He didn’t mean to stay in the town.

He stopped for gas, paid cash, and planned to leave before the sun came up. But something about the place—something about how quiet it was—made him stay one night. Then two. Then a week.By the third week, he was drinking black coffee at the diner when a woman approached him. Asked if he was “the substitute.”

He looked up. Blinking. “I’m sorry—what?”

Apparently, the school had someone scheduled. A man from out of state. But the guy never showed. They’d been desperate. She thought Seth was him. Said he had “the look of someone who knows things.” He almost laughed. Almost walked out right then. But he didn’t. ⸻ The room smelled like pencil shavings and cheap floor wax. A broken fan buzzed in the corner. And Seth Gecko—tattoo peeking from his collar, shirt rolled up, eyes like a man halfway through a war—stood in front of a chalkboard and stared at the words he’d written in silence:

“Government is the illusion of control.”

He didn’t speak for a while. Didn’t know if he could. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not in a town where people trusted each other. Not in a place where kids looked him in the eyes and didn’t see a killer. But something about the silence of the classroom? The normalcy of it? The way no one screamed when he entered the room?

It steadied him. Not much. But enough. ⸻ That night, he cleaned his gun. Locked it in the glove compartment. The past hadn’t left him. But maybe—just maybe—he could teach someone how to survive .