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The Man in Black

Ch. 1 · The Quiet Mark

First page, first scene. Morning in the two-room flat above the laundry: Mira makes breakfast at the kitchenette while Kai gets ready for school. Warm, ordinary, nothing wrong yet.
  1. Caption: Bell Street - 7:20 AM
  2. Narration: He lives above the laundry with his sister Mira. She is twenty-one and works too much.
  3. Narration: Kai Ashford, sixteen, second-year at Grayhaven High.
Breakfast. Mira talks while she pours; Kai answers with his mouth full and hides the first itch under the mark.
  1. Mira Ashford: You're eating standing up again.
  2. Kai Ashford: I'm sitting down.
  3. Narration: It started this morning: a small hot itch under the mark on his forehead. He doesn't mention it.
Mira leaves for her double shift. Kai stays behind with his bag on his shoulder.
  1. Mira Ashford: Double shift. Don't wait up.
  2. Kai Ashford: I always wait up.
  3. Mira Ashford: Eat something that isn't toast.
Kai alone in the flat for a moment before school, then gone: the room stands empty with the door shut.
  1. Narration: The mark is a birthmark. It has been on his forehead his whole life, and nobody in this flat talks about it.
Kai walks to school along Bell Street past the laundry and the canal railing. The city is ordinary and grey.
  1. Narration: Grayhaven High is nine minutes away, if he cuts along the canal.
The last stretch before school. The itch comes back while Kai is walking and he almost touches it in the street.
  1. Narration: The itch comes back at the canal, sharper this time.
Grayhaven High between classes. Theo walks backwards down the corridor to talk at Kai, who is trying to reach his locker.
  1. Caption: Grayhaven High - 8:40 AM
  2. Theo Vance: Slow down. I'm mid-theory.
  3. Narration: Theo Vance has had a theory every day since first year. Kai has heard all of them.
Theo's theory of the day: the dead fountain in the courtyard. Kai gives him nothing.
  1. Theo Vance: The fountain in the courtyard. Dry for eleven years. Why?
  2. Kai Ashford: Because nobody fixed it.
  3. Theo Vance: That's what they want you to think.
Theo moves on to the Wardens. Kai listens with half his attention and rubs the itch once, quickly.
  1. Narration: The bell is four minutes away. Theo has four minutes of material.
  2. Theo Vance: And the Wardens. The ones who file people.
  3. Narration: The itch is worse in the corridor.
Theo books lunch, the bell goes, and the two of them split at the far end of the corridor.
  1. Theo Vance: Lunch. Courtyard. I'm bringing the folder.
  2. Kai Ashford: You don't have a folder.
Lunch break in the school courtyard. Theo talks at the dead fountain; Kai sits on the rim half listening with the itch still under the mark.
  1. Caption: Grayhaven High - lunch
  2. Narration: The fountain has been dry since before either of them was born. Theo has theories.
Theo finishes his theory. Kai is somewhere else, one hand quiet at his side.
  1. Theo Vance: Eleven years dry, and the school still paints it on the crest. That's not maintenance. That's a lid.
  2. Kai Ashford: Or it's a fountain.
  3. Theo Vance: You're not listening.
After school, Kai walks home along the canal in the rain. The street is empty.
  1. Narration: Mira's shift runs until ten. Kai takes the canal way home and counts the lamps.
The reader sees the figure at the end of the street. Kai does not look up.
  1. Narration: He's thinking about whether Mira ate today.
A lit shop window holds the whole street in its glass. Kai sees something in it, turns, and the pavement behind him is empty.
Kai stops under the glass bus shelter to check his phone. The glass behind him holds the street, and something standing in it.
  1. Narration: The rain fills the glass with the whole street. Kai watches the screen instead.
Kai walks the last stretch fast. The whole street behind him is empty.
  1. Narration: Nine lamps to the laundry door. He counts them faster than usual.
Kai lets himself into the laundry below the flat and checks the street behind him before he pulls the door shut.
  1. Narration: Nobody follows him in. He checks twice.
Kai home alone in the flat at night, heating dinner while Mira works her double shift.
  1. Caption: Bell Street - 9:40 PM
  2. Narration: Mira's double shift ends at ten. The flat is smaller when she isn't in it.
Kai eats alone on the floor and reads Mira's usual text off the phone beside his bowl.
  1. Narration: She sends the same text every double shift.
  2. Kai Ashford: I know.
Washing up at the sink, Kai goes still: the itch under the mark stops all at once.
  1. Narration: The itch stops. That's worse.
Kai looks up from the sink and finds the hooded man standing across Bell Street under the sign.
  1. Narration: The laundry sign has been on that corner for six years. Kai has never once seen anyone stand under it.
The man across the street does not move. Kai's hand comes up to the mark on its own.
  1. Narration: Sixteen years and the mark has never done a thing. It's doing something now.
The hook. The hooded man tilts his head, the mark on Kai's forehead burns hot under his fingers, and the stranger's mouth shapes one word.
  1. Vale: Kai.
  2. Narration: It doesn't itch anymore. It burns.

End of Chapter 1

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Chapter 2 · written, not drawn yet

The Man in Black

A late walk home takes Kai under the Bell Street underpass, where a tall man in a black coat has been waiting all evening.

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