Chapter 2: The Official Story

The police arrived in waves, their red and blue lights turning the dojang into a kaleidoscope of panic. I sat on the edge of a wrestling mat, wrapped in a scratchy emergency blanket that smelled like mothballs, watching adults rush around with the desperate efficiency of people who had no idea what they were dealing with.

Detective Martinez crouched down to my eye level, her badge catching the harsh fluorescent lights they'd turned back on. She had kind eyes, the sort that probably worked well on scared kids, but there was something else there too—a barely concealed impatience that made my stomach twist tighter.

"Azuman, right?" She consulted her notepad. "Can you tell me again what happened to your friend Lucas?"

I'd already told the story three times. To Master Kim, to the first responding officer, to the paramedic who'd checked me for shock. Each time, I watched their expressions shift from concern to confusion to something that looked dangerously close to pity.

"We were listening to Master Kim's story about Harold," I began, my voice hoarse from screaming Lucas's name. "The man who used to live behind the dumpster. Then Tristan dared Lucas to knock on the back door—"

"Hold on." Detective Martinez held up her hand. "Who's Tristan?"

I pointed across the room where Tristan sat with his parents, his mother's arm protectively wrapped around his shoulders. CJ was nearby with his own family, both boys looking like they'd rather be anywhere else.

"Tristan Park. He and CJ Rodriguez. They were making fun of Lucas, calling him chicken, so Lucas went to prove he wasn't scared."

"And these boys—Tristan and CJ—they saw what happened?"

"Yes! They were right there when Lucas knocked on the door. When it opened and—"

"When what opened, sweetie?"

The way she said 'sweetie' made something cold crawl up my spine. It was the tone adults used when they thought you were confused, maybe traumatized, definitely not telling the truth.

"The door. The back door opened from the other side, and Lucas went through it, and then it slammed shut and he was gone."

Detective Martinez wrote something in her notepad. "The door opened by itself?"

"No, something opened it. Something on the other side. I heard the handle turn, and there was this smell—"

"What kind of smell?"

"Like pennies. Like old copper. It was so strong it made me sick."

She wrote that down too, though her expression suggested she was humoring me rather than taking notes on a serious investigation. "And after the door closed, what happened?"

"Lucas was pounding on it from the other side, screaming for help. You could hear him being dragged away—" My voice cracked, the memory of that wet sliding sound making my hands shake. "Then it just stopped. Everything stopped."

"Azuman." Detective Martinez's voice was gentle but firm. "When we opened that door, there was nowhere to go. It's just an alley maybe six feet wide. The walls are solid brick on both sides, and the far end is completely blocked by a chain-link fence. If your friend had gone through that door, we would have found him."

"But he did go through! I saw him!"

"The door was locked from the inside, honey. The deadbolt was engaged. No one could have gone through it without a key."

The words hit me like physical blows. I looked around desperately for support, for someone who would back up my story, but all I saw were the concerned faces of adults who thought they were dealing with a traumatized child's imagination.

"Ask Tristan!" I said desperately. "Ask CJ! They saw everything!"

Detective Martinez glanced over at the two boys, then back at me. "We already spoke with them. They said they were asleep when your friend disappeared. They don't remember any story or any dare."

The betrayal felt like ice water in my veins. I stared across the room at Tristan, willing him to meet my eyes, but he kept his face buried against his mother's shoulder. CJ was studying his shoelaces like they contained the secrets of the universe.

"They're lying," I whispered.

"Why would they lie about something like this?"

Because they're scared, I wanted to say. Because they know what they saw and it's too terrifying to admit. Because it's easier to let everyone think I'm crazy than to face the truth about what happened.

But I was eight years old, and she was a police detective, and the weight of adult authority was already pressing down on me like a physical thing.

"I don't know," I mumbled.

"Azuman." Detective Martinez closed her notepad and sat down fully on the mat beside me. "I know this is scary and confusing. Sometimes when something bad happens, our minds try to make sense of it by creating explanations that feel... bigger than what really occurred. Do you understand what I mean?"

I nodded, though I didn't understand at all. What I understood was that no one was listening to me. No one believed me. And somewhere out there, Lucas was gone, and it was my fault for not being strong enough to pull him back from whatever had taken him.

"The most likely explanation," the detective continued, "is that your friend got scared by the story and decided to leave the building on his own. Kids do that sometimes when they're upset or frightened. They run away without thinking it through."

"But the door—"

"Could have been opened from the inside by your friend, and then closed again after he left. The lock mechanism is old; it might have engaged automatically."

It was a reasonable explanation. Adult. Logical. Complete bullshit.

But I was eight, and tired, and the weight of everyone's disbelief was crushing whatever fight I had left in me. When my parents arrived twenty minutes later, their faces tight with worry and embarrassment, I let them wrap me in their arms and take me home without another word of protest.

The search for Lucas Chen lasted exactly four days.

They checked the woods behind the strip mall, dragged the pond at Mercer County Park, interviewed his parents and teachers and classmates. They put his picture on the local news and organized volunteer search parties that combed through every abandoned building and drainage tunnel within a ten-mile radius.

They found nothing.

On the fifth day, Lucas was officially classified as a runaway. The case remained open, but the active investigation was suspended pending new evidence that never came.

The dojang closed permanently two weeks later.

Master Kim tried to keep it running, but parents pulled their kids out faster than water through a broken dam. No one wanted their children training in the place where Lucas Chen had vanished. The building sat empty for months before being converted into a dry cleaner that went out of business within a year.

I attended Lucas's memorial service—not a funeral, because there was no body—in a haze of guilt and disbelief. His parents sat in the front row of the church, their faces hollow with grief, while the pastor talked about mysterious ways and eternal peace.

Tristan and CJ were there too, dressed in uncomfortable suits, their eyes fixed on the floor throughout the entire service. When I tried to approach them afterward, they scattered like startled birds, their parents creating protective barriers that made it clear I wasn't welcome.

The message was obvious: the crazy kid who told impossible stories about locked doors and supernatural abductions was not someone they wanted their children associating with.

School became a minefield of whispered conversations that stopped when I walked by, of concerned looks from teachers who'd been briefed on my "trauma response," of classmates who treated me like I might snap at any moment and start ranting about ghost stories.

My parents did their best, shuttling me between therapists and counselors who all had theories about survivor's guilt and dissociative episodes and the unreliable nature of memory under stress. They prescribed medications and coping strategies and carefully avoided asking me to recount what had happened that night.

But late at night, when the house was quiet and I was supposed to be sleeping, I could still smell it. That metallic, copper-penny scent that seemed to seep through the walls of my bedroom, stronger sometimes than others, as if something was checking to make sure I hadn't forgotten.

I never forgot.

The truth lived in my chest like a splinter, working its way deeper with each passing day. Lucas hadn't run away. He'd been taken by something that lived behind that dumpster, something that fed on dares and bargains and the foolish bravery of children who knocked on doors they should have left alone.

And I was the only one who remembered.

The only one who believed.

The only one who carried the weight of knowing that somewhere out there, in whatever dark place Harold had dragged my best friend, Lucas might still be waiting for someone to come find him.

Even if that someone was just me.