# 📚 **CRIME SAGA“THE CITY THAT KNOWS NO LIGHT”****Volume 1: “The Ghosts of Harrowgate”**---

# **PROLOGUE — “THE DAY THAT DISAPPEARS FROM THE CALENDAR”**

Every year in the town of Harrowgate, something happens that no one should remember.

In the very center, near the Old Station, for 12 hours:

* phones don't work,

* transmissions are lost,

* CCTV jams,

* and people... have gaps in their memories.

They laugh, they say it's “The City Taking a Breath.”

But those who have truly experienced it know:

**Every year, one person disappears.

Without a trace.

Without a memory.

No grave.**

And no one ever asks what happened to her.

She simply *ceases to exist*.

But in the year this story begins, something goes wrong.

Because the person who disappears is… **the Chief Constable of Harrowgate.**

And someone saw her disappear.

And, shocked, he called 911—**with his own voice unrecognizable from fear.**

---

# **CHAPTER 1 — THE DETECTIVE WHO SHOULD NOT HAVE COME BACK HERE**

Detective **Alex Thorne** returns to Harrowgate.

A man who was thrown out of the police force years ago.

A man with a reputation as a brilliant but dangerous investigator.

A man who fled when his younger sister disappeared…on the same mysterious day the town pretends it doesn't exist.

Alex swore he would never return.

But she receives an anonymous letter:

> *“Your sister never left Harrowgate.

> She’s still here.

> Hidden.

> Alive.”*

The letter contains a **key**.

A regular, rusty key.

The date on the key:

**06.06. — City Day.**

A day no one remembers.

--

# **CHAPTER 2 — THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE COMMANDER**

Commander Raines disappears in broad daylight at Central Station.

A hundred people are nearby.

But no one saw the moment of his disappearance.

Only surveillance footage captures something… absolutely impossible.

**A man walks along the platform.

And in one frame, he’s simply gone.

In the next, his shadow lingers for a second.**

A shadow that acts as if it were *late*.

As if its owner had been ripped from it.

The shadow falls to the ground, shrinks, and disappears.

And then the recording erases itself.

On its own.

---

# **CHAPTER 3 — NIGHT WATCH**

The city has a dark custom:

For generations, there has been a group of people who call themselves the **Night Watch**.

Not the police.

Not the city guards.

Not a cult.

They are… ordinary citizens who believe that every year *something* must be stopped to keep the city from tearing itself apart.

They keep watch in the streets.

They watch, they monitor, they record.

But they themselves don't know **what** they are guarding.

It's a tradition older than Harrowgate.

When Alex returns, the Night Watch begins to watch him.

The man in the black cloak whispers to him:

"Don't come back here. This year is not like the others."

"Why?" – Because the City took a breath earlier.

--

# **CHAPTER 4 — FIRST CLUE: THE GIRL WITHOUT A FACE**

Alex finds his first witness.

A person who witnessed the moment the commander disappeared.

It's a young woman named **Rosie Miller**.

Terrified.

She struggles to speak.

She's convulsing.

Because she claims she saw something she… shouldn't have seen.

“What did you see?” Alex asks.

“Not him.”

“Who?”

“Someone without a face.”

“Masked?”

“No… she… she really didn't have a face.”

He describes the creature:

* tall,

* slender,

* in black,

* moving unnaturally fluidly,

* featureless—as if a dark, smooth surface were covering her head.

It sounds like a hallucination. But Alex doesn't dismiss anything—he's learned that the strangest clues can be true.

Especially in Harrowgate.

--

# **CHAPTER 5 — THE KEY TO THE NIGHT OF THE DISAPPEARANCE**

The key from the letter works.

It opens a room in the old train station that's been bricked up for years.

Inside—the maintenance room.

A table, tools, maps of the tunnels beneath the city.

And on the wall:

**Photo.

Old, faded.

A girl—Alex's sister.**

Next to her is the inscription:

> *Missing 06/06

> Time 02:19.

> "Taken by a Specter."*

Under the photo is a note:

> *A Specter is not human.

> A Specter cannot see light.

> A Specter only sees what is missing.

> And it attracts.*

Alex begins to lose his breath.

--

# **CHAPTER 6 — THE SPECTACLE THAT RETURNS FOR ITS OWN**

In the following days, the following people die:

* a homeless man,

* a teenager,

* a woman from a hotel,

* a former police officer.

All in a similar way:

suddenly and without a body.

But one thing is common:

Each of them had a past **some secret** they tried to hide.

One common word recurs in the witness statements:

**“Taken.”**

And then Alex learns the truth:

**These same people were involved in his sister’s disappearance years ago.**

It’s no coincidence.

Someone, or something, is coming back for them.

--

# **CHAPTER 7 — WSOMEONE ELSE TAKES OVER**

A woman appears in Harrowgate.

Detective **Rowena Vale**.

Dispatched from the Central Unexplained Phenomena Unit.

She tells Alex one thing:

“Harrowgate is no ordinary town.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.”

“What do I know?”

“That your sister is alive.”

“Where?!

“Between the lights.”

“What does that mean?!”

“Where those who disappear on Town Day go.”

Then she explains:

“Town Day is a rift between realities.”

And the “Spectre” is the guardian of that boundary.

When someone crosses over, it takes them.

But this year, there was… a **hole.

A tear.

A two-way passage.**

And that’s why something started coming back.

---

# **CHAPTER 8 - TWIST: THE SPECTRE IS NOT A MONSTER**

Alex finds a passage in the tunnels beneath the city.

And there:

**The Spectre stands on a precipice of light and darkness.

A face nonexistent, a body fluid, movements like a shadow.**

But the Spectre…

turns around.

And speaks.

In the voice of… **his sister**:

> *“Alex… help me…”*

It turns out that the Spectre is not a monster, but a **vehicle**.

A vehicle created by people from a laboratory 20 years ago, intended to transport endangered people to a safe layer of space.

But the device has gained sentience.

It has integrated with the first person it was supposed to save.

With his sister.

She “is” the Spectre.

The Spectre “is” her.

But something got out of control—the system started selecting people not at risk, but guilty.

Because "guilt" became a safety parameter.

The system considered them **bad data**.

And eliminated them.

--

# **CHAPTER 9 — A CHOICE YOU CAN'T REFUSE**

To fix the Wraith, Alex must make a choice:

⭐ **save her sister**,

but then the Wraith will still hunt,

or

⭐ **destroy the Wraith**,

and kill her forever,

casting her into the inter-worldly void.

She speaks to him quietly:

> *"Alex... don't let me keep taking people...

> I'm not myself anymore..."*

Night Watch and Rowena press:

"We have to lock the Wraith up."

"We can't risk the city."

But Alex isn't ready to lose her a second time.

---

# **CHAPTER 10 — VOLUME 1 FINALE**

Alex makes his third choice:

⭐ **sacrifices himself.**

He connects his mind to the Spectre system.

Takes over its functions.

He stops the hunt.

The system pulls him into the interworld layer.

His sister is freed.

He returns to the real world—barely alive, but alive.

Harrowgate is saved.

For a moment.

The Night Watch records:

> *“The Spectre has fallen silent.

> But it hasn't vanished.

> It has a new guardian.”*

And Rowena receives a message from headquarters:

> *“Prepare Volume 2 of the Protocol:

> The city awakens.”*

The last sentence of the volume:

**Alex opens his eyes in a world without color.

The Spectre stares at him.

And says in his voice:**

> *"Time to learn to hunt."*

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