CHAPTER 3 — THE DAY NO ONE SUSPECTED ANYTHING
EPIGRAPH
"An ordinary day can be an open door,
but no one knows where it leads."
— Anonymous fragment, School District X.
A START LIKE ANY OTHER
The boy woke up to the same sound as always:
his mother calling him from the kitchen.
"Wake up! You're going to be late again!"
He opened his eyes slowly, still buried under the covers.
He was fourteen and had the natural talent of over-stretching mornings.
His room was small, with clothes strewn across the floor, an old band poster he no longer listened to, and a skateboard propped against the wall.
He sat up, rubbed his eyes, yawned, pulled on the wrinkled T-shirt he had at hand, and grabbed his backpack.
He rummaged inside to make sure he had his notebooks.
He didn't.
He looked under the bed and found one.
The other was on top of the desk.
That was enough. In his mind, surviving school was easier when he didn't carry too much.
His mother was finishing breakfast.
"Eat something," she said as he grabbed a half-toasted slice of bread. "I don't like you leaving without eating."
"I'm not hungry," he lied, but still took a quick bite.
His father, sitting in front of the turned-off TV, barely looked up.
"Go straight to school," he said without much interest. "And watch out for cars."
"Yeah, yeah…"
The boy grabbed his skateboard and left the house.
It was a normal day.
Classic.
Nothing special.
The sunlight hit just right.
The street smelled damp from the automatic lawn sprinklers.
Cars passed quickly, dogs barked from behind fences, and bicycles left shaky lines of shadow as they rolled by.
ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL
He stepped onto his skateboard and picked up speed.
The pavement had cracks he knew as well as the lines on his own hand.
He jumped a small rise in the road, turned the corner, braked to let a car pass, and kept going.
He liked this stretch because it took him past the small corner store—a place always full of boxes, colors, and sweet-smelling fruit.
He stopped, as he did most mornings.
The illuminated sign flickered.
The door chimed metallically when it opened.
Inside, a slim young man was organizing boxes of mangoes.
Black hair.
Brown skin.
A shirt that read STAFF.
And a noticeable shyness in his shoulders.
That was Nico.
He barely spoke English.
They said he had only been in the country a few months.
Most of the time, he worked in silence—moving boxes, arranging products.
He didn't greet people much, but he always stopped what he was doing when a customer entered.
The boy pushed the door open.
The chime rang.
"Morning," he said with a nod.
Nico replied with a short, nervous smile.
"G… good mornin'," he attempted.
The boy went straight to the refrigerator and grabbed a Mexican soda, one of those brightly colored ones packed with sugar.
It was his guilty pleasure before class, though his mother didn't know it.
He walked to the register.
Nico set the fruit box aside and approached.
"One… dollar," he said, his accent thick.
The boy placed the bill on the counter.
Nico tried to say thank you, but it came out as tangyu.
The boy smiled politely and slid the drink into his backpack.
"See ya."
"S… see ya," Nico replied, struggling with the words.
The boy left with his skateboard under his arm, stepped onto it, and continued on his way.
Nico watched him go for a moment before returning to the fruit.
Something minimal—almost invisible—had passed between them.
But destiny had strange ways of tying paths together without warning.
THE SCHOOL
The school was only a few blocks away.
When he arrived, the boy blended in with the other students.
They carried backpacks.
Some ate foil-wrapped burritos.
Others talked about video games or homework they hadn't done.
A group waved at him from across the yard.
"Hey, you're late again!"
"Shut up," he replied, laughing.
They went inside.
The bell hadn't rung yet.
Everything felt like any other Monday:
rushed teachers, the smell of disinfectant, lockers opening and closing like metallic heartbeats.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
No one imagined that, in a few hours, the entire world would change forever.
But that didn't matter now.
Because this was not the chapter of tragedy.
It was the chapter of routine.
BACK AT THE PRECINCT
Several blocks away, Officer Díaz finished printing her report on the priest.
Blue lay near her desk, breathing softly, head high and alert.
His blue eye stood out whenever the light caught it.
Díaz signed the form, placed the pages in the appropriate tray, and put on her cap.
"Let's go, partner."
Blue rose instantly, tail wagging just a little—the restrained motion of a working dog.
They walked down the hallway.
As they passed the cells, both detainees were exactly what one would expect.
The bum slammed the bars.
"I'VE BEEN HERE FOR HOURS! I'M HUNGRY! I'M THIRSTY! GET THAT LUNATIC OUT! HE WON'T LET ME SLEEP!"
The priest walked in circles, muttering under his breath.
"The world doesn't listen…"
"The world doesn't listen…"
Then louder:
"YOU MUST HEAR! YOU MUST HEAR!"
The guard glanced up.
"Officer, want to trade places?" he joked, tired.
"I'll pass," she replied.
Blue watched both men for a moment, then followed behind her.
The back door of the precinct opened.
Díaz held the leash as the dog stepped into the parking lot.
It was just another day.
Another patrol.
The kind of beginning no one remembers by the end of the week.
THE BOY AND HIS MORNING
When the bell rang for recess, the boy went outside.
He bought a pack of cookies from the vending machine and sat at a concrete table beneath a tree.
Only then did he open the Mexican soda.
He took a long drink.
Too sweet—but he loved it.
He looked up at the sky.
Nothing strange.
Nothing unsettling.
Just a blue sky and a perfectly ordinary sun.
The world was the same.
Life was the same.
The morning was the same.
Nearby, other boys argued about whether they would walk home together or play video games later.
It was all noise, as always.
NICO AND HIS ROUTINE
Back in the store, Nico finished arranging the fruit when the owner—a man in his fifties with a large belly and a gentle voice—approached with a notebook.
"Nico, can you put the apples over there?" he asked slowly, pointing to be sure he was understood.
Nico nodded.
"Yes. Apple… there."
"That's it. Thank you."
Nico moved the box.
As he did, he thought about the boy on the skateboard.
Not for any special reason—only because he was one of the few people who spoke to him without mocking his accent.
Sometimes Nico thought that if he ever learned English well, he might talk more.
But that wasn't going to happen this Monday.
Today, he would just keep working.
As always.
THE ROUND
Díaz drove through the industrial district.
Blue rested his head near the window—not to play, but to read scents, register stimuli, recognize patterns.
The area was quiet.
"I hope it stays this way all day," the officer murmured.
Blue's tail wagged slightly.
It was a normal morning.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
RETURN TO CLASS
The bell rang again.
The boys ran back inside.
The protagonist—still unnamed, by narrative design—ran too.
He dropped the soda cap on the floor.
He kicked it toward a trash can.
He missed.
He laughed to himself and stepped into the classroom.
The teacher was already calling roll.
"Last name?" she asked without looking up.
He answered automatically.
It wasn't a special day.
There was no reason to remember it.
CHAPTER CLOSURE
At that same hour:
• The bum fell asleep sitting on the cell floor.
• The priest kept murmuring verses no one understood.
• Nico kept working with boxes.
• Officer Díaz patrolled the city with Blue.
• And the boy at school copied notes without paying much attention.
Everything moved with the natural slowness of an ordinary Monday.
No strange sounds.
No signs.
No warnings.
Nothing out of place.
It was simply another day.
Nothing more.
There was no human way to know the world was only hours away from breaking forever.
But that…
will be told later.