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Chapter 1: FIRST RODEO
Diego Torrez had a habit of falling asleep in places that didn't forgive it.
Classrooms, hard-backed chairs, moments that demanded attention from people who had none left to give. He slept the way others surrendered—quietly, without ceremony, as though consciousness itself was something optional rather than required.
On this particular morning, the world decided to wake him up with violence disguised as his name.
"Diego Torrez."
No response.
A desk slammed hard enough to drag him back from whatever half-formed place he had been drifting through. His eyes opened slowly, reluctantly, like reality itself had to negotiate its return.
Diego was seventeen years old and stood around 6'2.He had blood red hair and eyes and wore a red jacket which he cherished more than his life
The teacher stood over him.
Unimpressed. Tired. Certain in a way that left no room for interpretation.
"You think this is acceptable?"
Diego blinked once, then twice, as if testing whether the moment was stable enough to remain.
"Depends on what you consider acceptable," he said.
A flicker of laughter moved through the room, brief and nervous, like something afraid of being noticed.
The teacher did not laugh.
"Detention."
The word landed cleanly, as it always did in places like this. A routine punishment, delivered with the same ease as attendance or homework. As if consequences were simply another subject in the curriculum.
But before the silence could settle into place, another voice entered the room.
Calmer. Softer. Almost misplaced among chalk dust, boredom, and judgment.
"It's fine, sir."
Misa Levine stood without urgency, as though she had already seen this moment from its beginning and decided its outcome would bend to her anyway.
"He helps me after school," she continued gently. "He just fell asleep studying."
The room shifted subtly.
Not because her words were forceful, but because they were structured in a way that made resistance feel unnecessary. Like she wasn't arguing reality, only reorganizing it.
The teacher hesitated.
Then exhaled.
"…Fine. But this is the last time."
Misa gave a small, precise nod. "Of course."
Diego looked at her properly now.
She never looked like she belonged in noise. Long yellow hair, neat and controlled, falling in a way that seemed too intentional to be natural. Even stillness seemed to obey her more than gravity should allow.
She didn't meet his eyes.
But she spoke anyway, just for him.
"You owe me," she said quietly.
Diego leaned back in his chair, a faint smile forming.
"I always do."
And somehow, neither of them questioned that pattern. As if debt between them was less an exchange and more a law of nature.
---
Outside, the world wore late afternoon like a tired mask stretched too thin.
Misa walked beside him with her hands clasped behind her back, humming something that refused to repeat itself the same way twice. The sound drifted and folded into itself, as if it didn't fully belong to one melody.
"You're going to get used to leaning on me," she said.
Diego exhaled through his nose, half amused.
"I already have."
"That's the problem," she replied, without looking at him.
Ahead of them, across the street, stood a group of men.
They were not doing anything remarkable.
That was exactly what made them feel wrong.
Stillness gathered around them like an agreement no one else had signed. The air around them seemed slightly delayed, as though it had to think before moving.
Diego's gaze lingered for half a second too long.
"Don't look," he said.
"I wasn't," Misa answered too quickly.
They continued walking.
But the feeling did not leave.
It simply adjusted its distance.
Patient. Quiet. Certain.
Like something learning their rhythm.
---
Night changed Diego without asking permission.
The apron came on. The tired smile returned. The bar swallowed sound and broke it into fragments of noise that didn't require meaning.
Glasses were filled. Money changed hands. Faces blurred into repetition, each one briefly human before dissolving into background.
Until the door opened.
And the air shifted.
Diego didn't need to look up to know who had entered.
The same stillness.
The same wrongness.
They sat without ordering. Without speaking. Without acknowledging anything that would make them part of the room.
They simply watched.
Minutes passed like they were being measured from somewhere else.
Then one of them spoke.
"You smile too much."
Diego kept wiping the glass in his hand. His motion didn't slow.
"It's part of the job," he said.
"Stop smiling."
The words weren't angry.
They were instructive.
As if the speaker believed reality could be corrected through tone alone.
Diego finally looked up.
His expression didn't change.
"No."
The response landed softly.
Almost politely.
But the silence that followed sharpened immediately.
The bottle came fast.
The world broke louder than it should have.
Pain split across his face in a sudden white flash. Glass, sound, motion—everything collapsed into a single violent moment of interruption.
Then the bar erupted.
Fists replaced conversation. Chairs overturned. Someone shouted something that lost its meaning before it fully formed.
Diego moved through it without direction.
Not fighting for victory.
Not fighting for survival.
Just refusing to fall quietly.
And beneath the collapsing noise, something old stirred again—something that had always been there, but had never been allowed to fully surface.
A sensation like being observed from beyond the edges of sight.
Like his life was not singular, but layered.
Like something else was watching the same moment from a different angle.
Then everything ended.
---
Cold returned first.
Then silence.
Then iron.
Diego opened his eyes to bars and dim light.
A prison cell.
He sat up slowly, as though gravity had been reassigned overnight and no one had informed him.
