Vincent Lee's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Vincent pressed his palms against the cracked concrete wall, feeling for gaps in the texture. Twenty-seven faces flickered through his mind like old film reels. He was Detective Matsuda now, hunting for the vanished in the ruins, but between each scene the voices found him—*Remember us, remember what you did*. His hands trembled as he traced the wall's surface. He'd done nothing wrong, just solved crimes, just played the roles. But the whispers knew something he couldn't recall, gaps in his memory wide as canyons. He pulled back from the wall and flexed his fingers. Every fighting style, every action hero—that was the dream that kept him moving forward. Master them all. Become them all. Even if he couldn't remember why he'd started. The case could wait. His body needed this. Vincent found an empty space behind a collapsed storefront and started building. He tied a torn jacket around a wooden beam, stuffed rags into a bucket and mounted it on rusted pipes. Each dummy took shape from debris—metal frames, bundled cloth, anything that could take a hit. He positioned them at different heights and angles. One for high kicks. Another for low strikes. A third hanging loose for speed work. He stepped back and rolled his shoulders. Bruce Lee's stance first, then Jackie Chan's flowing blocks, then the brutal efficiency of Jason Bourne. His fists connected with cloth and wood, each impact shaking through his bones. The voices faded when he moved like this. The missing faces blurred. Here, in the rhythm of strikes and blocks, he was nobody's detective and everybody's fighter.