There are specific circles of hell reserved for terrible people. There’s one for people who talk on speakerphone in public restrooms, one for bosses who schedule meetings at 4:55 PM on a Friday, and one specifically for whoever invented the high school mock exam.
I sat in the gymnasium, which had been converted into a prison camp of folding tables and wobbly chairs. The air smelled of floor wax, nervous sweat, and the collective despair of three hundred teenagers.
Question 14: If a train leaves Chicago at 60 mph and another leaves New York at 75 mph…
I stared at the paper. In my previous life, I had managed portfolios worth millions. I understood derivatives, short selling, and blockchain architecture. But I had absolutely no idea when these two hypothetical trains were going to crash.
"I should just buy the train company," I muttered under my breath, spinning my pencil. "Hostile takeover. Problem solved."
"Eyes on your own paper, Mr. Ren," a voice droned from the aisle.
I looked up. A proctor was gliding past. He wasn’t a teacher I recognized. He was a gray-faced man in a suit that was two sizes too big, moving with the stiff, jerky motions of a marionette.
I glanced around. The gym was dead silent, save for the scratching of hundreds of pencils—a sound like insects skittering inside a wall.
Vice Principal Vance stood on the stage at the front of the room. He wasn't moving. He stood perfectly still, hands clasped behind his back, his glasses reflecting the harsh fluorescent lights. He looked like a statue dedicated to the god of failure.
System Check, I thought, tapping my temple.
My "Spirit Sight" was going haywire. The air in the gym wasn't clear. It was filled with a low-hanging, greenish haze that hovered just above the floor. It coiled around the students’ ankles like dry ice at a cheap haunted house.
This wasn't just test anxiety. This was a harvest.
Every time a student sighed or rubbed their temples, the green haze pulsed. It was feeding on the stress, growing thicker, rising higher.
I looked three rows ahead and two to the right. Elara.
She was writing furiously. Her posture was rigid, her shoulders tense. The red countdown timer above her head was visible even through the haze.
176 Days, 08 Hours, 22 Minutes.
The numbers were glitching, flickering in and out of focus. That wasn't good. When the interface glitched, it meant spiritual interference.
"Time remaining: Sixty minutes," Vance’s voice boomed over the PA system, even though he wasn't holding a microphone.
As soon as he spoke, the temperature in the room dropped.
The kid to my left—a varsity linebacker named Mike—suddenly dropped his pencil. His eyes rolled back in his head. He slumped forward, his face hitting the exam paper with a wet thud.
"Proctor!" I shouted, standing up. "Mike’s down!"
The gray-faced proctor didn't run over. He didn't check for a pulse. He just walked over, grabbed Mike by the back of his collar, and dragged him out of his chair.
"Heatstroke," the proctor announced to the room, his voice flat. "Continue working."
"Heatstroke?" I yelled. "It's sixty degrees in here!"
"Sit down, Mr. Ren," Vance called from the stage. "Unless you wish to turn in your paper now and accept a failing grade?"
I looked at the proctor dragging Mike across the floor. Mike’s heels squeaked on the varnish. But what terrified me was the green haze. It was clinging to Mike’s head, sucking the color right out of his skin.
I sat down slowly.
They aren't fainting, I realized, a cold knot tightening in my stomach. They’re being reformatted.
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Closing Note：I’m stuck on a plot point! Help me decide the Heroine's next move on our Discord: unplot_joshua.
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