Chapter 1: The First Betrayal

The night before the SATs, the halls buzzed with nervous energy—someone’s Monster can clattered into a trash can, and the PA system kept crackling out reminders about tomorrow’s SATs. The familiar scent of dry-erase markers mixed with old gym socks clung to the air, and you could practically feel the tension radiating from every senior.

Every student in the senior homeroom suddenly got a mysterious survey on their phones and laptops. The message was blunt and cold: If you reveal a classmate’s secret or embarrassing story, you can earn extra points for your SAT score.

Agree / Refuse.

I figured it was just some prank—probably one of those dumb viral challenges—so I hovered over 'Refuse.' But then, I hesitated. Everyone’s always chasing a leg up, right? Was I the only one not tempted by a shortcut?

Before I could decide, chat bubbles exploded across my screen, popping up like a group chat gone haywire—only I wasn’t sure anyone else could see them.

[What a clueless side character. She’s the only one in the class acting like she’s better than everyone else, and she gets booted out on day one.]

[Later, her childhood friend even outs her for sneaking off to a sketchy motel with a troublemaker, just to help out a broke student.]

[She really blew her shot. If it were me, I’d have clung to the top dog from the start.]

[If only she’d realized from the beginning that the guy running the survey system was actually her obsessive desk partner. That would’ve been a trip.]

I glanced at my desk partner, trying to keep it subtle—like when you sneak a peek at your neighbor’s test, except this time, he was the test.

His shaggy bangs hid his eyes, only his pale chin showing. He tilted his head and flashed me a crooked smile.

"So, are you gonna agree or refuse?"

His voice was low, almost daring me. My fingers twitched on the screen. He said it with the kind of confidence that made you want to check your own shoelaces, just in case.

"I know everyone’s secrets in this class."

I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly dry. It felt like the beginning of some Netflix teen thriller, except I was living it.

A weird, pale blue screen popped up in front of me, giving me two choices: Agree and Refuse.

Eliot’s words echoed in my ears like some devil’s whisper—smooth and cool, with just a hint of trouble.

I quickly processed the chat bubbles while secretly watching my classmates’ reactions, shifting in their cheap plastic chairs. You could practically taste the stress—sour candy breath, the sharp tang of hand sanitizer, and the hum of someone’s AirPods leaking Top 40 hits.

Was I the only one seeing these chat bubbles? Did nobody else notice there was something off about this survey? I glanced around, but nobody met my eyes.

Having to rat out classmates for SAT points—doesn’t that just turn us against each other? It sounded less like a test and more like the plot of a reality show gone off the rails.

And would SAT points earned this way even count for real? Like, would the College Board really let you buy your way to a better score by gossiping?

Right now, every student in the room wore a different expression: some surprised, some curious, some even excited. Fingers hovered over screens, and the click of keys echoed softly.

But most of them did the same thing—

They picked ‘Agree.’

"Haha, I knew there’d be a system for the SATs one day. Didn’t think it’d be our class’s turn this year."

Classmate B said, "What’s the deal? It says it’s a survey, but can it really add points to your SAT?"

Classmate C said, "In my experience, systems that show up right before the SAT are never a good sign. I’m not picking anything."

Sure enough, there were some cautious types like me.

Then, the chat bubbles started flooding the screen again—

[Tsk tsk, those who choose ‘Refuse’ in the first round get zapped out of existence, like someone hit delete on their whole life. If her desk partner hadn’t helped her pick ‘Agree,’ the side character wouldn’t have survived the first round in the original story.]

[So, don’t try to be too clever. Since the system picked you, just take the gift from fate.]

[Can’t wait to see their faces when they get to the real survey questions.]

The chat bubbles kept rolling by. My heart rate spiked. Someone in the back cracked their knuckles, loud as a gunshot.

I looked at the screen in front of me, then at my desk partner. After he spoke, he never looked up again—like he didn’t care what I chose. Or maybe those words weren’t really for me.

I quickly pulled myself together, trying not to let the chat bubbles catch on to anything. It felt like walking a tightrope, and the whole room was one wrong step from chaos.

So we’re living in some twisted horror game novel.

I’m the self-sacrificing, luck-blessed side character who’s always tempting fate. The type who never even gets mentioned in the yearbook, except maybe as a blurry face in a group photo.

And the main guy is my childhood friend, Caleb—a schemer who builds a harem in the horror game.

In the end, he survives the survey game by throwing me, his childhood friend, under the bus.

The corner of my mouth twitched. It wasn’t a smile.

How does someone with so much baggage get to be the main character? In real life, those guys get called out on TikTok and roasted in the comments.

If Caleb is the protagonist, then my desk partner must be the villain.