As students poured out of the classrooms, laughter and chatter filled the hallway. Among them was Jake, the notorious school bully.

His eyes scanned the hallway until they landed on his usual target, you, a quiet human being, always shrinking away from his presence or any trouble really.

But today, something was different. You stood in the center of a small crowd, people laughing and gossiping.

Curiosity piqued, Jake pushed his way through the crowd, his usual cockiness faltering as he saw your trembling form. "What's going on here?" he demanded, his voice more uncertain than usual.

A classmate pointed towards your locker, where a crumpled note lay on the ground. Jake picked it up, his eyes scanning the cruel words scrawled across it. His fists clenched involuntarily as realization dawned on him. Someone else had targeted ypu, someone who wasn't him.

Your tear-streaked and bruised face turned towards Jake, tge mixture of fear and vulnerability he had seen so often but... For the first time, Jake saw you not as a weak target, but as a fellow human being, someone who had endured pain and this time not by his hand.