Chapter 1
When I jumped from the sixth floor of the humanities building, people below were laughing.
Phones were out, recording. People were yelling.
"Jump already!"
"If she actually jumps, I'll clap!"
As the wind rushed into my ears, a mechanical chime echoed in my head.
[Collective malice threshold reached.]
[Death's reflection curse successfully bound.]
[Rule activated: Those who applaud your death will share your fate.]
I closed my eyes.
I stood on the roof, the wind whipping my school blazer around me.
A crowd had gathered below. Some craned their necks to watch, some held up their phones to record, and others were literally yawning.
"Is she really gonna do it?"
"She's faking. She doesn't have the guts."
"Come on, jump! I'll clap!"
I stared down at them.
Connor Bradley, my homeroom teacher, hung back behind the crowd.
He kept his distance, frowning with a completely blank expression. "She has severe emotional issues. The school has done everything it can."
The students watched and laughed, like they were waiting for a movie to start.
Not a single person asked why I was up there.
Nobody cared to remember the locker room theft from two weeks ago, when someone deliberately threw my wallet into the boys' bathroom.
Nobody cared about the group chat rumors claiming I tried to hook up with the math teacher, or who started them.
All they remembered was that I got quiet. I stopped talking to people. I stopped showing up to club meetings.
So they whispered, "She's such a freak."
"Total psycho."
"I wish she'd just jump so we can go get lunch."
I gripped the cold metal railing. Six stories up. It probably wouldn't hurt for long.
Still, my legs shook, and sweat dripped down my neck.
My mind went completely blank. All I felt was relief that I wouldn't have to listen to their fake concern anymore.
"You're too sensitive."
"Stop making a big deal out of nothing."
"He's only yelling at you to push you to do better."
The wind picked up. I closed my eyes and stepped off the ledge.
A guy below suddenly yelled, "She's moving!"
The crowd went wild. People started clapping, and someone screamed in excitement, "Jump!"
A faint electronic beep chimed in my ear.
It wasn't ringing. It sounded like a mechanical system prompt.
[Collective malice critical mass achieved.]
[Target identified: Jenna Will.]
[Binding sequence initiating...]
The next second, there was nothing beneath my feet.
The rushing wind drowned out every other sound.
I felt like I was plunging into a bottomless pit, the entire campus rushing up to meet me.
The voice continued.
[Congratulations to the host for completing the death sacrifice.]
[Curse binding successfully initiated.]
[Behavioral records of all bystanders locked.]
I snapped my eyes open, catching one last glimpse of the crowd staring up at me.
"She actually jumped?" a student gasped.
"Holy crap, I was the first one to clap!"
*****
After lunch that day, Marcus Delaney was still forwarding the video of my fall in the class group chat.
He commented on it. [Perfect forty-five-degree angle drop. Someone needs to put a trending TikTok sound over this.]
He filmed it himself. He was also the first to clap.
Nobody thought there was anything wrong with that.
He was the popular guy in our grade, after all. He played varsity basketball, he was funny, his grades were decent, and teachers just saw him as a harmless prankster.
The curse took hold the very next afternoon.
Gym class had just ended, and everyone was hanging out by the bleachers.
Marcus was just standing there when he suddenly pitched forward, tumbling right off the high jump mat with a heavy thud.
He sprawled on the dirt and puked everywhere.
"Dude, you good? Low blood sugar?" His friends rushed over.
He looked up, pale as a ghost, his voice shaking. "I... I was just standing here. And suddenly it felt like the ground vanished."
No one really cared.
But by the third day, he couldn't get out of bed.
He threw up everything he ate. Every time he slept, he dreamed he was standing on the edge of a railing with one foot in thin air, a cheering crowd waiting below.
"I saw her," Marcus whispered to his roommate in the middle of the night. "She was standing on the roof, looking at me. She said, 'You were the first one to raise your hands.'"
His roommate was so freaked out he called his parents to pick him up immediately.
The doctors couldn't find anything physically wrong with him. The school counselor said it was just psychological projection from trauma.
Only Marcus knew the truth. The soles of his feet were constantly shaking, and walking felt like stepping on quicksand.
On the fourth day, his Instagram account was inexplicably banned for malicious distribution of self-harm content.
On the fifth day, an announcement popped up in the class chat.
[Due to health reasons, Marcus is taking a leave of absence.]
But I knew better.
He wasn't sick.