I had entered into the school system. Sherlock and I would catch the bus every morning to get there. I remember when we first took the bus, everyone gave Sherlock a snide look. She didn't seem to have any friends.

"Hello, Freak," one girl said to her. Sherlock stayed silent. The girl looked at me. "Who's this?" She asked.

"Colleague of mine," Sherlock said, "Joanne Watson. Joanne, meet Sally Donovan. Old friend."

"A colleague, how'd you get a colleague? Did you kidnap her?"

"No, she didn't." I said. I didn't like this Sally Donovan very much.

"I think I'll be off now," Sherlock said, and sat at a seat a row in front of where Sally was sitting. I went to sit with Sherlock.

"Well, you know what I think, don't you?" Sally said from her seat.

"Yes," Sherlock replies, "and I even know you didn't make it to that basketball date you had planned."

"I was sick."

"I'm sure you were, and that's why Philip came over, wasn't it?"

Sally gave Sherlock a dead stare, and refused to talk.

At school, we went to our respective classes. Sherlock was in a biology class at the same time I was in English. Many of the kids were on their phones before class started. Some were texting while others were last minute studying for the vocabulary quiz we had that day, and still others were wasting time, doing challenges.

"I finally unlocked Task Five!" One kid said while he waved his phone in the air.

"Nice job!" Another replied, "Now you're only three Tasks behind Emma!"

Emma was the star player at these challenges. She had unlocked so many more of those Tasks than anyone else had, and was considered a little less than a god around here. I never did these challenges, nor did I understand the craze over them.

"Where is Emma, anyway?"

I looked around the room. Funny. Emma was almost always at school. Though, her attendance lately had been fluctuating. It was flu season; perhaps she was just sick. Nothing seemed to be wrong, but I could help but be slightly bothered.

After school, I tried to find Sherlock so we could go on the bus together, but she was busy with a microscope in a chemistry class, and wasn't finished until after the bus had left. That meant we had to walk. I had a psychosomatic leg! Walking wasn't my favourite hobby.

"Couldn't we get an Uber or something?" I asked Sherlock as we exited the school.

"No," she responded, "Or, maybe you can. I have something to do, and I need to walk to do it."

I considered leaving her, but I didn't know the way back home, and I didn't want to be rude to her. We walked along what seemed to be the right direction, until Sherlock took a turn into a back alley that didn't seem right at all.

"I don't think we're supposed to be here." I told her.

"No, we're not at all." She replied, and stopped in front of a shoe. But this shoe was awkwardly placed on the ground, and if you followed it a bit, you'd see it was still on a foot, and the person who's foot it was wasn't sleeping. And it wasn't just anyone. It was Emma.

This wasn't the first time I saw a dead body. I was in a war zone after all. I went to school with a bunch of other kids, some who were military brats like me, and others who were natives in the country we were in. It was normal, though still horrifying, to hear that someone died. But I thought I had left all that behind me.

Sherlock kneeled next to the body, and after putting on surgical gloves which she produced from her bag, she expertly examined it. She looked at the edge of Emma's shoe. At the bottom of one shoe, written in red, was the word "RACHE".

"It's blood, and it's fresh." Sherlock said. "Couldn't be more than two hours old, which means she was killed recently."

"We need to call the police." I said, trying my hardest not to show my fear.

Sherlock got out her phone and sent a single text. Then she resumed examining the corpse.

"Sherlock, we need to go home." I said.

"Yeah, but this is more fun."

"Fun? There's a girl lying dead!"

"Perfectly sound analysis, but I was hoping you'd go deeper than that."

Was that a challenge? Immediately, I got to work. Though I wasn't an expert, I had learned a thing or two about the human body during my time in Afghanistan. My mother was an army doctor, and the things I learned were from overhearing her talk to other grown ups. I checked Emma's face. No bruises, or marks of any kind.

"Maybe it's asphyxiation?" I said, after a bit more examination, "Probably passed out, choked on her own vomit. Could have been a seizure."

I heard sirens. The police cars rolled up to where we were standing. Out from the car, a middle aged man, whose black hair was beginning to gray, came and approached Sherlock.

"Lestrade," Sherlock said, "I know I can solve this one."

"Don't be silly," the man, who was apparently Lestrade, said, "You're a child. Don't get yourself into this mess."

"It's a bit too late for that. I'm already in it."

He stared at her for a moment before telling us that we needed to go home.

"You realize these are linked, right?" Sherlock asked Lestrade.

"What's linked?"

"The murders."

Lestrade pressed his face, as if he'd been through this too many times before. "They're suicides." He reasoned, "And one of them was an accident."

"Oh no," Sherlock said, "they're definitely murders. Serial murders, which only means that there's a serial killer."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm not ridiculous! It's logic! Can you really be telling me that this is the fourth death in this general area you've encountered in the past month, and none of that is ridiculous?"

"Nothing suggests that they're linked."

"Except for that they were all in an area that they had no reason to be. There were no notes, or signs."

Lestrade looked at Sherlock, and the pressed expression returned to his face. Sherlock was silent for a moment before continuing.

"That's not how I'd kill myself."