After that day, the clock resumed its ticking. The corridors echoed with familiar footsteps, the bells rang with their usual emptiness, and the air carried the same staleness of breathless repetition.
Everything returned to normal — but I had changed.
Or more accurately...
Something inside me had started to die.
Not loudly. Not with grief or noise.
But quietly.
Like frost crawling over a mirror — slow, cold, irreversible.
Even she — the teacher who once sliced through me with ridicule — looked past me now. Not as if I didn't exist, but as if I had become a part of the furniture.
Neutral. Harmless.
Seen but unregistered.
The first term exams arrived.
A ritual soaked in collective fear.
I watched them — my classmates — squirm in their seats, twist their faces into frowns, bite their nails until they bled.
They whispered prayers not to gods, but to answer sheets.
The kind of quiet desperation that made your skin itch just by being near it.
And me?
I just... wrote.
Not with certainty.
Not with hope.
Just with silence.
I had stopped expecting anything.
From teachers. From classmates.
Even from myself.
Then the results were posted.
Rank 15.
My name — up there.
Visible.
Undeniable.
Exposed.
That was when the staring began.
Not admiration.
Not curiosity.
Contempt.
As if I'd stolen something.
As if by daring to rise from where they had placed me, I had broken some ancient law.
She entered — the teacher — carrying her usual coldness like perfume.
I waited for her to say something. Anything.
But she passed by.
No scolding.
No sarcasm.
Just silence.
I thought maybe, for once, I was safe.
Then the loudspeaker crackled.
My name spilled from it like blood from an open throat.
"Report to the staff room."
I turned to her.
She covered her mouth with her hand, pretending to yawn.
But her eyes — her eyes were laughing.
Not joyfully.
Not cruelly.
But knowingly.
As if she had written the next page already.
I entered the staff room.
They were waiting.
Teachers — wolves in cotton.
Smiling without warmth.
Surrounding me without touching.
The questions came fast, but not searching.
They were declarations dressed as doubt.
"How did you get this rank?"
"Who helped you?"
"Did you cheat?"
They weren't asking.
They were accusing.
And worse — they weren't even interested in the truth.
I opened my mouth.
They closed it with theirs.
Voices layered on top of mine until mine disappeared entirely.
And I understood something terrifying:
They would not release me until I gave them the lie they had already decided was true.
So I let my shoulders fall.
I made my breath tremble.
I shaped my voice into something weak and breakable.
And I said:
"Maybe... maybe it was just luck."
A pause.
Then nods.
Smiles.
Agreement.
Permission to end the performance.
They let me go.
I returned to my desk in silence.
My classmates avoided my eyes.
The walls felt smaller.
My own skin — heavier.
And inside me, something shifted.
Not a snap.
Not a scream.
Just a quiet movement — like something sliding deeper underground.
After lunch, she came to me.
The girl from across the room.
Not with warmth. Not with malice.
Just an offer:
"Come sit with us."
Us — the group of the polished, the powerful, the perfectly protected.
They were the children of families with names that opened doors before their voices did.
The ones who never asked for space — they simply assumed it was theirs.
They smiled in public.
Spoke softly.
But always, always watched.
Waiting.
Measuring.
Plotting.
Their kindness was not an embrace.
It was a net.
And I walked into it.
But not as myself.
I wouldn't make that mistake again.
I built a new mask —
One of hesitation, humility, and harmlessness.
A face that said, I belong to you now.
A face they could trust…
Because it looked too fragile to ever betray them.
And so, I wore my fifth face.
The Manipulated Face.
But deep beneath that soft exterior, something else was growing.
Not rage.
Not vengeance.
Just... clarity.
Cold, crystalline clarity.
That this world didn't want me to speak — only to reflect its image.
And so, I would.
Perfectly.
Until the day I became the mirror they couldn't look away from.