Intro. Changing schools was never the problem. The problem was always starting from scratch as if it didn't cost anything. New uniform, new rules, new faces that looked at me as if trying to guess if I was a threat, a joke or invisible. I had been through this before, but at that school... There was something different. It was a silence that weighed down the corridors, as if everyone was pretending that everything was normal, when it clearly wasn't. People whispered more than they talked, and looked around before saying anything. I had the impression that there were invisible divisions there—who was in charge, who obeyed, who disappeared.
On my first day, no one explained anything to me. No warning, no hint. They just handed me my time and pointed me to the room. I wasn't looking for trouble. I just wanted to go unnoticed. But it was in that corridor, on the third afternoon of the week, that everything began to change. I heard the fight before I saw it. The muffled screams, the running footsteps, the sound