The night before the entrance exams, my childhood best friend, Tyson Sutherland, receives a text message from his girlfriend, Isabelle Landon, saying she was attempting suicide by jumping off a building.

He immediately gets anxious and brings along a few male classmates with him to go and save her.

In my past life, I learned that it was fake, and that Isabelle never planned to kill herself.

That was why I was against them going to save her.

I called up my teacher, Mr. Fred Nielson, and asked him to inform the boys' parents, successfully stopping them from going.

…

The next day, everyone sat for their entrance exams as usual, and we all got accepted into Rayward University, one of the most prestigious universities in the country.

Meanwhile, Isabelle survived the jump somehow, but she became a cripple.

As revenge, Tyson hacked off my arms and legs and buried me alive.

"It's all your fault! You were the one who turned Belle into a cripple! I'm going to kill you!"

All my classmates did nothing as they watched him kill me under their watchful eyes. They all told me that I deserved to be killed.

…

When I open my eyes again, I realize that I have returned to the night when Tyson tells me he wants to save Isabella.

I don't stop him or the others from going anymore.

Instead, I sit for the entrance exams alone. I refuse to interfere in other people's fates again.

"Tell me, Alicia Rosewood. Have you seen Belle?"

I looked at Tyson Sutherland, standing in front of me with large beads of sweat on his forehead, staring for a long while before I suddenly snapped back to the present.

I had been given another chance at life.

In my past life, I knew that Isabelle Landon, his girlfriend, hadn't really planned on killing herself. She just wanted to prove to me that Tyson cared a lot about her, more than he did for the entrance exams, and that he would give up the entrance exams in a heartbeat just to rescue her.

That was the main reason she faked her suicide attempt.

And that was also why I had done everything I could to stop them from going out to find her.

However, I never thought that my payback in kind would be to die a cruel, hideous death.

This time, I looked at Tyson and the rest of the male classmates behind him in an unusually calm manner.

"I've not seen Isabelle."

Tyson's brows were tightly knit together. "She texted me saying she wanted to jump off a building. We need to find her immediately."

I nodded. "Okay. Go ahead."

This time, I wasn't going to meddle in his fate anymore. He could jolly well ruin his own future, for all I cared.

Just as I was about to shut the door in his face, he grabbed my hand and said, "Come with us. We'll look for her together."

I brushed his hand away and said, "I'm not going with you. The entrance exams are tomorrow. I still want to get in some last-minute revision."

Tyson was displeased. "We're going to find Belle now. Saving her won't affect sitting for the entrance exams tomorrow.

"Moreover, we're the top-scoring students in our year. What's the point of revising more? Just arrive at the examination venue tomorrow on time and we'll all get high scores as usual!"

I shook my head and said, "I said, I'm not going. But you can go if you want to."

Tyson got mad. He yelled, "Belle has always treated you as her friend. How could you just not care about her now? So what if the entrance exams are tomorrow? Are you saying that Belle's life is less important than the entrance exams?"

The other classmates also chimed in along with him, voicing their anger.

"That's right! Saving a person's life is more important than trying to prove you're smart. How could you just sit there and feel nothing when Belle's trying to take her own life?"

"You're such a cold-blooded person, Alicia. Belle used to be your classmate too! How did you turn out to be like this?"

"Hmph! Alicia's just jealous that Isabelle's a lot prettier than she is."

I glanced at the other classmates behind Tyson. They were all Isabelle's biggest fans and loved her. They knew that she already had a boyfriend, but they didn't care and continued wagging their tails like pleased puppies after her.

Before Isabelle dropped out of high school, she was well known as a huge troublemaker at school. She smoked, got into street fights, and drank alcohol underage. There wasn't anything terrible that she hadn't done.

A while later, she sent the whole campus into shock when she and Tyson announced that they'd gotten together officially. After all, Tyson was one of the best students in class and often got branded as the school's pride and glory for being the top student.

Tyson grabbed my hand again and said, "Belle said in her text message that she wanted to see you for the final time. You're coming with us whether you like it or not!"

With that, he began dragging me out of the door.

I panicked and grabbed hold of the doorframe with my other hand, refusing to let go.

Isabelle was just pretending to disappear on purpose. She wouldn't ever allow herself to be found that easily.

If I went with them, I knew that I wouldn't be able to make it in time for the entrance exams tomorrow!

"I'm not going!" I yelled. "Let go of me!"

"Alicia! You're coming with us even if I have to drag you there myself!"

Tyson didn't care about my protests and forcefully dragged me off with him.

My other classmates also came up to me and pulled me along.

"Belle's about to die, and you're still in the mood for studying?"

"The entrance exams aren't as important as Belle's life!"

"If anything happens to Belle, I don't even want to live my life anymore, let alone sit for the entrance exams!"

Mom and Dad were working overtime at the office, and there was nobody else at home. My neighbors never came out to check on the commotion either.

With the bunch of boys pushing and pulling me along, I nearly tripped and fell.

"I really don't know where Isabelle is! There's no point for you to drag me along!"

