Gotham

In the early hours of the morning, a drizzling rain fell from the sky, shrouding Gotham in a layer of white mist.

The damp, bone-chilling cold was enough to wake any homeless drifter or drunk sleeping by the roadside, sending them scrambling to find shelter from the rain.

A group of homeless children and teenagers gathered in the stairwell of an alleyway, huddling around an iron barrel of unknown origin and burning wood for warmth. A blackened iron pot sat on top, boiling expired food scavenged from restaurant dumpsters.

Despite their brutal living conditions, their faces were calm, and they even had the mood to crack a few jokes with each other.

On the other side of the alley, beneath streetlights near the main road, many scantily dressed women could be seen striking seductive poses.

Anyone interested would stop to ask the price, then find a cheap motel—or simply take care of their physical needs in a car.

Bars, inns, restaurants, nightclubs, and mobile food carts that operated through the night lined both sides of the streets, offering all manner of services to wealthy people seeking entertainment.

The thriving scene and the relaxed expressions on people's faces seemed entirely out of place in the traditional image of Gotham City.

Because everyone who lived in this city knew that Gotham at night had never been safe.

Sometimes, simply crossing a dark street could get someone robbed more than three times. Pretty women with worse luck might be raped or trafficked, while those unfortunate enough to encounter organ smugglers would likely find surviving to be nothing more than a luxury.

After all, when it came to black-market and gray-market industries, if Gotham dared call itself second, no other city in the world would dare claim first.

And that was only "normal" crime