Out of nowhere, some self-proclaimed "Judge" popped up on the national college forums, vowing to expose the true colors of every popular, high-achieving student on campus. For the past three months, student representatives from the top Ivy-tier universities had been falling from grace one by one. They were outed for bullying, cheating, and cheating on their partners. Their scholarships were entirely revoked. One girl from a low-income family even buckled under the immense psychological pressure and jumped from an eighth-floor dorm window. Overnight, paranoia gripped universities across the country. The very next day, right before my mandatory major seminar began, a tall girl with sharply stunning features walked into our lecture hall. Her eyes scanned the room, lingering for two seconds on Noah, my childhood best friend and the undisputed campus heartthrob. Then, her gaze locked dead onto me, the girl sitting comfortably in the top one percent of the grading curve. "Hey everyone. From this moment on, I will be using the utmost fairness to expose those who do not deserve their pedestals." 1 When The Judge first surfaced on the forums, everyone treated it like a joke. "What kind of edgy Judge is this? What a clown." "Just some clout chaser desperate for attention." That was until the student icons of the top three universities were completely wiped out over the span of three months. No one was spared. The prodigy of Alden University, a future star in the physics world, was outed for having zero basic life skills. The Judge claimed she relied entirely on her boyfriend to spoon-feed her and manage her life. The genius fell from grace overnight. The Student Body President at Bancroft College was exposed for abusing her power and facilitating campus bullying. By the next morning, she was impeached, and her mugshots were plastered all over the internet. Then came Laura, the stunning but impoverished sweetheart of Camden University. She was once the literal poster girl for the school's social media admissions campaign. The Judge accused her of two-timing multiple guys and having an inappropriate relationship with a professor. As soon as the scandal gained traction, Camden University scrambled to save its reputation. They instantly revoked three years' worth of Laura's scholarships and suspended the professor in question. Outside the college forums, the internet trolls absolutely worshipped this anonymous vigilante. "Full support for judging all these fake elitists! Hell yeah!" "This is so satisfying to watch. I've always hated these snobby college kids. Why should they get all the societal perks? They're the reason class inequality exists!" Inside the national college forums, however, the atmosphere grew increasingly suffocating. No one knew if they were going to be next. "Our school, Dalton University, is ranked fourth nationally. You don't think the next target is..." As I walked across campus, I could feel several pairs of eyes subtly darting in my direction. "You mean Amanda?" "It has to be. She takes the national valedictorian scholarship every single year, and she's the President of the Student Coalition. That creep definitely has eyes on her." "Man, I feel bad for Amanda. She's actually really nice." "Yeah, well, people said Laura was nice too. Look what happened after all her dirty laundry got aired out. She took her own life. People have multiple faces." Noah glanced at my expression, his jaw tight. "I heard this psychopath usually starts digging by questioning the people closest to the target. If she comes to me, I'm going to absolutely tear that clown apart." I pulled my gaze away from the whispering crowd and smiled. "You don't need to do that. Whatever she asks, just tell her the truth." Honestly, I was more worried she wouldn't be able to dig up anything at all. On the second day after Harper transferred to our school, I had my English public speaking competition. I was on stage, delivering my speech with perfect flow, when the background music suddenly cut off. A figure stormed onto the stage and snatched the microphone right from my stand. "I am reporting contestant number three, Amanda, for plagiarizing someone else's transcript! She is violating the rules of this competition!" 2 The faces of the ten judges in the front row dropped instantly. Harper looked at me, raising an eyebrow. Her smile was laced with pure provocation. "I demand a secondary review of her manuscript. We absolutely cannot cover up this kind of blatant cheating!" The faculty member in charge of script vetting shot up from his seat. "That is impossible. All contestant scripts undergo a rigorous screening process." "Miss, I know you feel a strong sense of justice, but you cannot just throw baseless slander around!" Harper clearly hadn't expected a professor to stand up and challenge her. Her face darkened, the hostility in her eyes thickening. She let out a cold scoff and muttered under her breath. "You're all rotten to the core." I stood on the stage, completely silent. I just watched quietly as she manipulated the LED screen behind me, displaying my exact transcript. She pointed out which sentence came from where, how I had heavily spun the text, spinning a wildly convincing narrative. She was smart. Speech script paraphrasing has always been a gray area. The themes are practically identical, and the sentiments are universal. If you force two speeches side by side, you can always find a couple of sentences that mean the exact same thing. The school rules dictated that if plagiarism was confirmed, the student would be permanently banned from competing. If it was only suspected, the student would be temporarily disqualified and could only try again the following year. But I needed to win this exact competition to apply for my study abroad program before this year's deadline. And this exchange program was my one and only shot, an opportunity I had secured after sending countless emails back and forth with a foreign mentor. When Harper finished her presentation, the judges in the audience exchanged nervous glances, their faces twisting in visible dilemma. They knew me well. They knew my actual capabilities. But they also knew that if they openly trusted me right now, Harper would very likely drag them down into the mud too. That was exactly how Laura's professor had been "judged." "Amanda, maybe we should..." "I understand." I gave a blank, emotionless bow and walked straight out of the auditorium. 