Tyson didn't believe me. "You definitely know where she's at! You'd better come with us to look for her!"

Thinking about the bloody scene that happened the last time I protested in my previous life, I immediately said, "If you keep doing this, I'm going to call the police!"

Just as I took out my phone, Tyson snatched it from my hands. He then glared at me and yelled, "What are you calling the police for? All that studying has obviously made you go crazy!

"I'll only give this back to you after we've found Belle!"

The gang of boys then forcefully dragged me along to look for Isabelle everywhere. However, we spent the entire night looking, and we still couldn't find a trace of her.

At that moment, Tyson's phone buzzed for a while. He looked at it and suddenly yelled, "Belle is in the mountains! We'd better hurry there and save her!"

Isabelle had sent Tyson a photo in the mountains.

When I heard that they were going into the mountains to look for her, I began struggling even harder. However, Tyson still grabbed tightly onto my arm and refused to let go of me.

I was forcibly taken into the mountains as well.

When we were halfway up the mountain, everyone started complaining that it was too tiring and voted to rest for a while before continuing uphill.

It was a hot evening to start with, and I was completely covered in a layer of sweat.

Suddenly, my phone rang loudly.

I reached my hand out to Tyson. "That's my mom. Give me back my phone."

Tyson's eyes grew steely as he flung my phone onto the ground in rage.

"Alicia Rosewood, don't even think about getting your mom to bring you back. I'm telling you, I'll never let you return without finding Belle!"

I stared at the shattered screen of my phone lying on the ground and felt my heart sink.

I'd been studying so hard for years, especially in my senior year, because I wanted to ace my entrance exams and pass with flying colors.

Mom and Dad worked hard all day and night to earn enough money to send me to a decent high school. They worked so much that the hair on their heads was beginning to turn gray. All they wanted was for me to do well in my examinations and make them proud.

I had to go and sit for my entrance exams tomorrow, by hook or by crook. Nothing was going to stop me.

I refused to let Tyson ruin my life again. I had to find a way to get off this mountain!

As the thought crossed my mind, I pushed Tyson away with all my might and said, "I'm going back down!"

"No way. We'll only let you go back down after we've found Belle."

Just as soon as he was done speaking, the sky turned dark as ominous clouds gathered overhead. It looked like there was going to be a storm coming.

A few classmates were starting to chicken out when they saw the overcast clouds.

"Maybe we should stop looking for Belle. The weather doesn't look so good. What if it starts to rain?"

"That's right. The roads are going to be very slippery, and it'll be hard to get back down the mountain. It would be bad if we miss the exams tomorrow."

"Mom just sent me a text. She asked me where I was and told me to come home earlier to bed. Maybe we should just go back home."

Tyson glared at me and told everyone else, "What are you all getting anxious about? We usually score the highest marks of our year in mock tests anyway. We're all top-performing students at school. Even if we're late for the exams, the teacher's still going to have to let us in no matter what."

I wanted to call him a moron for that.

The entrance exams were so much more different than the mock tests we sat for in school. And even if they were indeed the best students in school, they still wouldn't be treated any differently from the others come examination time.

However, the rest of the classmates believed him and nodded.

"He's right. Tyson's the best student in the entire school. Even if we're late, the teachers will still have to let us in because of him!"

"We're top students ourselves too! The entrance exams will have to wait for everyone to arrive before starting anyway!"

"We're saving someone's life today. The school's even going to brand us heroes when they learn about it. What are we afraid of?"

I had just thought about warning them that the entrance exams weren't something to be messed with, but I immediately recalled how Tyson chopped off my limbs and buried me alive in my past life, and how the other boys just stood around watching me with cold, deserving eyes.

None of them offered to help me. In fact, they even told me that I deserved everything that was happening to me, and that killing me was letting me off easy for the gravity of my sins.

Even when the police investigated my death afterward, they all rallied behind Tyson and gave him fake alibis, confirming that he wasn't at the scene of the crime at that time.

They allowed him to get away with murder, literally.

And that made me turn in my grave even after my death, because I simply could not rest in peace.

The more I thought about it, the more it hurt.

When I realized that Tyson was about to forcibly pull me up into the mountains again, I shook his hand off forcefully and took a few steps back. Then, I grabbed a random shard of glass lying on the ground and held it against my neck.

"Tyson Sutherland! If you still refuse to let me go back, I'm going to kill myself now!"

Tyson was stunned when he saw that I was pressing the glass shard against my neck, and a few red drops of blood had appeared on my skin.

The other classmates also stared at me in shock for a while. However, they soon began to laugh at me mockingly.

"You're such a drama queen."

"We're just asking you to save Belle with me. Must you really do this to yourself?"

"What else is there in that brain of yours besides the entrance exams, huh? So, other people's lives don't even matter to you at all? Where's your conscience?"

"It's only going to take another hour to reach the top of the mountain. We'll just save Belle and then go back down to sit for the entrance exams. There's more than enough time in the world for that."

