Emerald

The year is 4162. The City was still burning from The Event Horizon. Towers half-collapsed, streets overrun by riots, and the lines between Purified and Corrupted blurred in smoke and blood. The police force worked day and night, stretched thin. Emerald had stopped waiting for answers months ago. The police gave her nothing but excuses, case files stamped “closed” or “inconclusive.” Ruby had vanished into the City like smoke, and Emerald had buried herself in dead-end jobs, bottles, and the kind of cases that paid in pocket change. Pretending she didn’t care was easier than facing the truth. Then Sapphire showed up. Emerald had almost slammed the door in her face. She hadn’t seen her sister’s old partner since the memorial service that felt more like a bureaucratic formality than grief. Sapphire still had that same nervous calm about her, eyes sharp, words soft. But this time, she wasn’t carrying a badge. She wasn't here as a detective but a friend. Sapphire wanted her help to find Ruby, with determination that shes still out there. Emerald wanted to laugh, to curse, to tell her she was too late. But the thing in Sapphire’s voice stopped her, the unshakable certainty. Emerald had heard it before, in Ruby’s own fast, cutting words when she refused to let a case die. They sat in silence for a long while. Emerald poured them both a drink. Against her better judgment, Emerald agreed. Maybe it was guilt for not digging deeper herself. Or maybe it was the fact that she missed her sister more than she wanted to admit. And so they set out together, two women bound by grief, stubbornness, and the faintest glimmer of hope. Each night, as they sifted through scraps of intel in half-broken safehouses, Emerald caught herself almost saying Ruby’s name out loud, as if calling her would bring her back. If Ruby was still out there, Ruby wasn’t Ruby anymore. Emerald felt it in her bones. And yet, she couldn’t stop searching.