"…Of course," he muttered.
Footsteps approached.
A guard appeared, keys hanging like punctuation.
"You're awake."
"Sadly."
"You've been bailed."
Diego blinked once. "By who?"
The guard hesitated.
That hesitation was the answer before the words arrived.
"Someone who didn't want to be seen."
And then he left it there, as if continuing would require stepping into something he wasn't paid to understand.
---
Misa was outside when he stepped out.
Waiting as if time had not passed at all.
Her arms were crossed. Her expression was composed, but just barely holding something sharper underneath.
"You're becoming predictable," she said.
"I got hit in the face with a bottle," Diego replied.
"You still ended up in a cell."
"I didn't plan it."
"You never do."
Silence settled between them, heavier than either of them intended.
Then Diego's voice dropped slightly.
"I'm trying, Misa."
Something subtle shifted in her expression.
Not softening.
Just recalculating.
He continued.
"I work every night. I keep everything together. I don't have the luxury of doing anything else."
A pause stretched between them.
Then, quieter than everything else she had said:
"…I just don't want you to disappear," she said.
The words didn't fully belong to the moment. They felt like they had been carried in for a long time, waiting for the right silence to drop into.
Diego didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he exhaled.
"Let's go home."
---
The next day repeated itself with unsettling familiarity.
Classrooms. Desks. Sleep that arrived too easily, like it had been waiting outside the door.
"Detention," a new teacher announced.
Misa stood again.
"He didn't—"
"Both of you."
No debate. No delay. No room for negotiation.
Punishment assigned like weather. Like something that simply happened.
They were separated.
Different rooms. Different silence.
And yet, the same absence of control.
---
When Diego woke again, it was night pretending to be dayless.
8:03 PM.
The hallway stretched too far in both directions, as though the building had forgotten where it ended.
The lights flickered overhead.
One by one, they surrendered.
Diego stepped forward.
His footsteps echoed once.
Then stopped echoing.
Something wet clung to his shoe.
He looked down slowly.
Darkness.
Thick. Warm. Unnatural in its stillness.
"…Blood," he said quietly.
The hallway did not react.
It simply continued existing.
The trail began as if it had always been there, waiting for someone willing to acknowledge it.
Diego followed.
Not because he chose to.
But because something beneath choice had already decided for him.
---
It ended at a classroom.
The door stood slightly open.
Inside, something moved that did not belong to human logic.
Not hungry.
Not alive in any familiar sense.
More like an absence learning how to occupy space.
It turned.
And saw him.
For a moment, recognition passed between them—brief, uncertain, like two systems realizing they shared the same error.
Then it moved.
Diego ran.
The footsteps behind him did not belong to one thing.
They belonged to something coordinated. Shared. Distributed.
Like a thought spreading through multiple bodies.
Then—
He stopped.
"Misa."
A door opened behind him.
She stepped out.
Confused. Alive.
"Diego?"
Relief hit him instantly.
And broke immediately after.
The thing behind her moved.
Not fast.
Certain.
Misa barely had time to turn.
Her body fell forward.
Still breathing.
Barely.
Diego was beside her instantly, knees hitting the floor.
"No—stay with me. We'll get help. You're going to be fine."
Misa looked at him.
And smiled.
As if the outcome had never been in question.
"I feel stupid…" she whispered.
Diego's hands trembled as they tried to hold her together.
"For not saying it sooner…"
"I love you."
The hallway seemed to pause.
Even silence stopped moving.
"…Please…" she breathed. "…Just once…"
Diego opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
"I lo—"
Her hand slipped away.
And the moment ended.
Not violently.
Completely.
Like a switch being turned off in a system that had already finished its task.
Something inside Diego did not break.
It opened.
Heat rose through him, slow and impossible to contain.
Not new.
Not foreign.
Something that had always been there, folded behind his ribs like a second heartbeat finally remembering its purpose.
His shadow stretched.
The air around him tightened.
And something inside him answered back—something that did not belong to the shape of a human body anymore.
A dark mist surrounded him, confusing the creature.When it finally dissipated,Diego stood...but he didn't seem like Diego.He'd grown a pair of fangs and wings.Not made of feathers but of a dark substance that seemed solid,but fluid in nature at the same time.
The creature charged.
Diego attacked it.
And the world learned, without warning, what happens when something stops pretending.
---
As the night grew,all that was left of the creature was a puddle of blood and flesh.Diego keep on beating it though.What more could he do...
Slowly,his dark transformation dissipated as suddenly as it had manifested.
Weakly,he crawled towards Misa.Even in Death,she had a light smile on her face.it made Diego smile for a moment,until everything came crashing down.
He cried.He didn't know how long he knelt there for but he didn't care
And somewhere behind him,he could hear subtle footsteps
Slow.
Measured.
As if the ending of this moment had already been accounted for.
Diego turned slightly.His eyes darkened in rage as he turned and saw...
---
End of Chapter 1