1 I suspected the new transfer student in our department had been reborn. She always managed to beat me to the punch, snatching away every single opportunity that was supposed to fall into my lap. Competition slots, faculty research projects, public presentations—she even managed to “guess” the exact location of the research materials I was about to hand in before I even opened my mouth. After having my opportunities hijacked for the third time in a row, I deleted the entire proposal I was supposed to submit, leaving nothing but an empty file in its place. She ran up to the podium, hugging her laptop to her chest, and flashed a bright smile. “Professor, I’ve already organized everything for Roselyn.” The projector flickered on. The lecture hall fell dead silent. I looked up at her, my face a mask of absolute confusion. “What proposal?” … The air conditioning in the lecture hall was broken. Waves of heavy, suffocating heat pressed down from the ceiling. The projector screen glowed with an ashy white light, and the smell of chalk dust mixed with cheap coffee drifted into my nose. I sat in the third row, my fingers resting lightly on the edge of my laptop, watching Patrika up on the podium. She was wearing a creamy white blouse. Her hair was tied back in a low, effortless ponytail, the sleeves rolled up to her forearms. In her arms, she was hugging my laptop bag. Or, to be more precise, a laptop bag that looked exactly like mine. She stood there with perfect posture, wearing the exact kind of smile that made professors nod in approval and put classmates at ease. “Professor Davis, Roselyn hasn’t been feeling well the past few days. I was worried she wouldn’t be able to finish her presentation in time, so I went ahead and organized the materials for her.” A few heads turned to look at me. I didn’t move a muscle. Patrika plugged her flash drive into the computer. Her finger swiped across the trackpad, and a file name popped up on the projector screen. Urban Historic District Commercial Revitalization Proposal – Final Version. The sound of chairs scraping against the floor echoed through the room. I heard my roommate, Chloe, suck in a sharp breath next to me. She grabbed my sleeve, dropping her voice to a frantic whisper. “Roselyn, isn’t that the topic you’ve been killing yourself over for the past two weeks?” I stared at the projector screen, a single thought popping into my head. Oh. Here we go again. Patrika double-clicked the file. White screen. Empty. It wasn’t that the content was still loading. From the first slide to the last, it was completely blank. There was a title, and absolutely nothing else. Not even page numbers. The low hum of whispers in the classroom instantly died. Patrika’s smile froze on her face. Her finger swiped down the trackpad a few more times. The pages flipped by, one after another. All of them pure white. Her throat bobbed. I could see the veins on the back of her hand bulging. “Maybe… maybe the file got corrupted.” I stood up. The legs of my chair scraped harshly against the floor tiles, the sound setting teeth on edge. Professor Davis frowned at me. “Roselyn, what is the meaning of this?” I closed my laptop, hugged it to my chest, and kept my voice perfectly level. “Professor, I have absolutely no idea what proposal she’s talking about.” Patrika’s head snapped up. I looked at her, my eyes even more innocent than hers. “The topic I registered for this week is Community Elderly Care Services Research. Not historic district commercial revitalization.” Chloe froze, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. Someone in the back row muttered, “But Patrika just said she organized the materials for Roselyn.” “How did she even know Roselyn was going to do the historic district topic?” “And the file is completely empty. What exactly did she organize?” The hand Patrika was using to grip the mouse trembled. The mouse hit the desk with a loud clack. She opened her mouth to speak, then swallowed the words back down. Professor Davis looked at her, then looked at me. His expression darkened. “Patrika, who authorized you to submit her materials on her behalf?” Patrika pressed her lips together tightly. It took her two full seconds to finally force the words out. “I… I just heard her mention this topic before. I was afraid she was running out of time.” I blinked. “When exactly did I ever mention it to you?” She choked. The broken AC unit hummed loudly above us. The hot air blew across the loose strands of hair on her forehead. A fine layer of sweat broke out on her temples, and her carefully crafted smile slowly disintegrated. I