It started like any of our usual little adventures—casual, thoughtless, with a whisper of mischief. Henry Williams and I had skipped class again, something that had quietly become a routine between us. We called it "hunting the hidden," a term we coined with pride, as if we were explorers mapping the unknown rather than just two boys dodging a literature lecture. Ethan Harris, true to form, came along too—silent, observant, always three steps ahead in thought, but never letting on how much he really noticed.
We weren't looking for anything specific that day. There was no target, no forbidden zone, no carefully planned route. We just wandered through the hallways of the general building, letting the flow of curiosity guide our feet. The corridors were mostly empty, the light outside casting long golden shadows across the floors. It was one of those calm afternoons when it felt like the whole campus had exhaled, like everything was still and waiting.
The storage room wasn't locked. It rarely was. To most, it was just another forgotten room among many—stacked with old chairs, abandoned sports equipment, dusty boxes no one bothered to open. But to us, these places were treasure chests. Places with stories no one cared to tell, secrets tossed aside. That day, the moment I stepped inside, I felt the air shift—slightly colder, slightly heavier, as if something had been waiting for us.
Henry, as usual, went straight for the mess. He started rifling through boxes like a kid looking for buried candy. "Most of this stuff is junk," he muttered, half-laughing, pulling out old tournament flyers, tangled cords, a deflated basketball. Then something in a manila folder caught his eye.
"Hey," he said, holding it up. "Check this out. Look familiar?"
He passed it to me. I took it lazily at first, expecting another old certificate or school report. But as I opened the folder, the weight in my chest grew heavier. Inside was a photocopy of an ID card. My eyes locked onto the name, my fingers tightening against the thin paper.
James Bennett.
The room spun slightly, not from motion, but from memory.
It was him.
That name—once spoken with admiration, now seared with betrayal. I stared at the grainy photocopy. The picture. The ID number. It all felt like a message from the past, delivered right into my hands. I hadn't seen or heard his name in so long that part of me thought I had buried it deep enough to forget. But it was never gone. Just dormant. And now… it woke up.
Henry must have noticed the shift in my expression. "You okay?" he asked.
I couldn't speak. I could barely breathe.
James Bennett had once meant everything—my mentor, my inspiration, the person who looked at my potential and said, I believe in you. But all along, he had been laying traps, pulling strings, playing a game I never even knew I was in. His betrayal had cost me my confidence, my ambition, my sense of purpose. And here, in this dusty, forgotten room, was proof that his presence was closer than I had ever imagined.
"What's this even doing here?" Henry mused, flipping through other papers in the box. "Looks like old staff records or something."
I nodded slowly, eyes still locked on the copy. But my mind had already gone somewhere else.
This wasn't just a file.
It was a thread.
A crack in the wall of the past.
A chance to finally pull everything into the light.
I slipped the photocopy into my backpack quietly. "Let's keep moving," I said, trying to keep my voice neutral. Henry shrugged and turned toward another box. Ethan, who had said nothing all this time, glanced at me. His expression was unreadable, but I had the strange feeling he knew more than he let on. Maybe he saw the tension in my jaw. Maybe he noticed how tightly I was gripping the zipper of my bag.
We left the room a few minutes later, walking back into the empty hallway, our footsteps echoing through the quiet. Henry kept talking, but I wasn't listening anymore.
I was thinking about James Bennett. About how far I had come to forget him. About how easily one piece of paper could undo it all.
But I didn't feel broken.
I felt focused.
There was power in knowing.
There was clarity in the cold realization that he was still within reach.
He may have destroyed who I once was, but now, I had the chance to become someone new—someone who wouldn't let history repeat itself. Someone who would fight back.
And this time, I would be the one pulling the strings.