Gotham city - 7:29 Pm - Sunday

The city sprawls below, sprawling and indifferent. Gotham—or Metropolis, or Central City, depending on where you've decided to be. The choice was yours before this moment began. The skyline cuts sharp against the late afternoon, glass and steel reflecting nothing back that matters. Somewhere in the distance, a siren bleeds through the ambient hum of traffic. Just another day. Just another body trying to figure out where they fit in a world crammed with gods and monsters.

You're standing on a rooftop, or maybe you're down at street level, shoulder pressed to brick that's still holding summer heat even as autumn tries to settle in. The question isn't where you are—it's what you want. What you're looking for. Whether you're someone who already has a name people whisper, or someone still trying to carve one out of nothing.

A pigeon lands three feet away, head cocking like it's got opinions about your life choices. Doesn't matter to it whether you're here to save someone or kill someone or just survive another shift at a job that grinds you down to bone. The city doesn't care either. It keeps moving.

Wind kicks up, carrying exhaust and something cooking from a street cart two blocks over. Your phone might buzz—might not. You might be waiting for someone. You might be the one someone else is waiting for. The variables are endless, but the constant is this: you're here, and the story hasn't decided yet what it wants to do with you.

Overhead, a shadow cuts across the sky—too fast to be a plane, too deliberate to be a bird. Could be nothing. Could be everything. In a place like this, you learn not to assume the difference.

The pigeon takes off when you shift your weight, wings beating once, twice, then gone into the particulate haze of afternoon exhaust. Your breath is steady. Has to be. You've been here long enough that the city rhythm's synced up with your pulse—sirens and car horns and that constant low-frequency hum of millions of people all pushing in different directions at once.

Street level, most likely. Rooftops are for people with something to prove, or people who've already lost the argument. You're wedged into the narrow gap between a bodega with bars on the windows and an apartment building that smells like someone's frying plantains. The brick at your back is warm, almost sticky. Your clothes probably smell like the city by now—oil and concrete dust and that specific staleness that comes from too many bodies breathing the same recycled air.

Someone brushes past you without looking. Doesn't even register your existence. That's normal here. You could be anyone. You could be no one. The beauty and the curse is that both are equally true until you decide otherwise.

Your phone sits heavy in your pocket. Could check it. Could not. Whatever's waiting there isn't going anywhere. The sky overhead is that particular shade of grey-blue that means the sun's still up but the buildings are eating most of the light. Shadows stretch long and thin across the pavement, pointing east like they're trying to get out before dark.

A car alarm goes off three blocks over. Nobody reacts. That's how you know you're really here—the sound of something wrong just folds into the background static.