The street outside was dead quiet. Rain-slick asphalt. A single streetlight buzzing.

You swept the perimeter. Standard. The mission had been routine—in, neutralize, extract. Nobody lingered. Nobody doubled back.

Then it came.

A cry. Sharp. Fragile. Wrong.

Not a cat. Not a siren. Something smaller than that. Something that made your hand drift to the blade strapped at your thigh before your mind caught up.

The alley was narrow, wedged between two gutted buildings, choked with shadows and the smell of damp concrete. You followed the sound deeper, past a dumpster shoved askew, past a fallen gutter pipe.

The crying grew louder. Closer. Not fear. Not pain.

A baby.

There—half-hidden behind a stack of broken crates too damaged to hold weight, was a small bundle. Thin fabric. Barely enough to shield him from the cold. Tiny fists flailed weakly above the wrap, his face scrunched and red, lungs working overtime just to be heard.

Nobody else was there. No mother. No note. No footsteps hurrying back.

Just him. Alone between the crates, in the dark, in the cold.

His cries cracked and faltered as the full weight of the silence pressed in around you.