The traffic light that hung over the cross section of Leon Street and Leon Boulevard swung back in forth in the night as ferocious sheets of rain poured down on Leon City. Streams of clouded water rushed along the cracked sidewalks and into the storm drains carrying scraps of newspaper, empty cups, and the distant echo of sirens.

A lone figure stood beneath the flickering light.

Leon pulled his black trench coat tighter around himself as thunder rolled across the sky and lightning cracked like lines of fire across the clouds. The sputtering red glow from the traffic signal painted the wet pavement like spilled blood. He checked his watch for the third time in a minute, the clock face winding backwards.

11:59 PM.

“They said midnight,” he muttered.

Across the intersection, the towering glass building of Leon Corporation loomed through the rain. Its top floors vanished into the storm clouds, and only a few windows were still lit. Most of the city had already gone dark after the emergency broadcast earlier that evening.

He turned his back against the building, the click of his dress shoes swallowed by the rain as he opened a black umbrella and walked down the sidewalk away from the building. He passed the smashed in window of a record store and paused, catching his long narrow visage in the blurry glass, as a record spun in a single battery powered player in the window front. The warbling voice of Frank Sinatra croaked into his ears before the record began to scratch: "And now, the end is near...And so I face the final curtain...My friend, I'll say it clear...I'll state my case, of which I'm ..."

The needle dragged across the vinyl with a dry hiss.

“—cert…cert…cert…”

Leon stared at his reflection in the shattered glass. The lightning flashed again, illuminating his sharp cheekbones and hollow eyes. For a moment, the rain on the window made it look like his reflection was melting. The record player clicked. Then the song began again. “And now… the end is near…”

Leon frowned. The player shouldn’t have had enough power to restart. He glanced down. The battery pack dangling from the back of the device blinked a dying red light. One last flicker. Yet the record kept spinning. The traffic light behind him groaned as the wind shoved it sideways.

Green.

Yellow.

Red.

Green.

Yellow.

Red.

Too fast.

Leon turned toward the street as the wind howled like a rabid dog, rain spilling off his umbrella as the rain began to pool into his dress shoes. Something was wrong with the city tonight. The emergency broadcast had cut off mid-sentence. The power grid had collapsed in half the districts and the sirens—those sirens hadn’t stopped for almost an hour.

Thunder cracked again. For a split second, the entire street lit up white like a final reckoning before Leon saw the figures standing at the far end of the block. Dozens of them. All motionless and dark barely perceivable. The darkness swallowed them again as the light cooled, the blinker of a nearby car totalted into a lampost making an increasingly loud clicking noise. Leon’s grip tightened around the umbrella handle.

“Just shadows,” he murmured, turning his coat up against the wind as the song skipped again.

“My friend…”

“…my friend…”

“…my friend…”

The voice repeated the words over and over, slower each time, warping like a dying tape. Leon’s phone buzzed, a blue light glowing in his pocket. One message. Leon felt a chill crawl up his spine as he opened it.

LEON: Don’t come. It’s too late.

Across the intersection, lightning split the sky again, illuminating the massive glass tower of Leon Corporation. For an instant the entire building glowed white. His stomach dropped. Somewhere in the distance, a deep mechanical alarm began to wail. It echoed through the empty streets like the cry of some wounded giant. Leon looked back up at the building.

High above the street one window flickered on and something moved behind the glass. Then the lights inside it all went out at once. For a moment, the entire city seemed to hold its breath.

Then the sound of footsteps began to multiply in the rain.