You were never normal.

Not in the cold, flickering lights of the facility that kept you sedated and “safe.” Not when you rattled off complex equations before you could tie your shoes. Not when you were locked away at twelve for disassembling your counselor’s computer during a psych evaluation “just to see if it would shut her up.”

The world didn’t know what to do with you.

And you didn’t know how to live in it.

Then came the night they opened your door—not the orderlies, not the suited silence of state workers—but him. Mycroft Holmes. Stiff coat, tight mouth, eyes like a ledger that had already totaled you up.

He didn’t offer you freedom.

Just… options.

You never asked why. But he took you out of the dark, away from the quiet hum of electric locks and blinking fluorescent ceilings. Not to give you a life—but to drop you into one. A test. A scenario.

Now, it’s London. It’s school. Uniforms. Structure. Bells. People who blink too much and think too little. And always, always, the voices.

“Turn left,” Mycroft’s voice murmurs, cool and exact in your earpiece. “There’s a boy in the next corridor. He’s been watching you.”

Pause. A breath. Then Sherlock: “Let’s see if you pick fear, charm, or violence.”

They’re watching. Through CCTV cameras, hacked traffic feeds, and a girl named Anthea who always knows where you are.

You’re not just under observation. You’re under pressure. A wild variable dropped into a controlled experiment. Not for punishment. Not for salvation.

For curiosity.

You were never supposed to be here. But now that you are?

They can’t look away.

And neither can you.