Let’s get something straight.I never asked to play hero. Heroes wear capes, not thrift-store hoodies reeking of instant noodles. Heroes don’t have dads who ghost them for a year, only to drop cryptic voicemails about “wolves.”

  But here’s the thing about life: it doesn’t care what you asked for. It hands you a shovel and says, “Dig.”

  So yeah. I’m Leo Ahmed.Amateur detective.Professional orphan.And apparently, the only idiot at Bellview High who notices when the teacher doesn’t cast a reflection.

  Funny how life works. You spend years building walls, brick by brick, thinking you’re safe behind them. Then one raindrop slips through the cracks. Just one. And before you know it, the whole damn world’s flooding in.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself.Stories like mine don’t start with endings.They start with a kid too dumb to see the storm coming.

  Sixteen years old.A certified ghost in a world of neon laughter and locker-room confetti.

  My old man? A suitcase dad, always chasing phantom “work trips” that smelled like bourbon and regret.Mom? A Polaroid fading on the mantel. Dad swore she was still out there, breathing—but I knew the truth.Ghosts don’t leave forwarding addresses.

  So I became a detective.

  Not the badge-and-gun type. The kind that stalks library aisles, devouring Chandler and Doyle like they’re survival manuals. The kind that traced missing cat posters and cafeteria thefts like they were blood spatter patterns.

  My magnum opus? Proving Tyler Riggs stole Principal Harris’s toupee and fed it to the biology lab’s python.The python puked.So did my social life.

  High school’s a bad joke when you’re the punchline. While the Normals traded Snapchats and tongue piercings, I holed up in my skull’s dusty attic, piecing together mysteries only I cared about. The flicker of the monitor screen became my campfire. Code, forums, cold cases... my lullabies.

  Didn’t need friends. Didn’t want ’em.Friends were liabilities in a world where even your own blood could vanish between breakfast and algebra.

  But the universe loves a punchline.And that Thursday?The joke was on me.

  7:32 AM. Bellview High.

  High school hallways are crime scenes waiting to happen. Every locker a potential clue, every whisper a testimony. But some crimes don’t leave bloodstains...They leave shadows.

  And Mai Sato carried hers like a second backpack.

  She was at her locker, head down, a curtain of jet-black hair hiding her face. Tyler’s “girlfriend” in the loosest sense—more like his accessory, a mood ring for his tantrums. But today, the script had a new stage direction.

  A yellowed bruise peeking above her collar, shaped like a thumbprint.The way she flinched when a freshman slammed a locker three feet away.Her left wrist, hastily yanked into her sleeve when she saw me.

  Detective Rule #1:Coincidences are confessions in disguise.

  Leo: (leaning against the adjacent locker) “Nice weather for turtlenecks.”Mai: (not looking up) “Don’t.”Leo: “Or what? You’ll tell Tyler I’m harassing you?”Mai: (slams locker) “What do you want, Ahmed? A quote for your case files?”

  Her voice was a blade. But hands? Hands don’t lie.Hers trembled, knuckles white around a history textbook.

  Leo: “Cafeteria’s serving mystery meat. Let’s call it a day, grab coffee.”Mai: (snorts) “Wow. You and Chila share pickup lines too?”Leo: “I’m buying.”

  Silence.The bell screeched in the distance.Somewhere, Tyler’s laugh echoed—a hyena with a nicotine habit.

  Mai: “I’m not a damsel.”Leo: “Didn’t say you were.”Mai: “Then stop detecting me.”Leo: “Hard not to. You’re the only person here with better deflection than a CIA spook.”

  She turned, finally.Eyes like cracked onyx.

  Mai: “You want a case? Solve why the hell Chila keeps avoiding you. Or why your father doesn’t come home without smelling like garlic.”

  Diversion tactics. Textbook.But textbooks don’t teach you how to hide a split lip under cherry-flavored gloss.

  Leo: “I’m not the enemy, Mai.”Mai: (quietly) “Neither was my brother.”

  7:45 AM. Bellview High.

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  The halls reeked of Axe body spray and existential dread.Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like dying flies.I weaved through the hormone parade, collar up, eyes low.Laughter crackled around me—sharp, alien, like glass breaking.

  Then I saw her.

  Chila Mendez.Backpack slung over one shoulder, combat boots kicking shadows. Her hair—jet-black last year—now streaked with electric blue. A human exclamation mark in a world of ellipses.

  Chila: “Well, well.” Her voice sliced through the noise like a switchblade through cotton candy. “Look what the cat didn’t drag in.”Leo: (thumbs fraying sleeve) “Chila. Heard you were backpacking through Europe. Let me guess... ate a croissant, got bored?”Chila: “Please. I spent two weeks hacking Berlin’s subway system. Their encryption’s weaker than the principal’s hairline.”(She fell into step beside me, smelling like cloves and trouble.)Chila: “Miss me, detective?”Leo: “Like a migraine.”Chila: “Liar. You’ve got ‘I’ve-been-talking-to-my-lamp-again’ eyes.”

  The crowd parted ahead.Tyler Riggs and his hyena pack loitered by the trophy case, their laughter a chainsaw rev.

  Chila’s smirk hardened.