pulled out my phone, opened my notes app, and turned the screen toward Professor Davis. “Professor, this is the research topic I submitted to the portal last night. The timestamp is right here.” Professor Davis looked down at the screen. The light from my phone reflected off his glasses. Patrika stared at that timestamp, her fingernails digging so hard into her palms that the cuffs of her pristine blouse wrinkled. I added casually, “As for the historic district topic, I actually scrapped that idea last week. I realized the data was too difficult to source.” Professor Davis looked up. “Patrika, step down.” Patrika stood there, completely paralyzed. She had already walked up to the stage. She had already said the words. She had already prepared to steal my presentation slot right out from under me. But when she reached out to grab the prize, her hand closed around empty air. I walked past her, up onto the podium, and plugged my own laptop into the projector. The first slide popped up. It was a photo of the rusted, peeling iron sign outside a local nursing home. The second slide was my interview logs. The third was a data spreadsheet. The fourth was a series of on-site photographs. I heard someone in the audience whisper, “She really did change her topic.” “Then what the hell was Patrika trying to pull just now?” Professor Davis flipped through my physical materials, his frown easing slightly. Patrika stood frozen by the side of the podium, her shoulders stiff as a board. I didn’t even look at her. I just faced the class and said, “My presentation begins now.” The light from the projector washed over my face, the brightness stinging my dry eyes. Deep down, I let out a very soft, quiet laugh. You thought you knew exactly which road I was going to take. So I decided to go off-roading. 2 The first time I realized there was something seriously wrong with Patrika was the day we registered for the university-wide event planning competition. It was pouring rain that day. A layer of muddy water pooled outside the administration building. Dripping umbrellas left a mess all over the floor. The student council office was packed shoulder-to-shoulder, the printer chugging away in the corner. I was holding my registration form, waiting in line. There were three people ahead of me. Chloe was standing right beside me, holding two cups of hot soy milk. The plastic bag was digging into her fingers, turning her knuckles white. She shoved one cup into my hands. “Drink it fast before it gets cold and tastes weird.” I had barely taken my first sip when a soft, sweet voice drifted through the office door. “Excuse me, I’m here to submit my application for the planning competition.” Patrika walked in, clutching a glossy folder to her chest. She had just transferred to the university a week prior. She smiled at everyone she met, and she always spoke a half-beat slower than normal, as if she was terrified of startling people. The faculty advisor took her application, flipped through a few pages, and his eyes instantly lit up. “This is a fantastic concept. Converting unused campus spaces. It fits perfectly with this year’s theme.” My teeth froze around the plastic straw. Chloe looked at me, her eyes wide. “Wait, isn’t that the exact same topic you chose?” I nodded. Not only was it the same topic, the specific angle was identical. I was planning to propose converting the abandoned bicycle sheds in the North Campus into a late-night study corner. I had literally just talked to Chloe about it in our dorm the night before. Chloe had even teased me, asking why I was neurotic enough to go out and count the exact number of lightbulbs currently in the sheds. Patrika pushed her folder slightly closer to the advisor, her voice sickly sweet. “I went over to the North Campus yesterday and took a look. It’s such a waste to leave those sheds empty. If we turn them into a study corner, students heading back to the dorms late at night could actually use them.” When she finished speaking, she turned her head and looked right at me. It was a split-second glance, so fast that no one else in the room caught it. But I saw the smile hiding in her eyes. It was the look of a spoiled child who had just snatched someone else’s candy—a smug satisfaction she couldn’t completely hide. The advisor didn’t even hesitate. He immediately wrote her name down on the recommendation list. By the time it was my turn to submit my form, the advisor looked troubled. “Roselyn, you and Patrika have the exact same topic. Her materials are a bit more fleshed out. Would you consider switching yours?” I gripped the