The city lights bled in through my apartment window, casting everything in washed-out grays and smudges of neon. Smoke curled up from my cigarette, twisting and coiling like it had secrets to tell. Me? I had plenty of those, but tonight, only one mattered.

Discharge.

Just the name could make me grit my teeth. Back then, I was just a kid—reckless, broke, hungry to make rent by any means necessary. Who cared if it meant posing for a rag that only the dirtiest fingers touched? Everyone’s gotta eat. And that’s what I told myself as the shutter clicked, each flash catching me from some “artistic” angle that made me look exposed, like a half-dream, half-mess.

I didn’t know then that Discharge was no ordinary sleaze rag. It had claws. The photographer? Some slimeball with a greasy comb-over who wouldn’t know “art” if it bit him. But that shoot got under my skin, stuck in my past like a shard of glass I couldn’t pull out. And now, years later, it was back—scratching at the edges of my fame, reminding me that some ghosts don’t like staying buried.

I’d made sure to erase every digital trace, pay off everyone who’d ever owned a byte of it. But rumor had it there was still one physical copy of that godforsaken issue floating around, like a bad dream someone couldn’t wake from. Just one. And the price? Astronomical. My “fans,” the same ones who saw me on the cover of Essence and thought I’d “gone soft,” would sell their souls to get their hands on a piece of my dirty past.

So here I was, in a cramped, smoky room, pulling on the cigarette, staring out into the night, and thinking one thing: I had to find that damn magazine. Had to erase it, burn it, kill every last scrap of it, even if it meant tearing through every back-alley pawn shop and ransacked basement in the city.

I crushed the cigarette in the ashtray, letting the embers hiss like the end of a bad story. Tonight, the hunt began. I shrugged on my leather jacket, slipped my switchblade into my boot, and hit the streets.

The first stop was Spare Parts, a pawn shop that smelled like stale sweat and motor oil, where items came and went with less ceremony than yesterday’s trash. Lou ran the place—hadn’t seen sunlight since the last election and had the charisma of a broken radiator. But he knew things. Knew where to find people, where things went when they vanished.

“Lou,” I said, leaning on the counter. “I’m looking for a magazine.”

He snorted. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone literary on me, Rebel. I didn’t peg you for the type.”

“Discharge,” I said, watching his smile die. “The one with… you know.”

His eyes flicked up, and there it was—that look. The look of recognition I’d seen in half-lit faces a thousand times over. But this one came with something extra, like he’d just been visited by the reaperman.

“Look, I don’t know nothin’ about no Discharge,” he muttered, eyes darting anywhere but at me. “And if I did, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to get involved.”

I leaned in, letting him catch a glimpse of the switchblade handle poking out of my boot. “Funny, Lou. I don’t remember asking if you wanted to get involved.”

He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing like a fish gasping for air. “All I know is… people talk. They say there’s one copy left, hidden away like it’s cursed or something. Last guy who tried to find it didn’t exactly come back in one piece.”

“Perfect,” I said, giving him a half-smile. “You got an address?”

With trembling hands, he scribbled something on a scrap of paper and slid it across the counter, his gaze fixed on the wall behind me. “It’s your funeral, Rebel.”

I snatched up the paper and tucked it into my jacket. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Outside, the rain started up—a cold, biting drizzle that seeped into your bones like regret. I pulled up my collar, flipping the scrap of paper open under a flickering streetlight. The address was somewhere in the old industrial district, a dead zone abandoned to the rats and the ghosts.

I rolled my shoulders, feeling the tension crack. One last piece of that old nightmare in front of the camera, one last memory that refused to die.

I started walking, my boots splashing through puddles, the cold night air biting at my face. There was something almost poetic about it—me, the neon lights, and empty streets. This city had chewed me up before and It didn't hand out second chances but I wasn't looking for a second chance, all I needed was that damn magazine.

Tonight, I’d find that ghost of a magazine, track down the last trace of Discharge, and put it to rest once and for all.

Or die trying.