3 Threads about me flooded the forums almost immediately. But the comment sections were dead, eerily quiet. Other than Harper, no one dared to speak up. It had been this way for a while now. Whenever the last victim was being judged, anyone who spoke up in her defense was instantly branded as an accomplice and canceled just as hard. A thick fog of tension and terror blanketed the campus. The speech competition was just her warning shot. It wasn't anywhere near the intensity of her previous purges. For the next few days, I lived like a criminal under 24/7 surveillance. Harper's eyes were everywhere. In the lecture halls, the dining hall, the dorm corridors. When eating at the dining hall, Noah and I always had a habit of sitting at the second table by the window. The moment we sat down, Harper materialized right next to me. "Amanda, I noticed you sit here every single day. The dining hall has open seating, yet when it's packed, no one else dares to take this spot." "Are you leveraging your title as Student Coalition President and class rep to exercise special privileges?" I glanced over my shoulder. There were massive patches of empty seats all over the cafeteria. Before I could even open my mouth, Noah snapped back. "Where we sit is none of your damn business. Do you really have nothing better to do?" She glared at Noah, looking genuinely offended. "Noah, I am warning you for your own good. Stay away from her, so you don't get dragged down when she eventually crashes and burns!" Noah let out a harsh laugh. "Who the hell are you?" A flicker of genuine hurt crossed Harper's face, quickly replaced by a look of bone-deep hatred aimed right at me. She spun around and stormed off. The very next day, the seats I usually occupied were coated in industrial rubber cement that couldn't be scrubbed off. Then came the annual need-based financial aid review. As usual, the academic advisor assigned me to be the head of the review committee. Harper immediately stood up and loudly objected in front of everyone. "Why is Amanda the default head of this committee? I did my research. She has led the financial aid review every single year, and every single year, the grant goes to Sarah. I have every reason to suspect this committee is completely rigged!" The advisor gave her a tired look, sighing in defeat. "Fine. You can join the review board too." But during this year's review, Sarah's application was missing a crucial document. The student who suddenly looked best on paper was Brad, a guy whose family was actually doing quite well. I received a text from Sarah. "Amanda, I was too embarrassed to hand in my paperwork back then. You only made me apply because you found out how bad things were at home." "Thank you for taking care of me these past three years. But please, don't give me the grant this year. I don't want to drag you down." My heart ached. I gritted my teeth and turned to the committee. "Sometimes the faculty has leftover, unused grant slots. Why don't we try applying for one of those on Sarah's behalf?" "Absolutely not!" Before anyone else could speak, Harper spearheaded the opposition. "Sarah couldn't even put a complete file together, and you claim you aren't playing favorites? I knew these past few years of grants were dirty. Tell us, Amanda, how much of a kickback have you been taking from Sarah's money?" When she sabotaged my competition, I barely felt a thing. But this was about whether a genuinely impoverished student could get the help she desperately needed to survive. I absolutely refused to let her ruin this! Suppressing my fury, I fired back. "I am simply applying for an unused surplus slot. We aren't taking money away from anyone else. Why shouldn't we try?" Harper sneered. "Look at you. You top-tier students always think you're the ones following the rules. But the second it touches your own interests, the rules mean absolutely nothing to you!" "You're all just a bunch of rotting hypocrites." I stared at her, my eyes entirely dead. I picked up my pen and, completely ignoring her protests, wrote Sarah's name onto the application form. The day the financial aid results were posted, I went viral. Dozens of clickbait accounts plastered my face across social media. [Dalton U's Amanda: Where is the federal financial aid really going?] [The God of Justice challenges the campus elite! I'm voting for the grassroots Judge!] [Campus is a mini-society, and Amanda thinks she's a dictator.] Every time I opened an app, I saw heavily edited, meme-ified videos of my argument with Harper captured by the CCTV cameras. I had officially become the new target of the purge. 4 The reason I'm only bringing this up now is that in the previous three purges, the real trial didn't start when Harper physically walked onto campus. It started the moment she weaponized the internet to hold her kangaroo court. Social dynamics are a web, and the internet is the thickest, most suffocating spiderweb in existence. The moment a flawed person is thrown into it, the threads quickly wrap around them until they choke. Harper's only job was to point out the very first flaw. Soon enough, my entire life was dug up by the masses. Everything about me was slapped with a massive question mark. How did I even get into Dalton? How did I become the Student Coalition President? What dirty tricks was I using to win all those competitions? Seeing the wild speculation and disgusting rumors, Noah was furious enough to go hunt Harper down. I reached out and gently held him back. "The favor I asked you to do. How is it going?" He nodded sharply. "I should have the results by today." I exhaled in relief. Good. Time was running out. But I hadn't expected Harper to strike even faster than I calculated. Monday was the general election assembly for the entire Student Body and Coalition. The auditorium was packed with judging faculty and students running for office. I pulled up my slides and began my reelection pitch for Coalition President. "In the coming year, I will continue to work tirelessly to serve all of you. I hope I can count on your vote!" The professors in the front row nodded in satisfaction, but their expressions suddenly shifted as they looked past me. I turned my head. Harper was standing at the entrance. She walked slowly up to the podium, shoved me aside, yanked my flash drive out of the computer, and jammed hers in. One of the professors frowned deeply. "Miss, if you are planning to run for a position, please wait for your turn." Harper shot her a look and rolled her eyes dramatically. "I couldn't care less about your little elections. Do you really think everyone wants to kiss up to your bureaucratic nonsense?" Hearing such blunt disrespect, several professors scowled. The Dean of the college, sitting dead center in the front row, watched quietly and said nothing. Harper opened a folder full of screenshots, set up her phone on a tripod, aimed the camera right at my face, and started a live stream of her purge. Then, she spoke, her voice ringing with absolute certainty. "I believe Amanda is entirely unfit to continue serving as Student Coalition President." "Furthermore, she is unfit to even be a student at Dalton University!"
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