registration form. The corner of the paper had gotten soaked in the rain, turning mushy beneath my thumb. Chloe was furious. “Professor, Roselyn has been working on this for weeks!” Patrika immediately walked over, lowering her eyelashes in a perfect display of guilt. “I’m so sorry. I honestly had no idea Roselyn was doing the same topic. Should I withdraw my application?” She said the word withdraw, but her arms hugged the folder even tighter against her chest. A dozen pairs of eyes in the office turned to look at us. If I told her to withdraw, I would look petty and jealous. If I didn’t, I would be swallowing a massive loss. I looked down at the form in my hand, folded it neatly in half, and shoved it back into my bag. “No need. You take it.” Patrika let out a very audible sigh of relief. She thought I didn’t notice. The second time was when Ivy Design Studio came to campus recruiting for interns. The founder of Ivy Studio was Jack Vance. I had been following his work obsessively for three years. I knew for a fact that after every campus recruitment seminar, he would stay behind for exactly ten extra minutes, purely to review students’ personal portfolios. The night before the seminar, I stayed up until 3 AM printing and binding my portfolio. The binding wire slipped and sliced my finger open. A tiny drop of blood smeared on the inside of the back cover. The next day, the lecture hall was packed. People were standing in the aisles behind the chairs. The heat from the stage lights made my back sweat. Jack stood on the stage, the sleeves of his black dress shirt rolled up to his elbows. He didn’t use notes when he presented his projects. His finger tapped casually against the laser pointer, his voice low but commanding enough to hold the entire room hostage. I sat in the second row, my portfolio resting on my knees. I had wiped the cover clean three times. The moment the seminar ended, before I could even stand up, Patrika practically sprinted from the back of the room, completely bypassing the aisles, and planted herself directly in front of Jack. “Mr. Vance, I read the case study on your factory revitalization project from last year. I actually did a similar mock-up exercise. Would you mind taking a quick look?” She handed him her portfolio. The cover image was a revitalized factory. Even more coincidentally, her core design philosophy was exactly the same as mine: utilizing natural light zoning instead of hard physical partitions. Jack took the portfolio. When he flipped to the third page, he paused. “You have a very distinct perspective on spatial flow.” Patrika smiled brightly. “I just think that the very first thing a person sees when they step into a space is far more important than how much furniture you manage to cram into it.” That exact sentence was written on the title page of my portfolio. I had never posted it online. I had only read it out loud to Chloe in the privacy of our dorm room. All the color drained from Chloe’s face. She grabbed my wrist, her voice tense. “Is she eavesdropping on us?” I didn’t answer. I just watched Patrika standing in front of Jack. Her back was perfectly straight. Her eyes were burning with an intense, calculated ambition. That wasn’t the look of someone who had just overheard a clever quote in passing. It was the look of someone who knew for an absolute fact that that specific sentence would make Jack stop and pay attention. Jack asked her to leave her email. My ten minutes were gone. That night, I sat at my desk in the dorm, flipping through my portfolio over and over again. The rain outside had finally stopped. Delivery scooters buzzed past the building one after another, their sharp, electronic horns piercing the quiet night. Chloe was lying on my bed, fuming. “Is she psychotic? Once is a coincidence, but twice? And she hits the nail on the head so perfectly both times?” I pressed my thumb against the dried blood stain on the back cover. It’s not a coincidence. It’s because she already knows. But how the hell did she know? The third time was the historic district presentation. Before that presentation, I only did one thing. I sat in my dorm, making sure Chloe was in the room, and I loudly announced that I was definitely moving forward with the historic district topic. I then created an empty file, named it Final Version, and slapped it right in the middle of my desktop where anyone could see it. My actual, brand-new topic was locked in an encrypted folder on my cloud drive. All my interview notes were saved directly to my phone. Chloe asked me, “Are you fishing for her?” I hit save on the empty file and closed my laptop. “Not exactly.” “Then what are you doing?” I looked out the window. The streetlights illuminated the wet pavement, the reflection of the dorm building rippling in the puddles. “I’m waiting to see if she actually takes the bait.” And she did. She took it hook, line, and sinker. 