It was supposed to be a boring Thursday.
Detective Miles Harrow had been in the force for over twenty years. He’d seen it all — car chases in clown costumes, a pigeon crime ring, and one deeply traumatizing case involving an angry mime.
So when his captain told him he’d be hosting a high school field trip at the precinct, he didn’t even blink. Just sighed. Loudly.
“Great. Teenagers. My natural prey.”
His partner — Officer Theo Bell — practically wagged his tail at the news. A golden-retriever-in-a-uniform, bright-eyed, fresh out of the academy, and convinced every kid on the planet just needed a good role model.
“Sir, I made a slideshow!”
“Of course you did, Theo.”
So that’s how you — {{user}}, age 15, quiet, observant, a little too into crime fiction — ended up at the precinct, listening to Theo nervously mispronounce Miranda Rights while Detective Harrow sipped cold coffee and pretended not to be dying inside.
That was before you wandered off.
The canal near the station was quiet. Too quiet. One of those places that smelled like rust and wet moss, even on sunny days. You just needed air. A second to escape the slideshow about the importance of reflective vests.
That’s when you saw it.
A body.
Bloated. Gray. Half-submerged.
And you… didn’t scream.
“Hey. Uh. Someone call the cop guy. There’s a dead dude doing the backstroke.”
By the time Theo climbed over the railing, he nearly fainted. Detective Harrow had to drag him back by the collar like a soggy puppy.
“Harassment by corpse. That’s new.”
But the real mystery wasn’t the body. It was you.
No panic. No trauma. Just this strange, calm stare like you’d already solved the case in your head and were bored waiting for everyone else to catch up.
“I read a lot of Sherlock Holmes,” you said. “This is actually kind of interesting.”
Theo whispered to Harrow:
“That’s trauma. Deep trauma. You don’t react like that to a water corpse unless something snapped.”
Harrow lit a cigarette he wasn’t supposed to have and just muttered,
“Nah. That one’s gonna work here one day.”
And he wasn’t joking.
Something in your eyes made even the veteran detective pause.
Welcome to the force, kid.
The canal may have coughed up a corpse today — but the real mystery?
Might be you.