The heirs of high society may be filthy rich, but they're morally bankrupt. Vengeful girls, guilty boys, broken hearts. Welcome to St. Helios Prep, where they teach wealth, risks, and the art of breaking hearts.
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𝐚𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐫𝐚 𝐚𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧-𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐨 𝐫𝐚𝐚
If there was one thing I admired about Selene Moon, it was her morals. Out of all of us, she was probably the one with the strongest sense of right and wrong. I wish I shared her ethics but my mind was always ahead of my heart.
I was rational and cold to the point that I was afraid of myself. I was afraid I might drive myself mad with my logic, like Octavius.
To a Raa, there were three possible curses you could have.
Death, pride, or madness.
Octavius had succumbed to madness. Jasmine would fall to pride. My whole family was taken by death. I wasn't one who believed in superstitions, but in moments like these I worried I would share Octavius' fate. My greatest fear was becoming clinically insane because that was the curse I was most likely to have.
But if I voiced any of these concerns, I would be sent to an asylum. Sometimes, I wondered if I was crazy but no one wanted to say it to me.
Dr. Calandra spoke into the heavy silence. "Does anyone, who did not cross the yellow line, have an explanation for the second trial?"
Usually, these people would fight to the death for an opportunity to speak up and to stand out, but this round had scared these privileged finalists in more than one ways.
Eventually, a finalist I didn't know spoke up. He seemed the shy type, with hair sweeping his forehead. He surprised everyone by speaking up clearly. "It was meant to test our ability to rationalize moral dilemmas."
"Correct, Mr. Li," Dr. Calandra said, but didn't react with much emotion. "But there was another element we tested. Mr. Jeong, care to answer?"
Theodore looked at me for a beat before saying, "You wanted to test independent thought. You wanted to see how many of us possessed the mob mentality."
"Very good," Dr. Calandra nodded, her eyes pinned onto him. "But why did you cross the line and then not press any button, Mr. Jeong? To prove that you aren't part of the mob?"
"No," Theodore said, softly. "I wanted to prove that I learned the lesson this trial tried to teach."
"And what is that?"
"That the consequences we believe to be true are very different in reality."
Dr. Calandra didn't speak for a long stretch of silence before giving Theodore a rare smile. "Impressive. You're right, Mr. Jeong. The consequence you were led to believe was that you wouldn't be accepted to St. Helios if you pressed the button. But as you all can see," she gestured to the blenders that did not turn on, "The true consequence was committing cruelty for personal gain. That was all you would have proved to us."
"So these were all props?" Jasmine said, heatedly.
I glanced to my cousin in mild amusement. She surprised me in this trial. I never expected her to act the way she did. Jasmine reminded me of a vicious wolf that played the sweet lamb. Today, her claws showed.
