Damon stood like a statue in the middle of it all, eyes cold, chest rising and falling with quiet rage.
And Sean—trembling, wild-eyed Sean—was no longer the same cocky brawler he had been just minutes ago. He was nothing but a shell, stripped of his swagger, his ego crushed under the weight of humiliation and fear.
Damon stepped toward him.
Sean stumbled back, his heel scraping across the pavement.
But Damon reached him.
He grabbed Sean by the collar with one hand and his neck with the other, dragging him forward as if he weighed nothing.
And then, without a word, Damon started slapping him.
Hard.
Each smack rang out like a crack of thunder, sharp and brutal. One after another.
Smack!!!
Smack!!!
Smack!!!
Sean's head jerked side to side with every blow, his lip splitting, his cheek reddening.
"You piece of shit!" Damon shouted, his voice shaking with fury. "You don't get to beat people and walk away like it's a game!"
Smack!!!
"You could've killed me! You and your coward friends!"
Smack!!!
"You think breaking me proves something?!"
Sean didn't fight back. His body was limp, stunned into submission. Blood trickled from his mouth, dripping onto his shirt.
The students around them were dead silent. Not a single voice rose. Not a single phone moved. No one cheered now.
This wasn't a fight anymore.
This was personal.
But then—without a sound, without warning—Sean's hand slipped down to his waistband.
There, hidden just beneath the hem of his trousers, was a small, curved dagger. No one noticed it. Not Damon. Not the crowd.
Only Sean knew.
His fingers curled around the hilt.
And in one swift, desperate motion, he plunged the blade forward.
The dagger sank deep into Damon's side—just beneath his ribcage, angling up into his lung.
Damon's eyes widened, a soft, shocked breath leaving his lips.
Time stopped.
The pain didn't hit all at once—it came in waves. First, the pressure. Then, the sting. Then the fire.
He looked down, eyes catching the handle of the blade sticking out. His hand instinctively reached for it, trembling, trying to understand what had just happened.
Sean let out a guttural sound—rage, panic, fear all fused into one.
He pulled the dagger out.
And before Damon could even stumble, Sean drove it into his back, right at the base of his spine.
Damon let out a low, agonized grunt, barely a sound at all.
His legs buckled.
His vision blurred.
Blood was dripping now—first a trickle, then a stream. Soaking through his clothes, staining the concrete beneath him.
But Sean wasn't finished.
Blinded by desperation, he wrapped his arm around Damon's neck from behind—tight, choking.
And then, with a final heave, he buried the dagger into Damon's back again—this time higher.
Right into his heart.
Damon gasped—a short, shallow breath that caught in his throat and never quite made it out.
His body jerked once. Then twice.
Then went still.
Sean released him.
Damon collapsed to the ground in a heap, his limbs folding unnaturally, blood already pooling beneath him.
Sean took a step back, panting, staring at his own hands.
The dagger slipped from his fingers, clattering against the pavement.
He looked down at Damon—his expression shifting from fury to horror.
His lips parted.
He tried to say something—but no words came out.
Then, realizing what he'd just done, Sean turned and ran.
He bolted through the crowd—shouldering past stunned students, knocking one girl to the side, sending her sprawling. He didn't look back.
No one tried to stop him.
Not a soul moved.
The silence was suffocating.
All eyes were on Damon's crumpled form, lying in a spreading pool of crimson. His face was pale. His shirt soaked through. His chest—still.
Phones dropped to trembling hands. Mouths hung open. One student whispered, "He stabbed him... three times..."
Another gasped. Someone cried.
Someone else whispered, "He's dead..."
And just like that, the moment that had started as another schoolyard confrontation became something else.
Something no one would ever forget.
A nightmare in broad daylight.
And Damon's blood soaked into the cracks of the pavement like a stain that would never leave.
Damon could feel it.
The cold.
It wasn't just the chill of the air—no, this was something deeper. Something that seeped into his very bones. The warmth, the life he had fought so hard to hold onto, was slowly draining away.
His limbs felt heavy. So incredibly heavy.
He blinked, trying to clear the blurriness from his vision, but it was no use. His world swam in a haze of darkness, edges blurring into nothingness. The coldness continued to seep deeper, filling him with an emptiness that stretched out beyond the physical.
He could still hear a voice.
"Damon… please don't sleep… wake up… don't die… wake up, Damon."
Her voice cracked with panic, with desperation.
She slapped his cheek. Not hard, but enough to send a sting through his skin. She was frantic now, tears spilling from her eyes, her hands shaking as they tried—desperately—to stop the bleeding. She pressed them to his wounds, but it was futile. The blood still flowed, staining the ground beneath him, staining her hands.
It was hopeless.
Damon wanted to tell her that it was okay, that it didn't hurt anymore. That everything was alright. But the words wouldn't come. His throat was tight, his lungs struggling to take in even the faintest breath. Every inhale was shallow, fleeting.
He could see her face now—clear through the fog in his mind.
She was from his class. Her name… he couldn't quite remember it. But she had always been there, sitting a few rows ahead of him in class, her laughter often filling the room when the teacher would make a joke. She was sweet—kind, even.
Her face was blurred with tears, but there was no mistaking the panic in her eyes. The helplessness. She was afraid. She didn't want him to die. And neither did he.
But he could feel it now—the weight of his own body, dragging him down into the void.
It wasn't the fear of death that made his chest tighten.
It was the sadness. The regret.
He felt a flicker of a smile on his lips—weak, but genuine. He didn't want to die, not really. But as his fading vision focused on her face, he felt something he hadn't expected: peace.
Someone cared. Someone was trying to help him. Even at the end. That small moment, that tiny sliver of human compassion, filled him with a warmth that was fleeting, but it was there.
His mind drifted.
He thought of his mother.
His heart clenched at the thought of her.
How would she react? How would she survive knowing her only son was gone? The woman who had raised him, who had taught him everything he knew, who had loved him more than anything in the world.
Her face flashed before his mind's eye, her smile, her warmth.
I'm sorry, Mom…
The guilt weighed heavily on him. He couldn't protect her. He wouldn't be there for her. The thought made his chest ache more than the dagger wound ever could. He had never wanted to leave her alone.
His vision was fading faster now.
He heard the girl again—her voice high, panicked, desperate. "Someone, call an ambulance! Please! Help him!"
But Damon knew it was too late. The world was slipping away. Her voice became muffled, her words distorted. The pain was ebbing now, fading into the cold embrace of nothingness.
He smiled again, weakly, barely a twitch of his lips. His thoughts were jumbled, fractured. But he knew one thing as the darkness closed in: he was going to die here. And no one could stop it now.
The girl slapped his face one more time, her hands trembling against his skin.
"Wake up!" she screamed.
But Damon was already gone.
His body lay lifeless in her arms, still. His heart, once strong, had stopped beating.
The crowd of students surrounding them stood frozen, watching the scene unfold. The silence was suffocating. They were witnesses to something they would never forget—something that no one should ever have to see.
Some of them had already started recording, phones raised as they captured the aftermath of the brutal fight. Others stood in shock, too numb to move.
Damon was dead.