They were all just too naive for their own good. If a rainstorm blew up, the roads were going to be dangerously slippery, and it would take more than an hour to reach the top. Also, it would be even more dangerous to descend the mountains in a storm.

And to top it all off, the roads into the city where our school was located were always full of traffic in the morning. There was no way we would be able to make it back in time for the exams.

I looked at Tyson and asked, "Are you letting me go back or not?"

Tyson came back to his senses and looked at me in disgust.

"I never thought you were this kind of person, Alicia Rosewood. Don't even call yourself my classmate anymore. You disgust me."

He was so emotionally-driven that he even spat at me in disgust.

I tried but didn't manage to duck in time. I frowned as I wiped it from my clothes.

The other classmates began throwing stones and rocks at me.

"You're such an evil, disgusting human! So what if you get into Rayward University? You're a disgrace to the human race!"

The stones and rocks cut me on the face, and I bled a little. However, I wasn't angry. I just pulled my lips in a thin line and chuckled coldly internally.

Just wait until I have entered Rayward University! We'd see who would have the last laugh then.

"I don't care if you don't want to sit for the entrance exams, but I do, and I must!"

Tyson marched up to me and shoved me hard backward in anger.

"Then, get away of here!"

He shoved me quite hard, and I immediately lost my balance and stumbled backward until I rolled off the mountain path.

I screamed in fright as my body continued rolling down the hill. Just as I thought I was about to fall off a cliff to my inherent death, I was suddenly saved when I felt my waist getting caught against a tree.

I frantically grabbed at the tree branches as my lower body dangled mid-air off the cliff.

Tyson had smashed my phone up, and I couldn't call anyone. I certainly had no way of contacting Mom or Dad to come and save me.

I looked down at my feet and saw an endless black space beneath my feet. I was so frightened that I began to shake.

Suddenly, a thunderstorm blew up.

I was drenched from head to toe. After struggling for the better half of the night, I was already exhausted to my bones, and my arms wouldn't stop shaking as I clutched at the tree branches harder. I didn't know how much longer I could last like this.

Was I going to end up dying here?

No way! I couldn't die just yet!

I gritted my teeth and forced myself to hold on.

Time ticked by slowly, and I felt myself falling into despair again. Maybe this was where I met my demise.

Suddenly, I heard someone shouting my name from above my head.

"Ally! Ally, where are you?"

It was Mom and Dad!

I was very pleasantly surprised and immediately yelled back, "Mom! Dad! I'm here!"

"That's Ally! Quick, save her! Bring her back up!"

I looked up and saw Mom and Dad above me through the sheeting rain. Dad grabbed a long rope from his backpack and threw it down at me.

I grabbed the other end of the rope as Mom and Dad used up all their strength to pull me up to safety.

Although I was covered in cuts, bruises, and scrapes, I didn't dare to rest for another second. Instead, I followed Mom and Dad and raced down the mountain as quickly as I could.

After getting into the car, I accepted the towel and school bag Mom handed to me and started telling them everything that had happened as I dried myself.

Realization dawned on Mom just then.

"No wonder! Tyson's parents, Dylan and Maggie, nearly went crazy trying to find him! Your other classmates' parents were also in a frenzy trying to locate them. They called us, wanting to ask you if you'd seen them anywhere."

In the meantime, Mom's phone began to buzz. It was a call from our teacher, Mr. Fred Nielson.

I answered the call. "Mr. Nielsen? I'm on my way to school now."

Mr. Nielsen sounded relieved with a flurry of "Okay". Then, he asked, "By the way, have you seen Tyson or the other boys?"

"Tyson brought a few classmates into the mountains to hunt for Isabelle. I think they're still there and haven't come down yet."

Mr. Nielson sounded like he was about to pass out. "The entrance exams are starting soon! How could they still think about going up the mountain in the middle of the night? This is ridiculous!"

He then quickly informed the rest of the missing classmates' parents to go and look for their children in the mountains.

I didn't bother saying anything else.

After all, Tyson and the rest of them wouldn't make it in time for the entrance exams anymore.

There would be plenty of time for them to regret their decisions later on.

Dad drove like a madman. He sped all the way into the city. Even I felt my heart leaping into my throat when I saw how bad the traffic was that morning. I was so scared of being late for the exams and getting turned away at the gate.

Luckily, I arrived just in the nick of time, with barely two minutes to spare.

It wasn't until I was finally sitting in my designated examination seat that I finally heaved a huge sigh of relief.

The morning paper went by smoothly and uneventfully.

After lunch, I was just about to try and sneak in another revision session before my next paper when I heard loud, angry voices at the school gate.

I walked over and saw plenty of people crowding around the entrance. There were many onlookers too.

Tyson and the other classmates were all covered in mud, standing in the center of the hullabaloo. They looked a sorry sight. They had all probably just managed to descend the mountain a short while ago.

They were all shouting angrily at the security guard at the gates.

"You're just a guard! What right do you have to stop us from going in? Don't you know that we're this school's top-performing students?

"We didn't mean to be late on purpose! We just went to rescue someone. Hurry up and let us in! We need to make up for a paper this morning!"