a Nix wouldn’t come all this way to rip apart a random stray cat.’ Verna replied finally, kneeling towards the body. Upon closer inspection, she could see some small bite marks extending from the cat's gaping wound, as if something had managed to chew through the cat's flesh and ripped it apart. There also seemed to be some strange dark spots growing out from the gash like black constellations. 

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'Where are those spots coming from?' Aton mused, rubbing a hand over his chin. ‘They shouldn’t be here.’ 

'I don't know,' Verna said. 'None of this is making any sense.'

'If it's not the Nix... shit, it's the ghost lady, isn't it?' Aton said, his eyes shifting around again.

‘Stop it, Aton,’ Verna snapped. Yet when she stood back up, she was so sure that she just saw something move. As she whirled, all she could see was a street rat skipping nonchalantly under her. 

‘Did you just hear that?’ Aton said suddenly. 

‘Hear what?’ 

‘Something… something just moved by,’ Aton responded, his eyes shifting around again. ‘I don’t know how to describe it, but I heard it.’ 

Verna pursed her lips and focused. But the only sound she could make out was the creaking of the billboards swinging above them. Something wasn’t right – she could taste it – but what? A nearby stall lamp was flickering. Verna fingered her baton again. She suddenly wished that they had gone back to their patrol car to grab their guns before doing this.

Suddenly, a loud noise clamoured from afar, like metal bars clinking onto each other, then the sound of movement against puddles. They vanished as quickly as they had appeared, but Verna heard them. 

‘Sounds like…’ Aton whispered. 

‘The sewers, I know,’ Verna said, keeping her footsteps quiet as she shuffled towards a nearby sewage drain. There seemed to be nothing special about it, until she tasted the same smell she had whiffed when she found her dog’s body after its death three days later. 

‘Theos, smells like something died three times here,’ Aton groaned, holding a hand against his nose. 

Verna held a hand over the metal bars of the sewage drain. They were wet to touch. When she turned her hand around, she realised that her fingertips were stained with blood. 

‘Verna…’ Aton began. 

‘Whatever did that to the cat, it’s down there,’ Verna said, already studying the mechanics of the sewage drain latch. 

‘You do realise this is exactly the part in horror movies where the audience is screaming at the protagonists to get the hell away?’ 

Verna rolled her eyes. ‘Aton, sometimes I honestly don’t know what Mai sees in you.’ 

‘Hey, Mai and I do just fine because we tend to avoid creepy sewage drains,’ Aton said, and his expression turned serious. ‘Maybe we should call for backup first? Or at least, grab our guns from the car?’ 

‘And let Eli take the credit again?’ Verna barked, unlocking the latch. ‘We can do this alone.’ 

‘But we don’t even know what’s down there.’ 

‘Listen, Aton,’ Verna said, glancing at him intently. ‘Do you want to be stuck as a Night Watcher for five more years? This could be our big break!’ 

She watched as Aton sighed, then finally said: ‘Fine. But if we die, I’m going to kill you.’ He kneeled and began to lift up the sewage lid slowly, setting it heavily down onto the pavement.

‘See?’ Verna smiled for the first time. ‘That wasn’t-’ 

She was interrupted by the sudden scream of a woman. 

Coming from a distance, it sounded like it was coming from the back. The flashing stall lamp lightened up in a bright nauseating yellow, glowing increasingly until it finally broke in a loud screech. 

Aton reacted faster than Verna even did. He broke off to a sprint, dashing towards the source of the screech. Verna could only follow him from behind, her breath and legs heavier than ever. 

In front of her, Aton halted in shock, blocking her away from view. Verna almost choked – the air smelled the same from the sewage drain, but it was much more intense.  

She dared a look. 

There was a woman – with long black hair shadowing her face, she crouched on the ground, blood seeping through her arms against her stomach. 

The blow came from the shadows behind her. 

Verna felt the strength of claws gashing across her back, striking her with a force so strong that she was sent flying off to a stall. Her body was a ragdoll, sliding down the stall tent as her uniform was torn open to the cold air, revealing bleeding marks underneath it. The pain had not even settled, and her mind was a complete blank. 

A creature rose in the night. Reaching almost as high as the billboards above, the monster loomed like an oversized serpent that had engulfed too large a meal. As Verna blinked, she realised that its whole long body was made of a system of smaller rats, entwined and moving vigorously upwards to form its shape and long tail. 

‘Aton!’ Verna screamed, scrambling to stand back up. 

The monster turned, a myriad of large yellow eyes in the darkness. Its face was a white mask, thick and milky like the skull of an animal she did not know. There on its torso, Verna found Aton – his body had been entangled to the monster, and was slowly disappearing as the rats devoured his corpse in incredible hunger.  

Off the ground, the bleeding woman looked up – black vitiligo had spread all over her cheeks from the claw marks on her face, seething like moving tar. Her eyes were the same bright yellow. 

Verna slipped down the stall tent and forced herself to run. She could feel the monster’s heavy breath against her back, but she did not care. Her heart was beating so fast like it was trying to wrest its way out of her chest. Something was coming out from the wound at her back, she could sense it – it was so cold, yet warm at the same time, and so alive.

The last thing she could hear before the shadows reached out to her was the whisper of a child, echoing: 

‘Mother?’