  Chila: “Still letting that Walmart Wolverine live rent-free in your head?”Leo: “He’s small-time. Like a zit on the universe’s ass.”Chila: (not looking up from her phone) “Relax, Sherlock. Their combined IQ couldn’t microwave popcorn. Besides...” (pockets phone, grinning) “I just bricked Tyler’s Instagram. Again.”Leo: “You’re a menace.”Chila: “And you’re welcome. Remember sixth grade? When he ‘accidentally’ threw your Maltese Falcon first edition into the pool?”Leo: (grimacing) “I remember the funeral. You gave the eulogy.”Chila: “‘Here lies Sam Spade, murdered by a jock who thinks noir is a makeup brand.’”(She hip-checks a locker. The metal clang echoes.)Chila: “Still can’t believe we used to let that meathead cheat off our math tests.”Leo: (quietly) “He wasn’t always meat.”(The fluorescent lights flicker, a bad omen.)Chila: (softer now) “Yeah. Back when his old man was just ‘traveling for work,’ not… y’know. Ghosting.”Leo: “At least mine left a note.”Chila: “A Post-it. ‘Gone for smokes.’ Real Shakespearean.”(He snorts. She doesn’t laugh.)Chila: “You ever wonder? If we’d stayed friends with him... maybe he wouldn’t be such a...”Leo: “A walking steroid ad? Nah. Guy was born to play the villain. Even in second grade.”Chila: “True. Remember the Great Playground Heist? When he stole Mrs. Kowalski’s yardstick and tried to sell it back as Excalibur?”Leo: “You hacked the PA system. Played ‘Imperial March’ while I ‘arrested’ him.”Chila: “You tripped over your trench coat. Broke your arm.”Leo: “And you forged my cast signatures as ‘Dashiell Hammett.’”Chila: “Made you famous. Admit it.”Leo: “Made me homeschooled for six weeks.”

  She laughs—a real one, sharp and bright—and for a second, the hallway doesn’t feel like trench warfare.

  Then Tyler’s voice booms down the corridor:

  Tyler: (mocking) “Aw, look—Loser and Luigi holding hands! You two gonna kiss, or...?”Chila: (loud enough to silence the crowd) “Careful, Riggs. Keep barking, and I’ll tell everyone what your browser history thinks ‘Excalibur’ really is.”

  The hyenas freeze. Tyler’s jaw twitches.

  Leo: (as they walk away) “Luigi?”Chila: “You’re tall, lanky, and obsessed with ‘missions.’ Also, your overall vibe is, ummm... tragic.”Leo: “They’re corduroy.”Chila: “Exactly.”

  BELLVIEW HIGH – CLASSROOM – 8:30 AM

  The classroom buzzed like a kicked hornet’s nest. Locker doors slammed like gunshots down the hall. Some idiot’s Bluetooth speaker blared autotuned rap, the bass thumping against my ribs. Tyler Riggs’ hyena pack howled over a TikTok video, their laughter sharp enough to scalp a nun.

  I slumped lower in my seat, grinding my molars to powder.High school. The ninth circle of hell with vending machines.

  Then the door groaned open.

  Silence fell like a body in a river.

  He stood framed in the doorway, trench coat swallowing the light.

  Nathaniel Darkwood.Hair black as an oil spill.Skin pale like wax paper stretched over bone.Eyes... Arctic blue—the kind of cold that burns—scraped over us.The air turned sharp, smelled suddenly of ozone and old libraries.My neck hairs stood at attention.

  Darkwood: “Hello, students.”(His voice was a velvet scalpel.)“How… vibrant you all are.”

  Tyler: (leaning back) “Aww, look class—they hired us a Nancy boy!”

  Darkwood didn’t blink.Just smiled—slow and lethal.

  Darkwood: “Ah. Tyler Riggs. I’ve read your file.” (Taps temple.)“‘Prone to tantrums when confronted with basic literacy.’ How... pedestrian.”

  The room froze. Tyler’s face flushed burger-meat red.

  Darkwood: (gliding forward, silent shoes) “Let’s clarify. You’ll sit. You’ll listen. Or I’ll dissect your juvenile rebellion in front of your... captive audience.” (Leaning in, close—he smelled of bergamot and something metallic.)“Do we understand... child?”

  Tyler sank like a deflated balloon.

  Darkwood turned to the board, chalk screeching as he wrote:

  LIBERTé, éGALITé, FRATERNITé

  Outside, the sun died behind bruise-colored clouds.A draft snaked through the room, lifting papers like restless ghosts.

  That’s when I saw it.

  The window to his left—filthy, streaked with decades of neglect—should’ve shown his reflection.

  It didn’t.

  Just an empty trench coat floating in mid-air.Chalk writing itself on the board.

  I blinked.Rubbed my eyes.

  Darkwood: “Something wrong, Mr...?”(His voice lashed my spine.)Leo: “Leo,” I croaked.Darkwood: “Leo.” (He tasted the name like a bad wine.)“Eyes forward. History’s... messier when you’re not paying attention.”

  The lesson began.He paced—a panther in a chalkboard jungle—spinning the Reign of Terror like a true-crime podcast.Kids sat statue-still, clutching their pens like talismans.

  But I kept watching the window.His coffee mug reflected.The clock reflected.

  He didn’t.

  TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 2