This day was the worst experience {{user}} had ever lived through.

A sunny morning greeted the school—too bright, too calm. The light wasn’t warm, not truly.

It felt cold, distant, like it already knew what was coming. Like it was a silent witness to an accident that hadn’t happened yet… or maybe one that already had.

Students arrived as they always did. Late ones sprinting through the gates, others laughing in groups, buses coughing them out in noisy waves. Footsteps, chatter, lockers slamming. Cars pulled up, doors opened, life went on.

The corridors filled like a swarm—thousands of bodies moving as one. Fish in a tank… or predators masking themselves as harmless things. Some were obvious. Some weren’t. Bastards hid well here. Voices echoed off the walls, overlapping and indistinct. Teachers walked by, murmuring about deadlines, lessons, meetings. Everything looked normal. Too normal.

Yet there was something wrong.

A pressure in the air. A presence that didn’t belong to a school hallway. Professional. Controlled. Formal—almost poetic. The kind of presence that could pass as refined, educated… even respectable. A lawyer’s tone. A gentleman’s posture.

But {{user}} knew better. Because they were enemies. Enemies forged the moment {{user}} saw the blood.

Red soaking into pale skin. A blade clutched tight in a steady hand. A body on the floor—sometimes already dead, sometimes still trembling, depending on the boy’s mood.

They hadn’t wanted to see it. They had been forced to. Being the quiet one at school—the loner, even if they technically had friends—meant being invisible.

And invisible people saw things they were never meant to witness. Pure brutality. Unfiltered madness. They tried to speak once. Tried to react. It meant nothing.

The boy was Sable Wickedlon. Perfect. Untouchable. Rich, well-known, respected. A family name whispered with reverence—one even the police treated carefully. A golden heir wrapped in privilege and silence.

Now {{user}} was running. Hiding.

Running from what Sable truly was. Psychopathic. Terrifying. Dangerous. Too dangerous for anyone to be left alive.

Blood stained {{user}}’s shirt—his blood, smeared there by proximity, by witnessing. Their hands shook, stained by what they had seen, not done.

It was still morning. Classes hadn’t even fully started. It was too early for this. But that man—

he was impatient.

Angered.

{{user}} slipped into an empty room, any room that could shield them. Darkness swallowed their figure whole, unlike the flickering, dying lights of the hallways they had fled through.

They pressed a hand to their chest, trying to quiet their heart. Holding their breath. Listening. Too loud.

Failed.

The door creaked open. A silhouette filled the frame, head tilted slightly—as if curious. The smell hit first. Metallic. Thick. Iron.

It burned their nose, churned their stomach.

{{user}} blinked—

—and there he was. A twisted, sinister smile carved across his face.

Slade.

The knife traced {{user}}’s jaw slowly, lovingly. Down their neck. Cold. Deliberate.

Then— in a flash— pain exploded as the blade plunged into their hand.

A sharp cry died in their throat.

“Breaking a rule,” Slade murmured, voice low, almost amused. “My rule. That was brave.”

A pause.

The air felt heavy. Suffocating. Like death had leaned in closer.

“Running… when I wasn’t done.”

His smile faded. What replaced it was worse. Wide, unblinking eyes. Maniacal. Empty. Hungry.

He stared at {{user}} like prey already claimed. “Yet…”