There are some sentences you just never expect to think.
For instance: “Well. Okay. I am literally dying in a disgusting alleyway.”
And the second sentence, the one that hits a brain in total shock right after, is: “Does this mean I’m going to miss curfew?”
I know.
Priorities.
But when your name is Owen Frey, you’re seventeen, and your charisma level hovers somewhere near absolute zero, your brain clings to concrete things just to keep from imploding.
The alley smells of damp metal, stale urine, and very distinctly, vomit.
Pain radiates through my entire body.
I can’t even feel my fingers anymore.
I’m done for.
For real.
How did I end up here?
Oh, right.
It all started this morning.
Our city is a towering metropolis designed to break your neck.
Around here, survival rule number one isn’t to look left and right before crossing the street.
It’s to look up.
Constantly.
While I was dragging my feet toward school, earbuds jammed in, the sirens were already wailing in the distance.
That’s the absurd contrast of our screwed-up world.
Way up there, high above the traffic jams, the smog, and the misery, “Supers” in neon spandex fly at Mach 2 to punch megalomaniacal psychopaths.
They’re beautiful, they shine, they have corporate sponsors slapped across their chests.
And down here?
Down here, us normal people just pray we don’t get a two-ton sedan—thrown from the sky—right to the face while going out to buy breakfast.
I’m not the tragic hero of an indie movie.
I don’t have a hidden destiny or a quest for vengeance.
I’m just a speck of dust.
My philosophy is simple: never get noticed.
My ultimate goal in life?
Dodge the debris, get my damn diploma, and survive.
That’s it.
I should’ve known the universe hates simple plans.
The first derailment happened during science class.
The room reeked of formaldehyde and teenage anxiety.
Since dawn, social media had been on fire.
Rumors were swirling about a titanic clash, something out of this world.
Apparently, a legendary superhero had bitten the dust.
The atmosphere was electric.
Except for Mr. Harris.
Blasé, strict, with a face carved out of stone, he would have kept teaching his lesson even if the ceiling had collapsed.
“Can anyone explain the structural flaw in the application of kinetic force when an object undergoes non-linear acceleration?” he asked in a monotone voice that made you want to defenestrate yourself.
Total silence in the classroom.
Naturally, his predatory gaze swept the room and locked onto me.
I was staring straight at the board, but I looked like I was sleeping with my eyes open.
The perfect prey.
“Owen. Since your mind appears to be floating in another dimension, do enlighten us.”
He wanted to trap me.
It was his favorite hobby.
Unluckily for him, I might not have muscles, but my brain runs on overdrive to compensate.
“The flaw lies in energy dissipation,” I replied without blinking.
“Non-linear acceleration creates uneven friction. The force doesn’t transfer; it tears the point of impact apart. Basically, it’s like trying to drive a nail with a sponge, sir.”
A few muffled snickers erupted.
Harris thinned his lips, annoyed by the sarcasm, but unable to argue.
I had won the battle, but I had just lost the war of invisibility.
“Keep acting smart. I’m gonna break your jaw after class,” a cavernous voice muttered right behind me.
Sam Kodd.
Six-foot-three of steroids and resentment, with an IQ matching his shoe size.
I felt a cold shiver snake up my spine.
That’s when Aamir stepped in.
Aamir is my exact polar opposite.
Killer smile, indecent amount of charisma, the kind of guy even the teachers call by his first name with affection.
He leaned back and said with disarming ease:
“Chill, Sam. If you crack his skull, who’s going to do your chemistry homework next week? Certainly not you—you still confuse the periodic table with the cafeteria menu.”
A aves students chuckled.
Sam turned bright red and sank into his chair, growling.
Aamir flashed me a wink, convinced he had saved the day.
I leaned toward him and whispered with a fake smile, “Great intervention, man. Now he doesn’t just want to beat me up, he wants to murder me and bury me in the desert to reclaim his honor.”
That was our dynamic.
Aamir drew the spotlight; I preferred the shadows.
The trigger pulled at 4:00 PM.
The bell rang.
Within three seconds, Aamir was swallowed up by a group of seniors.
I found myself alone.
Vulnerable.
I attempted an extraction through the side exit, but that was underestimating the persistence of a pissed-off idiot.
Sam Kodd and two of his lackeys were blocking the main hallway.
“So, Frey. Let’s see if your sponge can take a nail.”
The dialogue was tense.
I used the only shield available to me: sarcasm.
“Extended metaphors, Sam? Wow. Your English teacher would be moved to tears.”
His face twisted with rage.
He took a step forward.
But instead of running blindly in a straight line like in the movies, I used my head.
I grabbed the janitor’s heavy maintenance cart sitting nearby, loaded with buckets of filthy water and mops, and slammed it with all my might into their shins.
The metallic crash and the flood of soapy water bought me exactly a three-second head start.
I sprinted.
The chase took me from the clean, monitored sidewalks of the school district to the busted alleyways of the industrial suburbs.
My asthmatic lungs were burning.
I was coughing up blood, but I knew this area by heart.
I cleared a torn chain-link fence, cut through a backyard, and finally ducked into a grim, greasy alleyway wedged between two abandoned warehouses.
I slid down behind a rusted dumpster.
Sanctuary.
I closed my eyes, trying to calm the frantic pounding of my heart.
Silence fell again.
No one had followed me.
I let out a nervous little laugh, proud of my move.
The cockroach had survived yet again.
But suddenly, the laugh died in my throat.
The atmosphere shifted.
It was way too cold in here.
The temperature had plummeted brutally.
And above all, there was that smell.
A metallic, pungent, deeply sickening smell.
The smell of copper and warm meat.
Panic seized me again.
I crept forward slowly, stepping out from behind my makeshift shelter.
The high school comedy evaporated instantly.
Splatters across the asphalt layout of the alley was a massive pool of blood.
And in the middle of it… a thing.
A shredded mass of flesh.
My stomach churned.
The bone of a limb was torn open, pointing toward the gray sky at a nightmarish angle.
The gore was unreal.
But what turned my blood to ice wasn’t the corpse itself.
It was the fabric.
Still clinging to the twitching mass was a piece of a uniform.
A bright, immaculate white fabric, laced with golden accents that I would recognize out of a thousand—that the entire world would recognize out of a thousand.
The suit of the missing hero, Hope.