Streets were mostly dead, lamps casting faint orange light, producing lonely shadows over cracked pavement. Void stuffed her hands into her hoodie pockets, leading the way at a lazy pace. Amy walked just half a step behind, her bag strap twisted tight in her fingers like she was afraid it might float away without her.

For a while, it was just the footsteps and occasional hum of a passing tram in the distance. Then Amy broke the silence...

This entire park was too clean for Void's taste. It wasn't exactly a chrome district or one of those gutted oldyards where you could hear the ghosts rattle in the chain-link fences. It was a patch of green wedged between housing blocks, with neat benches, playground swings that squeaked like they were lubricating themselves out of spite, and the sound of children instead of gunmetal.

Void stood under the crooked shadow of a chestnut tree, hood half-up, hair flaring magenta in the late summer light. 16:00 sharp. She was a woman of clocks and precision. When you told someone to meet you at four, you didn't stroll in at 16:17 or "whenever PKP decides to bless you." You showed up, or you didn't. And Amy had not...

Amy woke to the sound of cupboard doors slamming. Not just one, but three in quick succession - the percussive rhythm that meant her mother had been awake for a while, already wound up. Her heart sank before she even rolled out of bed. Morning hadn't started, and already it felt ruined.

The chat log with Void was still up on her computer. Amy hadn't shut the PC down after Void signed off. The words sat there like a challenge she couldn't blink away: tomorrow. 4pm. szczecin. bohdana zaleskiego. playground. swings still creak if you breathe on them. She'd read that line at least twenty times since the message dropped, her stomach coiling tighter every time. Szczecin. Given the distance to Gdynia it might as well have been another planet...

The door banged open with a thud that rumbled the cheap frame.

"Honey, I'm home!" Keira's voice rang out in a mock-theatrical pitch, followed by the heavy clomp of her steel-toed boots on the apartment floor.

From the couch, Void didn't even look up from her laptop. Her magenta fringe glowed under the bluish light of the screen, mouth twisting into a crooked half-smile.

"Jesus, babe. That's so 2014," she deadpanned. "Next you'll be telling me I won't believe what happens when she opens the door."...

The glassware rattled like bones every time the fume hood fan kicked on. She leaned closer to the flask, watching the thin coil of vapor snake its way up through the condenser tube. The liquid inside shimmered an oily purple under the lab lights, promise and disaster swirling together in a slow, mocking dance. She pulled her goggles tight against her face, heart thudding in rhythm with the stir bar. This was supposed to be the run. This was supposed to finally hold together...