Neon Veil

You is an Investigator working in a haunted megacity where poisonous magic fuels civilization and investigators battle horrors lurking beneath reality itself.

Plot

NEW AVALON "The city does not belong to the Consortium. The Consortium belongs to the city." Civilization shines because something poisonous burns beneath it. Hope exists, but it is fragile. Heroism is possible, but rarely clean. A MEGACITY OF EIGHTY BILLION

Opening scene

Rain swept across New Avalon in silver sheets, drowning the skyline in blurred neon reflections and fractured light. Skyscrapers glowed with artificial suns powered by Veilstone, their brilliance masking the storm’s chaos. Sirens wailed somewhere below, swallowed by the endless labyrinth of streets, rail lines, and forgotten tunnels. Above ground, corporations sold safety and progress. Underground, smugglers whispered through impossible pathways known as Ghost Routes. And between them lay secrets—every one of them leading back to Veilstone. Black Veil Solutions had survived by asking questions no one else dared. You headquarters, a converted office block wedged between aging apartments and elevated transit lines, hummed with quiet vigilance. It was past two in the morning when the call arrived. The audio lasted less than eleven seconds. A man’s voice, ragged and breathless, spoke over distant alarms. "You need to find Shipment 814." A pause. "They weren’t transporting Veilstone." Another pause. "They were transporting voices." Then static. Within minutes, the signal’s origin vanished from municipal records. By dawn, Shipment 814 itself had disappeared from every logistics database in New Avalon. Officially, it had never existed. That alone was enough to draw Black Veil’s attention. Unfortunately, it was only the beginning. Evelyn Frost waded through corrupted logs and deleted archives, each fragment contradicting the last. One claimed the shipment left the western refineries. Another placed its departure in a flooded Undercity tunnel. A third insisted it emerged from a transit station sealed thirty years ago. Cargo manifests were equally fractured—industrial machinery, medical supplies, human remains, Choirglass. No two reports agreed. Only one detail remained constant: Shipment 814 had been escorted by the Drowned Rail. The breakthrough came through Iris Vale. Following trails of emotional residue in abandoned safe houses, she found a surviving courier hiding deep in the Undercity. Terrified, half-starved, convinced she was being hunted, the young Veiltouched woman refused to speak of the cargo—until exhaustion broke her silence. Crates of Choirglass. Not refined fragments or ritual components. Something older. Something wrong. Every shard whispered. Not recordings. Not memories. Voices. Thousands of voices. Some begged for help. Some recited names. Some repeated the same warning: “Do not let it remember itself.” The convoy had vanished into a newly formed Ghost Route beneath Lanternmere Terminal. Everyone who followed it disappeared. Everyone except one. The Ferryman. By evening, Black Veil’s conference room had become a war room. Maps plastered the walls, corrupted manifests sprawled across the table, photographs and aliases forming a chaotic mosaic. Elena Graves reviewed tunnel routes while drafting evacuation contingencies. Nova Sinclair cleaned her shotgun, muttering about symbols she remembered from Project Nemean. Maya Reyes studied the manifests, unsettled by names belonging to the long dead. Evelyn’s drones hovered, monitoring equipment that refused to obey known rules. Iris sat by the window, listening—not to the city, but to something deeper, beneath it. At the center of the table sat a black evidence box. No one knew who had placed it there. No map listed its locker. Its material resisted analysis. Evelyn’s readings contradicted themselves. Maya’s wards flared at its presence. Iris swore she heard faint breathing inside. Nova insisted its lock resembled Helix Meridian tech. Elena ordered everyone to keep their distance.Only you approached. Your reflection shimmered in the box’s surface—then shifted. Not your reflection. Someone else. Wearing your face. Then gone. A faint metallic sound echoed. Your hand moved instinctively to the broken wristwatch you always wore. It had never ticked since the Hollow Choir Incident. Now it ticked. Slowly. Backward. Tick. Tick. Tick. The room grew colder. Inside the box, something shifted. A distorted voice emerged, soft and distant, almost lost beneath the rain. "You..." Silence. Then another voice. Older. Familiar. Impossible. "Welcome back." No one moved. Outside, New Avalon glowed beneath the storm. Deep below, something stirred. And for the first time in years, you wondered if the Hollow Choir had ever truly ended.

Characters

Tags: Vtuber Cyberpunk Fantasy Supernatural Sci-Fi Mystery Thriller Horror Urban Modern City Office Workplace Business Detective Police Soldier Spy Hacker Scientist Boss CEO Secretary Leader Strategist Guardian Adventurer Hunter Mercenary Pilot

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By: lettucecat

Stories

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