It was raining that night.
The halls of Horizon High smelled like bleach and blood—like something that had already been cleaned up but still left a stain.
Rafael stood in the empty locker room now, long after hours. He stared at the rusted bench. The old mirror. The locker marked #9—his old number.
Eli's number.
And suddenly, like a dam breaking, he remembered it all.
Five Years Ago
It started with laughter.
They always laughed first.
"You think you're better than us, Eli?"
"Acting like scouts are gonna save you? You ain't going nowhere."
Tyson led the charge, his voice thick with venom masked as humor. Marco shoved Eli into the lockers. Jude stood nearby, nervous but smiling—trying to stay invisible.
Eli never fought back.
Not physically.
He just looked up at them, bloody lip split, breathing heavy, and said:
"One day, everyone will know who I am. And they'll know what you did to me."
Tyson's face twisted. "Wrong answer."
The kicks came fast. Brutal.
One to the ribs.
One to the face.
Eli screamed. Then stopped.
Marco panicked. "He's not moving—Tyson, he's not f***ing moving!"
Jude froze.
Tyson stepped back, sweating. "He's faking it. Right? Eli?"
But Eli never answered.
They ran. Cleaned up. Threatened each other into silence.
And they left him there.
Alone.
Present Day
Rafael ran a hand over the dent in the locker door—the one his head hit when Marco slammed him. Still there.
Still rusted with memory.
"I died right here," he whispered.
No one believed Eli back then.
Not the teachers. Not the police. Not the league.
They said it was a heart condition.
A freak accident.
But now—Rafael was back. In a new body. A new name.
And this time, they would believe him.
One way or another.
He opened his phone.
Typed a message to the anonymous journalist who'd published the first leak.
"I have names.
I have the whole story.
Ready to go public."
Then he closed the locker, gently.
"See you soon, boys."
The message came at 2:14 a.m.
Subject line:
"This is the story they tried to bury."
Renee Trask had been a sports reporter for a decade. She'd covered everything—from champions rising to careers burning in scandal. But this… this was different.
She scrolled through the evidence—videos, statements, timelines, medical records, even a voice recording of Jude, whispering to himself in a bathroom stall:
"We killed him. We killed Eli."
Her hands trembled.
She knew this wasn't just a scoop. This was a reckoning.
And she had a choice:
Publish it now and trigger chaos.
Or verify it further and risk someone silencing the source.
She picked up her phone.
"Rafa," she whispered. "Who the hell are you?"
Meanwhile – Jude's Apartment
Jude hadn't slept.
The voice recording Rafael sent him—his own voice, cracked and broken—kept playing in his head.
He knew what came next. The media. The police. Maybe even handcuffs.
He looked at the bottle of pills on the table. Just stared.
Then his phone buzzed.
Tyson.
"Meet me. Now. No cops. Just us."
Jude didn't reply.
Because someone else had already messaged him first.
Rafael.
"You still have time to make it right.
But you won't get many chances."
The Training Ground – Early Morning
Tyson was already pacing when Jude arrived. Bags under his eyes. Paranoia in every step.
"Marco's not answering. I think he's skipped town," he said. "I don't care what that Rafa freak thinks he knows. We shut this down. Today."
Jude didn't speak. He just looked… different. Paler. Hollow.
Tyson grabbed his collar. "Are you listening to me? We fix this."
Jude's voice was barely audible.
"There's no fixing it, Ty."
Then, a sound Tyson hadn't heard in years.
Sirens.
But not police.
Reporters.
A car pulled up by the gate. Cameras were already out. Microphones ready.
And from the backseat stepped Renee Trask.
With a folder.
With their names.
Tyson stared through the chain-link fence as Rafael walked onto the pitch, eyes locked with his.
And smiled.
The world was burning.
Not with fire—but with headlines.
"Star League Players Accused in Former Student's Mysterious Death."
"The Ghost of Horizon: Who Was Eli Santana?"
"Rafael Reyes—Rising Star or Avenging Specter?"
Tyson didn't turn on the TV anymore. He didn't check his socials. He couldn't look his family in the eye. All he did now was sit—alone in his apartment—watching the city lights flicker like lies outside his window.
And he planned.
"It's not justice," he told himself.
"It's revenge. That's all it is."
He drank slowly, the whiskey burning less now than it used to. Each gulp dulled the noise, the memories, the sound of Eli choking on blood.
He hadn't killed him, not alone. But he'd let it happen.
He could almost feel Rafael's breath on the back of his neck now. Like Eli had never really left. Like his spirit had just borrowed someone else's skin to walk the earth again.
He pulled out a pen and a piece of paper. Wrote one name in block letters:
RAFAEL.
Below it, he wrote one word:
Stop.
Later That Night
He sat in the parking lot outside Rafael's apartment for nearly two hours. Engine off. Hoodie up. A knife in the glove compartment he didn't remember packing.
He watched the lights above the third floor. A shadow moved past the window. Music played faintly.
Rafael was inside. Alone.
Tyson's hand trembled on the steering wheel.
"It's him or me."
But before he could open the door—
His phone buzzed.
A message. From Marco.
"I'm not in town. But I left something for you in the locker room. Back when we had guts."
Tyson stared at the message.
Then back at Rafael's window.
He didn't know what Marco meant, but suddenly the knife didn't seem like the right weapon anymore.
Maybe there was something else.
Something hidden.
Something worse.
He drove off, tires screeching into the empty night.
Meanwhile
Rafael stood in front of the mirror. Shirtless. Calm.
He looked into his own reflection and whispered softly:
"He's coming."
"Let him."
He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and stared at the small black box inside. A flash drive. Unsent files.
The final card.
Not yet.
He shut it again.
Then turned out the lights.