His Dark Reign

1. Outcast

The classroom buzzed with the usual mid-morning chaos. Students laughed too loudly, traded notes under desks, and pelted each other with wadded-up bits of paper while the teacher fumbled with her laptop.

Adam sat in the farthest corner, hunched over his notebook. His handwriting was neat, precise, almost mechanical. He liked order, even if no one else in this school seemed to. The black ink smeared faintly across his fingers, but he didn’t care. Numbers and formulas were safer company than people.

If I just stay quiet, if I just focus, maybe they’ll leave me alone today.

A paper ball struck the side of his head. Snickering followed.

“Snitch.”

“Look, it’s rat-boy.”

“Better not tell the teacher what you ate for breakfast, Adam.”

He gritted his teeth. He’d made the mistake of reporting Sanchez and his gang months ago—when they trashed the science lab during lunch break. Broken glass, chemicals spilled, stolen equipment. Adam thought telling the truth would make him look responsible. Instead, the teachers dismissed it as childish tattling. Sanchez, the golden boy, was “too good” to do something like that.

Since then, Adam had become public enemy number one.

The door slammed open. Conversations instantly shifted. Sanchez walked in late, as usual. Sunlight seemed to follow him in through the window. His shirt was untucked in a way that looked stylish instead of sloppy, his hair effortlessly perfect, his grin practiced but natural.

“Ah, Mr. Sanchez,” the teacher said with forced sternness. “Nice of you to join us.”

“Sorry, miss. Basketball practice ran over,” Sanchez said, flashing that smile that could melt concrete.

She waved him in without a word of punishment.

Sanchez dropped into his seat with an easy grace. His eyes flicked to Adam, and a slow smirk curled his lips. He leaned back, folding his arms.

He wore that perfect smile again, effortlessly magnetic. Teachers loved him. Students adored him. Even the principal seemed to give him special treatment.

“Hey, Sanchez!” one of the girls giggled. “Tell us the story again about how Adam ratted you out to Mr. Cole.”

Adam’s stomach sank. He knew what was coming.

Sanchez put a hand over his heart, faking a wounded expression. “Ah yes, our brave little whistleblower. You see, guys, I was falsely accused of heinous crimes—the theft of lab equipment. Tragic, really. And who was my accuser?”

His eyes flicked across the room, locking onto Adam like a spotlight.

“None other than Adam ‘The Rat’ Rivers!”

The class erupted in laughter. A chant started in the back:

“Rat! Rat! Rat!”

Adam clenched his fists under the desk, nails digging into his palms. He tried to focus on the numbers printed in his book, tried to drown out the noise, but the laughter was everywhere—inside his head, crawling under his skin.

Sanchez sauntered past his desk, leaning down just enough to whisper:

“You’ll never win. You’ll never belong. You’re nothing.”

Adam’s jaw tightened. He forced his eyes on the page, but for a split second, he saw letters shift, the words rearranging themselves into something else:

KILL HIM.

His breath caught. He blinked, and the book was normal again.

By lunchtime, the humiliation wasn’t over. Sanchez and his crew waited for him in the cafeteria line. One of them “accidentally” bumped Adam’s tray, sending his food splattering across the floor. Mashed potatoes and gravy slid across his shoes.

“Oops,” Sanchez said smoothly, clapping Adam on the back. “Careful, rat-boy. Don’t slip.”

The cafeteria roared with laughter. Adam froze, fists shaking, humiliation boiling into a heat that felt dangerous.

Then it happened again—shadows flickered at the edges of his vision. The overhead lights buzzed and dimmed for a heartbeat. Nobody else seemed to notice.

Adam stared at the mess on the floor, chest heaving.

Not yet, a voice whispered faintly in his mind. But soon.

He dropped the tray, turned, and left the cafeteria without a word. Behind him, the laughter followed like a curse.

*******************

Walking home, the sun dipped lower, painting the sky orange. Kids in groups passed him on bikes, yelling jokes to each other. He kept his head down, clutching his backpack straps tighter. Nobody called his name. Nobody waved. That was normal.

At home, the house was as silent as it had been that morning.

His mother’s shoes weren’t by the door, and his father’s jacket wasn’t on the hook. Both worked late shifts, sometimes overnight. They always said it was “for him,” but Adam wondered if it was just an excuse to avoid being here.

He microwaved leftover noodles, the hum of the machine filling the kitchen. When the timer beeped, he ate standing by the counter, staring blankly out the window into the dim backyard.

The neighbor’s kids were outside, laughing as they kicked a soccer ball. Adam’s chest tightened. He turned away, throwing the rest of the food into the sink.

Upstairs, his room felt safer. Controlled. His bed was neatly made, the shelves lined with books organized by subject: physics, astronomy, programming.

Piles of dismantled computer parts cluttered one corner — his attempt at building something that worked better than people.

He sat at his desk, booting up his laptop. Online forums were the only places he could talk without being laughed at. Here, people respected him — or at least his intelligence.

> User: DarkMatter89

People are cruel because they fear what they don’t understand.

Adam stared at the post he’d just written. His hands hovered over the keyboard, but no one replied. They never did.

He shut the laptop. The silence grew heavier.

---

Later, in the bathroom, Adam studied his reflection. His pale face stared back, framed by messy hair and crooked glasses. He leaned closer.

“Pathetic,” he muttered under his breath. “You let them walk all over you. You let him humiliate you.”

His reflection almost seemed to sneer back. For a split second, the lips curled — a cruel smile that wasn’t his own. His stomach dropped. He stumbled back, blinking rapidly.

But it was gone. Just him again.

He gripped the edges of the sink until his knuckles whitened.

I’m imagining things, he thought. Stress. That’s all.

But as he turned off the light and left the bathroom, he swore he heard a faint whisper behind him.

Weak… but not for long.

He froze in the dark hallway. His heart thudded. The air felt colder than it had a second ago.

“Who’s there?” he whispered, but the house was silent.

When he finally crawled into bed, he buried himself under the blanket, eyes squeezed shut. Sleep came in restless fragments.

In one of those fragments, he dreamed of standing in the forest, alone, with hundreds of eyes glowing faintly in the shadows around him. None of them blinked. None of them moved.

And when he woke in a cold sweat, he was certain — something had been watching him.