BLOOD AND ASHES

THE AUDIT OF SHADOWS

That evening, Tobias moved through the hospital corridors like a restless shadow, guided only by the vague description the doctor had reluctantly given him.

He stopped at the reception, pressed the nurses for names, asked orderlies if they had seen the tall man in the dark suit with a round face and salt and pepper beard.

Whispers passed, shrugs followed. Some claimed they had glimpsed him leaving through the south exit, others swore no such figure had entered at all. Tobias checked the waiting rooms, the chapel, even the vending corners where visitors often lingered. Yet each search ended in silence.

No trace of the Samaritan remained, as though the man had walked out of time itself. By midnight, exhausted and hollow, Tobias returned to Ethan’s bedside, burdened by a single truth: the one who had saved his son’s life had vanished without a footprint.

*******

The streets of Ciudad de Sanvelis throbbed with the noise of a city waking to another day.

The sun was just climbing above the rooftops, its pale light spreading across the skyline. Yellow buses belched smoke at every corner, horns blared in the morning rush, and motorcycles darted recklessly between cars. Vendors were already setting up stalls, shouting prices over the din of traffic.

Inside a modest but well-kept Toyota Corolla, the hum of the engine carried a father and son through the chaos.

Tobias Sheldon’s hands gripped the steering wheel, knuckles taut. His mind was a storm of grief and unanswered questions, but for now, his focus was on the small boy in the passenger seat.

Ethan sat quietly, a thin blanket over his lap, the faint hiss of oxygen still whispering into his frail lungs. His face was pale, lips cracked, but his eyes — wide, innocent, searching — turned to his father.

“Dad…” His voice was no louder than a sigh. “Why hasn’t Mama come back? She promised. You said we’d see her soon.”

The question once again cut Tobias deeper than any blade. His chest clenched, his throat burned. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. Elena’s face flashed in his memory — her trembling smile, her voice on the phone, the way she had vanished into shadows.

He wanted to tell the truth. To tell his son that Mama had fallen, that her body had been stolen, that darkness had swallowed her whole. But how could he? How could he steal what little hope the boy had left?

Tobias forced a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “She’s… still resting, Ethan. The doctors say she needs more time before we can see her again.” His voice cracked, but he pushed through. “She’ll come back to us. I promise.”

Ethan nodded slowly, too trusting, too innocent. He clutched the blanket tighter and whispered, “I miss her.”

Tobias nearly pulled the car over just to cry, but he bit back the tears. He had to be strong. For Ethan. Always for Ethan.

The Corolla rolled on, carrying silence heavy enough to suffocate.

Ten minutes later, the car pulled into the dusty compound of Tobias’s school. He parked neatly, exhaled, and glanced at the familiar signboard above the gates: Starlight Academy — Knowledge is Power.

It should have been a refuge. It should have been the one place that still felt like his.

But something was wrong.

The playground, once filled with the laughter of two hundred children arriving for morning classes, was eerily quiet.

Parents clustered near the gate, whispering in low, sharp tones. Their eyes darted toward Tobias with something colder than curiosity — suspicion.

And then came the convoy.

A sleek black SUV rolled up, followed by two more vehicles. Men in sharp suits stepped out, their polished shoes crunching against the gravel. At their head was a figure Tobias recognized — not by name, but by the smug arrogance written across his face. The development board.

One of them lifted a clipboard high, flashing it like a weapon. “By order of the educational oversight committee, we are here to conduct an immediate audit of Starlight Academy.”

Tobias stepped forward, his voice trembling with disbelief. “An audit? Now? After everything that’s happened to me in the past week? You can’t be serious.”

But they were.

Tobias Sheldon’s tragedy had become a citywide whisper. Everyone knew—the teachers, the parents, even the educational parastatal—that his wife had fallen from the hospital roof under mysterious circumstances.

Her disappearance was tangled with rumors, debts, and shadowy hands, making Tobias both pitied and condemned in Ciudad de Sanvelis.

Cameras followed. Journalists pressed recorders forward. The men in suits spread through the compound, peering into classrooms, scribbling into notepads with theatrical flair.

Parents shifted uneasily until one woman’s voice cut through the crowd: “I don’t want my child in this school anymore. Not under him.”

Her words were like a spark in dry grass. Others joined in, louder, sharper.

“Useless principal.”

“He can’t even protect his own family — how can he protect our children?”

“This school is doomed.”

Tobias froze as mothers dragged their children away in plain sight. Books slammed shut, chairs scraped, the sound of tiny feet retreating pierced him deeper than any insult.

He wanted to shout, to defend himself, but the weight of their words smothered his tongue.

The so-called audit stretched on like a trial already judged. Tobias stood in the courtyard, sweat dripping down his temple, as the suits pointed out “failures” that had plagued his school long before today:

Outdated textbooks.

A science lab without proper chemicals.

A broken generator that left classrooms in darkness when power failed.

Salaries that often came late, forcing teachers to buy whiteboard markers with their own money.

It wasn’t perfect, Tobias knew that. But it had been a place of learning, of second chances. A humble school that held two hundred children who might otherwise have had nowhere to go.

Now it was being stripped apart like a carcass under vultures’ wings.

This was Tobias only source of income and it looked like it was about to fall away.

What is going to be the way forward for Tobias Sheldon and his school?