A/N: The story title is inspired by the lovely song by Clint Mansell, meaning "eternal light".

As always, the second day of school was much more interesting than the first.

However, the word "interesting" should not be taken to mean something pleasant, because the overall incident was rather unpleasant. It simply added a connotation that the thing had been... different.

To put it bluntly, a student by the name of Mary Morstan had committed suicide.

Sherlock wasn't one for being "in-the-know" about the latest school news or gossip– it simply did not interest him– but even he had heard about this.

New, much like a virus during flu season, traveled rapidly throughout the hallways of Marks Institute. It started from the very center of the information with with Molly Hooper, Mary's supposed best friend, and found its way to Sherlock's friend-acquaintance, John Watson, who then told him.

"Okay," He had said, as a response.

"Just 'okay'?!" John's voice grew in pitch, still shocked himself by this piece of fact.

"Was that not an adequately appropriate reaction? Let me try again." Sherlock sucked in a deep breath, then said in a slightly more baffled tone, "Are you serious?"

His friend-acquaintance shook his head, perplexed as always by his insensitivity. Of course, it wasn't really a surprise that Sherlock wasn't more emotional, as they have known each other for over six years now, and quite a lot has happened during that time. It now simply confused John, the way that he was always steely-faced (save those time when he needed to charm someone to get what he wanted) and nonreactive.

Nonetheless, John knew he wasn't going to get any more out of Sherlock, so he simply moved on to another topic of conversation, "So what did you think of the calculus test today? Easy?"

"Of course it was." This was always Sherlock's answer to any inquiry about tests. Although at first, he had transferred to this school looking for a challenge, his ambition soon faded when Marks was no more difficult than any other public schools he had attended before.

The school board first invited him when they saw his standardised test scores a few years back and offered a full scholarship. It had held the appeal of a new toy, exciting and captivating at first, but losing it after the initial few days. Then, it was just back to Sherlock wandering through the hallways again, avoiding most social interactions and attempting to escape the holds of boredom.

Boredom, oh the great, terrible feeling, was his arch nemesis, if there ever was such a thing.

It was one of the few things able to elicit a frustrated reaction from his normally composed self. Attempting to alleviate it was one of his constant pursuits, and one that had been futile so far. But maybe this death would change things...


"Anderson, Seth?" The gym teacher yelled out, holding a clipboard with one hand and a pencil in the other. The daily roll call.

"Here!" The teen called back, used to being first first on the list. After replying, he immediately turned to the person on his right and lowered his voice to a whisper, trying not to get eavesdropped upon. "Sally, did you hear about that Mary person?"

"Yes," Sally Donovan said, face in a thinking expression. "I don't really know her that well, but... why? I mean, she used to annoy me because she always seemed so cheery, but then all this madness. My dad said that he might send in some of his officers in to investigate, just to ensure that there wasn't any foul play involved." Her father was the owner of a very prominent private detective agency located in Winchester.

"Foul play?" Anderson frowned. "Like murder foul play?"

"It could be. You never know. You do have to admit that the circumstances seem a bit suspicious." The teacher reached her name on the list and she responded back with a loud, "Here."

"I don't know which would be worse, knowing that Mary was miserable enough to end her life or knowing that there is someone here on campus who is messed up enough to end her life." He fiddled around with his fingers, contemplating the notion.

Sally sighed, then shrugged. "Okay, call me terrible for saying this, but I think the second would be worse. For all of us, anyway. That would mean that everyone here is in danger, instead just Mary herself."

"Hey, pipe down," the teacher said, noticing the conversation held between the two. "Okay, everyone. The agenda for today is basketball..." He then went on to a ten-minute ramble about the basic concepts of the sport, and how no foul play was to be accepted in this class. Also not allowed in gym was any gum, food, or drinks, which evoked several groans from a group of girls as they walked off to a trash can to spit out their gum.

Sally and Anderson tuned out all of this.

Moving on from their initial topic, they were engaged in a heated debate about this show they were both watching last night, about who they thought was the culprit in the criminal case that the main protagonists were involved in. Both of them were extremely interested in the field of criminology, and part of that might be contributed to Sally's upbringing as a detective's daughter, but their mutual love of crime television programs was to blame as well. Perhaps they might even join Scotland Yard one day. That would certainly be exciting.


Molly Hooper was curled up on her couch this Tuesday morning on her couch with a large carton of cookie crumble ice cream, browsing the internet in order to distract herself.

It wasn't so much as a way to find solace as something to take her out of her own life for a little while.

The news had came to her very late last night with her mother receiving a call from Mary's parents. They hadn't divulged any details about the horrific event, just merely told them that Mary was no longer alive. It wasn't their fault that they were so curt and reluctant to disclose any details. The majority of the call was spent with Mr. and Mrs. Morstan attempting to sound coherent and not to break down during the middle of it.

Immediately afterwards, her mum told Molly that school tomorrow was absolutely out of the question and that she needed to stay home and try to get herself together, even though she was managing to keep herself collected throughout this ordeal.

Molly was what one might call an emotional person, although most outsiders were unable to tell because she does like to keep it inside. Displaying the feelings usually brought on a bout of attention from too many people, and mostly unwanted ones. So, she stayed quiet when told the news, and she stayed quiet even now.

If one doesn't talk about something, then that thing won't come up in thought. If it doesn't come up in thought, then it might as well never have happened, right?

No, that method won't work for this. She knew fully that it happened, and no matter how much she pushes it out of her mind, it slams back in.

So, in a fit of desperation, she jammed a pair of headphones in her ear and set the volume at the highest bar. Molly then searched through her music library and stumbled upon the perfect song for this occasion. She then stumbled into the bathroom medicine cabinet and took out a bottle of sleeping pills. Pouring two onto her palm, she swallowed them dry and flopped down onto her mattress.

After twenty minutes, she was finally able to get away from all this madness, if not only for eight hours, or however long the description on the bottle had said.


Jim Moriarty found Marks Institute to be a very fascinating place. Or rather, the students, aka his to-be classmates, are the ones who caught his attention. All of them seemed so perfect and well-rounded on paper– great grades, attendance, extracurricular, the works.

He had made sure that he did his homework and performed a background check on almost all of the four hundred students attending the school. Although the tech department did not realise it, the network had been so surprisingly easy to hack. However, that did not come as much of a surprise to him, most things in life were relatively easy for him. That's why he needed something more. There had been one specific student that caught his eye. One that went by the name "Sherlock Holmes", which sounded rather odd and a mouthful.

His record matched that of Jim's, their IQ's almost within a hair's breadth of each other, which he had been impressed at. He openly admitted that, not being one for humbleness, he was probably one the greatest minds in the country at the moment, albeit being merely seventeen years of age. Further more, he was the little brother of a man named Mycroft Holmes, who was rather well-recognized within the British government. So that made Sherlock someone with both brains and connections.

Other than what was on the school's database, the youngest Holmes seemed to be steering clear of any other records. That's alright, Jim liked a bit of a challenge.

He would rather like to get to know the youngest Holmes. He had a plan. With their combined intelligence, with them working together, who knows what they could accomplish? Well, he would have to make sure that he is the one with more authority, of course. But all that aside, Sherlock Holmes definitely seemed like a promising candidate for what he had in mind.

Perhaps it was time to turn a perfect place into chaos.

A/N: I know Anderson's name was never revealed in the show, so I just plugged one in. Don't worry, he'll be referred to by his last name most of the time to avoid any confusions.

Thanks for reading, more to come soon! :)