3 After the historic district presentation blew up in her face, Patrika laid low for two days. She stopped trying to talk to me. She dropped the whole friendly, helpful new girl act. But she started watching me a lot more. Waiting in line at the cafeteria, in the stairwell of the library, hovering near the sign-in sheet before lectures—she was constantly lurking just at the edge of my peripheral vision, clutching her phone, the screen lighting up and going dark over and over. Chloe was totally creeped out. “Do you think she knows you’re onto her?” I pushed the green peppers to the side of my lunch tray. “She doesn’t know.” “How can you be so sure?” “If she knew I was onto her, she wouldn’t be staring at me like that.” Chloe didn’t get it. I didn’t bother explaining. A person who survives by stealing the answer key is absolutely terrified when the teacher suddenly changes the test. She wasn’t investigating me. She was desperately trying to figure out if the answers she had memorized were somehow flawed. On Friday afternoon, the department sent out a mass notification. The upcoming university anniversary exhibition needed a team of students to curate the main pavilion. The prize was five thousand dollars, the final project would be featured on the university’s official website, and representatives from Ivy Studio were confirmed to attend. The second the message hit the group chat, my phone started buzzing off the hook. Chloe sent me a screenshot. “Roselyn, you have to apply for this. Jack Vance is going to be there.” I stared at the words Ivy Studio, my finger hovering over the screen. Jack Vance. After the seminar, I honestly thought my shot was completely gone. But as the crowd was clearing out that day, he had walked past me, and suddenly stopped. His eyes had dropped to the portfolio resting on my knees, zeroing in on the tiny, smeared bloodstain on the back cover. “Is that yours?” I nodded. He held out his hand. “May I see it?” Before I could even hand it to him, Patrika shouted from the front of the room. “Mr. Vance! The dean is looking for you!” Jack turned around. My portfolio was left hanging halfway in the air. Then he left. I shoved the portfolio back into my bag. The sharp edge of the paper caught my finger, leaving a paper cut. But now, the opportunity had circled back. I typed out two words: I’m in. Chloe replied instantly: Make sure she doesn’t find out your topic this time. I looked up and saw Patrika standing right in the doorway of the classroom. She clearly heard that. I placed my phone face down on the desk and didn’t bother lowering my voice. “It doesn’t matter if she knows. I’m doing a vintage photo wall. It’s a classic, safe bet.” Patrika’s footsteps halted for half a second. She didn’t walk into the classroom. She turned around and left. Chloe’s eyes widened in horror. “Are you out of your mind?! Why would you tell her?” I pulled out my sketchbook and wrote two words on the very first page. Audio Archive. Chloe stared at the words, and a slow, wicked smile spread across her face. “You are so damn evil.” I clicked the cap back onto my pen. “She loves showing up early to steal the spotlight, doesn’t she? Let her.” The day before the anniversary exhibition applications closed, Patrika submitted her proposal. A Vintage Photo Wall. She threw it together incredibly fast. Too fast for it to be a genuinely original idea she had just brainstormed. People in the student council group chat started showering her with praise. “Patrika’s execution speed is insane.” “The logistics for sourcing the alumni photos in her proposal are so detailed.” “Wait, didn’t Roselyn say she wanted to do a photo wall too?” Patrika sent a cute little emoji into the chat. “I had no idea Roselyn wanted to do the same thing! Should we team up?” Chloe was so furious she practically slammed her phone onto the desk. “She’s pulling the exact same stunt! She either forces you to team up and share the credit, or she makes you look like a jealous bitch if you say no.” I typed a reply in the group chat. “No need. I changed my topic.” The chat went completely silent for a few seconds. Patrika quickly replied, “Isn’t it a bit late to change topics now? Won’t you be rushing?” I typed, “It’s fine.” She replied again, “Let me know if you need any help!” I stared at that line of