I studied the corners of the cage carefully, shaking it over and over until I found one loose metal bar.

I pulled out a shard from my broken laptop and started grinding it against that spot again and again.

A shadow suddenly fell over me.

Hope surged, and I looked up fast, only to see a skinny, bony stray cat. I reached out, trying to pet it, but it bared its teeth and hissed.

I let out a quiet sigh and murmured to myself, "My classmates were scared I'd ruin their rafting trip, so they locked me in here. My phone doesn't have any signal. I can't reach my parents. You're my only shot. If you could find a cop…"

My voice trailed off. I sat back down and kept sawing at the bar.

Blood slid down the metal, dripping slowly onto the ground.

The cat in front of me gradually relaxed, its guard lowering as it let out a soft meow.

I quickly poured some water into my palm and held it out carefully. It hesitated for a second, then lapped it all up.

Looking into its bright eyes, I pulled out a few bills, wrote SOS on them, and tucked them into its worn collar.

"Hey, little guy, remember how to get back here. Find someone to help me, okay? I'll convince my parents to take you in."

It let out a small cry, then darted off.

Three hours passed before I finally managed to cut through that loose bar. I gripped the empty bottle in my hand, tears spilling uncontrollably.

Mom, Dad… Even after getting a second chance, I still couldn't save myself.

The application deadline was getting close, and I still couldn't even get out of this rusted cage.

The air around me warped in the heat. The scorching temperature baked me until my consciousness started slipping away.

Something rough brushed against my eyes again and again. I instinctively reached up and grabbed at it.

When I slowly opened my eyes, I realized it was the same cat I had trusted with that huge task earlier.

"She's awake. Good thing we got here in time, or she could've died from heatstroke!"

Someone gently lifted me out of the cage.

"What happened here? How did a kid end up locked in a place like this?"

The sound of police sirens filled my ears, and everything went dark again.

My father rushed to my bedside, his voice tight with panic.

"Katrina, the moment I got the call from the police, I came straight here. Where's Terry? Didn't he promise me he'd look out for you?"

As I thought back to what happened this morning, tears slipped down my face before I could stop them.

I saw the exhaustion in my father's eyes and shook my head.

"Dad, I'm fine. Just…give me my laptop. I haven't finished my applications yet."

I couldn't trust Terry. I was scared he had already picked the worst possible colleges for me.

As soon as I got the laptop, my hands trembled while I logged into the application site and changed everything back to the ones I actually wanted.

Terry had probably forgotten those promises he once made to me a long time ago.

I had just handed the laptop back when I saw my father holding up his phone.

"How would Katrina know where the others are? What rafting livestream? I'm heading over right now!"

My face went pale. "Dad, don't go. My stomach hurts."

He immediately sat back down beside me and poured me some water.

If those ungrateful classmates twisted the story like last time, saying I tricked them into going, their parents would tear my father apart.

This time, I wasn't getting involved, no matter what happened to them.

I grabbed my phone and quickly searched for my classmates' livestream.

On the screen, Hayley was holding her phone up, laughing as she floated down a wild river with Terry and the others, all of them lounging in inflatable tubes.

Our homeroom teacher, Megan Reed, had already found the stream and was flooding the comments.

[There's only half an hour left to submit your applications. Why aren't you all filling them out yet?]

The moment Hayley saw that, she clutched her stomach and stood up.

She rushed back to the bus, pulled her laptop from the overhead compartment, and filled out her applications as fast as she could.

Seeing that, Megan immediately called Terry.

"How many times have I said this? Applications have to be submitted on time. And all of you ran off to a dangerous place like that? You're the top class! Every move you make affects the teachers' futures. Are you trying to drag the whole school down with you?"

Viewers who stumbled into the stream started spamming the comments.

[There's zero safety out there. Who's responsible if something happens?]

[These parents are way too relaxed. I can't believe they'd let their kids go somewhere like that!]

[These straight-A kids have guts. That branch just missed that boy's head by a few feet.]

Even Megan, who usually favored Terry, sounded shaken now.

"There are only ten minutes left. You're our school's best shot at sending someone to a top-tier college."

Right then, a scream exploded from Hayley's livestream.

Several tubes had been ripped open by sharp rocks in the river, and a few students dropped straight into the water.

On the other side, a group messing around with water guns suddenly started arguing.

One smaller student got pinned down and blasted in the face with water for a full five minutes. He covered his eyes, thrashing wildly, knocking others off their tubes and into the river.

When he finally went under, blood began spreading from beneath him.

The once carefree group panicked. Everything spiraled into chaos. Then the sound of an ambulance siren cut through the noise, and the livestream was abruptly shut off.

Back at the hospital, the students froze when they saw their parents waiting outside.

"Wait, today was the application deadline? I thought it was tomorrow!"

"If I don't get into college, my parents are going to push me to get a job…"

"Hayley said it was tomorrow. What are we supposed to do now?"