The next day, in class, Mrs. D’Souza asked, “What is the defining characteristic of a living organism?”

Chapter 24 was the last chapter: Ecological Succession. It had no diagrams, no definitions. Only a single, long paragraph:

The next morning, a new book was on his desk. The cover was plain white. The title, handwritten: Raghav’s Elementary Biology, Vol. 1. And the first line read:

“You’re my mother?” he gasped.

He opened Chapter 19: Excretory Products and Their Elimination.

Raghav should have stopped. But he was sixteen, and curiosity was a faster poison than any alkaloid described in Chapter 9.