text and smiled. “Thanks, but I’m good.” On the day of the panel review, the small auditorium was half-full. The hardwood floors gleamed under the lights. The edges of the projector screen were slightly curled, and empty water bottles crowded the corners of the judges’ tables. Patrika went first. She presented the vintage photo wall flawlessly. The photo sourcing process, the timeline, the alumni messages, the interactive photo spots—every single detail was rock solid. As she wrapped up, she looked directly at the judges’ panel. “I hope this wall allows everyone who returns to our campus to see the footprints they left behind.” The room erupted in applause. As she walked off the stage, she passed right by me. Her voice was barely a whisper. “You’re up, Roselyn.” Her tone made it perfectly clear: Let’s see how you scramble your way out of this one. I walked up to the podium holding nothing but a single, black digital recorder. The projector lit up. There were no photos. Just a series of audio waveforms pulsing across the screen. I hit play. The first clip was the cafeteria lady. “I’ve been serving food here for twenty years. Some of these kids come back ten years after they graduate and still call me ‘Auntie.’ They tell me they miss the tomato and egg stir-fry from the second floor.” The second clip was the campus security guard. “There was this one girl studying for her master’s exams. She came to the library at 6 AM every single day. I watched her walk through those doors from the dead of winter all the way through the summer heat. After she passed, she came back and gave me a tin of candies.” The third clip was a retired professor. “A university isn’t made of brick and mortar. It’s the kind of place that, long after a person walks out the gates, they still find themselves wanting to look back.” The auditorium was dead silent. I saw someone on the judges’ panel slowly put their pen down. Jack was sitting in the second row. He was resting his elbow on the armrest, his eyes locked onto the screen. He was wearing a dark grey jacket over a crisp white t-shirt. He was sitting in the shadows, but the light from the projector reflected perfectly in his eyes. I delivered my final line: “Because of this, my pavilion won’t ask people to stand in front of a wall and take pictures. I want them to put on a pair of headphones, and listen to this university speak to them.” The room stayed silent for two full seconds. Then the applause hit like a tidal wave. It was significantly louder than Patrika’s. As I walked down the steps, I saw Patrika sitting in the front row. She was squeezing a plastic water bottle so hard the plastic was caving in. With a sharp crack, the bottle buckled. She looked up at me. That smug, victorious smile she usually wore was completely, entirely gone. 4 I was officially named the lead curator for the anniversary exhibition. The moment the announcement went live, the group chats exploded. “The audio archive idea is actually genius.” “I literally almost cried listening to the cafeteria lady.” “Roselyn absolutely killed it this time.” Patrika didn’t say a word. It took her ten full minutes before she finally sent a message: “Congratulations, Roselyn.” Two words, followed by a little flower emoji. Chloe stared at the emoji and sneered. “Why do I feel like she’s about to pull out a pair of garden shears and snip that flower’s head off?” I locked my phone screen. “Sounds about right.” Sure enough, the very next morning, a post popped up on the university’s anonymous forum. The title read: Rigged Selection? Student Changes Proposal Last Minute and Still Wins First Place. Is the Review Process Actually Fair? The post didn’t explicitly name me, but it laid out my demographic details perfectly. Junior, female, recently changed her topic during a class presentation, known to have had contact with professionals from Ivy Studio. The comments immediately turned toxic. “Wow, changing topics last minute gets you first place? Taking notes.” “Did someone leak the judges’ preferences to her?” “Wasn’t that Jack guy from Ivy Studio on the panel?” Chloe was so furious she was practically vibrating. “I’m reporting this post right now.” I stopped her. “Hold on.” “What are you waiting for? She’s literally throwing dirt on your name!” I took screenshots of the entire thread, making sure to capture the timestamps of every single comment. “I’m waiting for her to double down.” Chloe looked at me, then slowly put her phone down. By the afternoon, the post had blown up. An anonymous user dropped a photo in the thread. It was a picture of me handing my portfolio