**Authors Note: Hi, this is just for a bit of fun. Not a lot of young justice/DC fics I've seen, so I'm trying one out. Something new, this is just for fun, a side fic compared to my main one, just needed something new to avoid burnout, unno? Anyway, I have a super rough idea where I want to go, with pacing etc. But, if there's anything you wanna see or want me to write in, I'm open to suggestions, anyway. Bye Bye**
Blüdhaven. Sector 7. Dusk.
The world was wet again.
Kade Mercer tugged his hood lower as the evening drizzle needled the cracked pavement, soaking into his threadbare sneakers and tugging at the frayed hem of his jeans. The sidewalk shimmered under weak streetlights, a broken mirror scattered with cigarette butts and half-crushed cans. Blüdhaven always looked better in reflections—blurred, distant, easier to pretend it wasn't rotting.
He stepped carefully around a storm drain, coughing out steam. His plastic grocery bag crinkled with each movement—two water bottles, a bruised apple, and a wrapped sandwich that smelled more like cardboard than meat.
Dinner for three days.
If he was careful. If no one else took it.
He kept to the narrow walkways behind the main roads. Fewer eyes. Fewer problems. His fingers clenched the bag tighter when a patrol cruiser buzzed past, its low hum vibrating through buildings like a warning.
No one was chasing him.
But in this part of the city, that never meant you were safe.
The alley narrowed, buildings pressing closer like they were sharing secrets. Rain clung to rusted fire escapes and overgrown cables. Pipes dripped like IV lines. Graffiti melted into bruised streaks on the walls.
He passed a stray cat hissing from the lip of a dumpster, its fur matted and eyes wide with mistrust. They held each other's gaze for a heartbeat. Two animals too young to be this wary.
"Easy," Kade muttered. The cat didn't move.
Neither did he. For a moment, he liked the stillness—two things alive, breathing in sync, not trying to take anything from each other.
Then the neon above him sputtered back to life: K_NG'S C_RNER LAUN_ROMAT. The broken letters blinked in rhythm like a failing pulse. Green light shimmered across the puddles, turning the alley into something alien.
Kade's eyes flicked to the mural across from the cat.
There it was again—ten feet tall. A girl with glowing hands cradling the word HOPE in cracked, silver lettering. City PR fluff from the year before.
Last month, someone slashed a black line through the center of HOPE.
Like a throat being cut.
He stared longer than he meant to. Something about it felt like a mirror. Not of who he was—but who he might've been, if someone had come looking.
He adjusted his backpack and moved under a crooked vent that spat warmth into the freezing alley. The smell of fried grease lingered from the nearby deli. He didn't look toward it.
Too many memories. Too many families that weren't his.
He exhaled slowly.
Keep moving.
The alley opened slightly. Tire hiss from a passing car. Jazz played through a broken window, scratchy and off-beat.
He paused beneath a flickering streetlamp. It buzzed weakly, light stuttering between sickly amber and green.
Kade looked up.
Heavy clouds pressed down. No stars. Just the endless slate of a sky that never gave back what it took.
Still, he stared.
A long time ago—six, maybe seven—someone had told him the stars were still there, even when he couldn't see them.
But he couldn't remember who.
The voice was gone. Replaced with his own. Thinner now. Not scared—just smaller.
"Stars are liars," he said aloud, to no one.
Dripping water answered, rhythmic and soft.
He resumed walking. The cat was gone.
The alley curved ahead.
Somewhere past it, home. Or what passed for one.
One more turn. One more corner.
Then—the wrong sound.
Not a footstep.
Not a voice.
A low electronic whine. Subtle. Wrong. Like a broken wire vibrating behind a wall, just below hearing, but aimed at him.
Kade stopped. One sneaker splashed. The ripples danced outward, then stilled.
Too fast.
He looked up the alley.
Then back.
No one.
But the air pressed against him now, thick as velvet. The city had gone still.
Too still.
No neon hum. No water. Not even his footsteps.
The city had shut its eyes.
