The room goes dark, but the smoke sticks in your lungs like pin pricks of fire. Somewhere, a reel to reel flickers into life, and a grainy black and white picture forms on the screen. A saxophone starts playing…

This story did have two warning extra tags, now removed, since I don't think it really warrants them, but this is a gritty noir, so it's not sunshines and rainbows.

I do not take credit for the setting, this story is set in the 'They are Smol' universe, written by the one, the only u/tinyprancinghorse.TPH takes many forms and is known by many names. He is like Nyarlathotep, only smaller and cuter and more prancey. TPH also has a Website and a Patreon.

The cover was auto-generated by wombo.art which is a really cool AI picture generator, and I have zero talent of my own lol.