to Jack at the end of the recruitment seminar. The angle was incredibly malicious. It only captured my outstretched hand and Jack looking down, making it look exactly like we were secretly exchanging something illicit. The caption was a single word: Makes sense. Chloe slammed her hand onto her desk. “That photo could only have been taken by someone who was physically in the room that day. It’s Patrika. It has to be.” I stared at the photo for a few seconds. At the very edge of the frame, caught in the reflection of the glass door, was half of a creamy white sleeve. It was the exact same blouse Patrika was wearing that day. I sent the screenshots directly to the faculty advisor in charge of the student council, and forwarded a copy to Professor Davis. At 7 PM, the department called an emergency meeting. The fluorescent lights in the conference room were blindingly white. A row of paper cups lined the long table, tea leaves floating on the surface of the hot water. The professors, my project team members, and the student council executives were all present. Patrika was sitting directly across from me. Her eyes were red-rimmed. She spoke first. “Professor, I know everyone suspects me, but I swear I didn’t write that post.” Her voice broke, and someone immediately softened. “Patrika’s usually really sweet…” “Yeah, maybe someone else is just jealous of Roselyn.” I didn’t rush to speak. Professor Davis looked at me. “Roselyn, do you have anything to say?” I turned my laptop around and hooked it up to the main display screen. The first slide was the timestamp of the forum post. The second slide was an official request log for the security footage from the student council office. The third slide was the metadata for the anonymous photo that had been uploaded to the forum. I said, “The account that made the post logged in from Computer #3 in the public lab on the ground floor. The time was 12:47 PM.” Patrika’s fingers twitched. I kept going. “At that exact same time, a USB drive was plugged into Computer #3. The volume label on that drive is ‘YQQ’.” Patrika’s initials. Several heads in the room snapped toward Patrika. The color drained from her face. “That doesn’t prove it was me. Anyone can change a volume label.” I nodded. “You’re right. Which is why I requested the security footage from the hallway outside the computer lab.” A video popped up on the screen. Patrika walked into the lab, hugging her laptop bag to her chest. The timestamp read 12:44 PM. She walked out holding a cup of milk tea. The timestamp read 12:52 PM. The only sound in the conference room was the hum of the AC unit. Patrika shot up from her chair so fast it crashed into the wall behind her. “I just went in there to print some documents! I didn’t write that post!” Professor Davis’s face was stone cold. “Sit down.” She didn’t sit. She stared at me, a desperate, cornered fire burning in her eyes. “Roselyn, why are you blowing this wildly out of proportion? Forget the post for a second. Can you look everyone in the eye and explain your private relationship with Mr. Vance?” She finally pulled her knife out. I looked at her, and the lingering annoyance in my chest finally settled into a cold, satisfying focus. Alright. My turn. I clicked play on the next video. It was the security footage from the back of the lecture hall on the day of the recruitment seminar. The camera angle was crystal clear. Jack stepped down from the stage. I stood up with my portfolio. Patrika practically sprinted past me to shove her portfolio into his hands. Then, a professor called Jack away. I never once left the room alone with him. The video kept playing. Patrika stood by the doorway, raised her phone, and snapped a picture of me and Jack. The exact same picture from the forum. Someone in the room gasped loudly. Chloe crossed her arms and sneered. “Does that answer your ‘forget the post for a second’ question?” Patrika opened her mouth, but the words died in her throat. Tears finally spilled over her lashes, hitting the conference table with heavy taps. “I just… I just felt like it was unfair.” Professor Davis pushed his paper cup to the side. Water sloshed over the rim, soaking the meeting minutes. “Feeling something is unfair does not give you the right to fabricate vicious rumors about a classmate.” Patrika lowered her head. Her shoulders shook violently. But I could see her hands hidden under the table. Her fists were clenched so tight her knuckles were bone white. She wasn’t crying because she regretted what she did. She was calculating her next move.
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