He moved forward. Slowly. Every bin, every cracked pipe familiar. He'd taken this path a hundred times.
But something had changed.
The wall where the mural usually greeted him—
Gone.
Just scraped concrete. No girl. No HOPE.
Only black spray paint. Jagged lines, blacker than the dark, like the wall had bled.
He blinked.
The mural was back.
Cracked, defaced—but there.
His breath caught.
Did I imagine that?
He turned his head slightly. Slowly. Scanning.
The streetlamp behind him flickered like a strobe.
Shadows danced.
And one was out of sync.
Too tall. Too slow.
A shoulder?
It didn't mimic his movements.
It wasn't his.
The —with a so, ft tearing hiss—it retracted.
Gone.
Kade stumbled backward.
The air was heavier now. Thick as water. Each breath dragged.
Lights dimmed. Some exploded in puffs of smoke.
The city was… changing.
No. Not changing. Folding.
Twisting into something that wore its skin—but wasn't it?
He walked faster.
Passed the same trash bin again. Or maybe one just like it.
He didn't remember turning.
A red sticker: "Property Seized."
He scratched at the back of his neck.
Something's wrong. Wrong.
Then—the second sound.
Not behind. Beside.
A fold in the shadows where the wall should be flat.
A shape where there was no depth.
He turned.
Nothing.
But the feeling—
Eyes.
Watching.
Kade ran.
Not a sprint.
A controlled dash. Light on his feet. No panic.
But fear crawled its way into his spine.
You're not alone. You've never been alone.
The alley twisted again. Too many turns. It wasn't the same path anymore.
Was this still Blüdhaven? Was this still real?
He passed under a broken streetlight—
And the hum returned.
Louder now. Like a heartbeat in the walls.
Then—a breath. Right next to his ear.
He spun, swinging the grocery bag out of reflex.
The air shimmered.
A silhouette.
Made of moving dark.
And then—
Gone.
His legs reacted before his thoughts did.
He dropped the bag.
Didn't hear it hit the ground.
Ran.
The alley spat him out into a shallow lot.
Wide. Quiet. Too quiet.
A rusted scaffold clung to an abandoned warehouse. Black windows like broken teeth. A sagging fence coiled with barbed wire.
No traffic. No wind. No sound.
Only the rain—
—until it stopped.
Mid-drop.
Half-fallen droplets hovered in the air. Frozen. Suspended.
Kade blinked.
The world blinked with him.
Then the rain resumed. Slower. Softer. It didn't land.
Just dissolved.
He stepped back. No splash.
Another step. Still no sound.
The ground was wrong.
Too smooth. Too cold.
He looked down. No footprints.
The plastic bag—gone.
He turned.
The alley was still there. Technically.
But flat. Lifeless. Like a photo printed in low-res.
The shadows didn't react to light.
There was no rustling. No flickering.
The city had been erased.
Then—the hum.
Deeper. Not a sound, but a presence. Breathing in the dark.
Close.
Too close.
The far end of the lot shifted. Not like something moved—like something was born.
The air rippled. Like a membrane being pierced.
From nothing—a figure.
Tall. Faceless. Gearless. Black.
Not wearing shadow—made of it.
Kade froze.
It didn't breathe.
But he knew it was watching.
Then it stepped forward—
And Kade ran.
No thought.
No fear of barbed wire.
Just away.
Fifty feet.
Thirty.
Twenty—
It was in front of him.
Just there.
The shadows reached—slow, certain.
He twisted. Cut left. Loading dock. Tunnel. Anywhere—
Black.
No warning. No fade.
Just gone.
The world returned in fragments.
A cold hand on his ankle.
Then his wrist.
Then his spine—
Pulled. Upward. Sideways. Nowhere.
He screamed.
Or tried to.
No sound.
The cold spread, locking his muscles.
His last image:
The mural.
Cracked silver under grime.
HOPE, barely visible.
Then even that disappeared.
The shadows swallowed him.
No struggle.
No mercy.
A boy, gone.
And the city didn't notice.
Didn't blink.
Didn't care.