Part 5: Someone Else's Skin
Summary:
Riven finds a worn-out backpack tucked deep in the bottom of an abandoned locker in the shelter where he's been crashing. Inside it are fragments — the previous Riven's school ID, scraps of housing paperwork, and a few items nobody ever came looking for. That's when he realizes: this kid never mattered to anyone. Until now.
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The shelter near the edge of District South didn't ask questions.
He'd slipped in through a broken emergency door the first time — a side wing that hadn't been staffed in years. A couple rooms still had old cots, peeling wallpaper, water-stained ceilings.
Nobody noticed when he came or went.
Which made it perfect.
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He didn't sleep much. Just enough to reset.
But on the third night, while digging through the old lockers in the corner, he found something wedged in the back of one:
A faded, gray-black backpack.
No name tag.
No lock.
Just zipped shut and forgotten.
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Inside:
A worn school ID.
Two crumpled packets of saltine crackers.
A state housing eligibility card.
And a photo — glossy, creased — of a younger version of the boy whose face he now wore.
No one was smiling in it.
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Riven sat on the edge of the cot and turned the ID over in his hand.
> Riven Dax
Junior year. Midtown Vocational High.
No clubs. No sports. No medical alerts.
Issue date: two years ago.
He'd already seen the name before — in the wallet that first day — but this time it felt different.
Because this was proof.
This body had a past. A paper trail. A photo.
But no one had come looking for him.
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The shelter logbooks didn't mention his name. Not in the missing reports. Not in the intake rosters.
As far as the world knew, Riven Dax had vanished, and no one cared enough to file anything.
That landed harder than it should've.
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He leaned back against the cold wall and stared up at the ceiling.
Dust drifted in a thin beam of light from a broken fixture.
The photo rested on his chest, curled slightly at the edges.
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> No one noticed he was gone.
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For the first time since waking in this body, he didn't feel watched.
He felt erased.
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Not hunted.
Not followed.
Just left behind.
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