At a smaller school, I imagine my return from suspension would’ve been a bigger deal, but I’m not at a smaller school. Harris-Hyde Preparatory School has just under 10000 students and is encompassed by a larger university, which has around 40,000 students. It’s one of the biggest schools in the United States, and for good reason. The education is one of the best in the country, and the tuition is virtually nothing for local students. 

It’s technically a private institution, but it outcompeted public schooling in the area so badly that the local government gave up on public schools entirely, and decided to subsidize tuition to Harris-Hyde instead. Most students are local, but many are from all over the country — and, to a lesser extent— the world.

Rather than a standard high school, it’s a prep school, with an emphasis on pushing students into higher education. At least, it was like that about 15 years ago. Harris-Hyde was a rigorous school intended for only the most academically inclined. Its graduates went on to become famous scientists, surgeons, and other prestigious people. Nowadays, thanks to the reduced tuition and relaxed entrance requirements, it’s a much more lax atmosphere.

Harris-Hyde has a small campus of a few buildings. A student union, an administrative hub, and several buildings separated by the subject of classes taught there.

The first period had come and gone and I’m now seated in a sizable classroom, with about 40 other students. It’s time for Chemistry. The teacher, a pretty blonde woman, walks in.

Suddenly, a game window erupts in front of me, startling me.

The window reads:

New Target

Ms. Sinclair 

You have 2 weeks upon receiving this to dominate your target. Other players have also received this target.

Attached is a picture of Ms. Sinclair. She’s tall, blonde, and quite pretty. Her face is unblemished, and her body is lithe and quite attractive. Her figure is by no means as curvy as Carolyn, but she has a girlish appeal that the womanly Carolyn lacks. More importantly, my target is directly in front of me shuffling papers and getting ready for her lecture. I’ve always thought she’s attractive, if a little manic, but I have no idea where to even start when it comes to dominating her.

She finishes organizing her papers and begins to speak to the class. “Hello, students, glad to see you all here today… except… where’s Brandon?”

A small, mousy girl in the front pipes up “He got sick during first period and left.”

“Ah… well that’s too bad. Alright then… let’s get started for today.”

She begins her lecture. I have no idea what she’s talking about, and neither does anyone else. She’s a nice person, and she exudes love and warmth. Despite this, she’s a dreadful teacher. This is her first year teaching and it shows. Every time she introduces a new topic, she goes on a tangent that even chemists would have a hard time following, so we regular students stand no chance of understanding anything she’s saying. She also doesn’t “believe” in textbooks or homework, which would be really nice if she was a better teacher, but she’s not.

I’m pulled from my thoughts by her asking the class, “Did you all get that?”

The class can only respond with blank stares, which she takes as affirmation.

“Alright, great! We’re making a great pace, We can get through this unit by the end of the week!”

I can almost feel the angst from the class. This is the first unit we’ll be finishing, and at the end of it, there’ll be a test. Everyone’s going to fail it. It’s probably going to absolutely decimate Ms. Sinclair’s confidence, and I know most of the people in the class feel bad about it, but there’s not much we can do.

Instead, I turn my thoughts about how I can go about capturing her. I don’t know much about her, and I’m clean out of ideas on how to capture her. Carolyn had been easy, as she’d basically given herself to me. I have no idea where to even start here. There are a few rumors about her and Mr. Karlsson, an English Teacher, having an illicit relationship, but there are rumors about Mr. Karlsson with every teacher, and a few students as well. 

Mr. Karlsson’s an attractive older man that many of the female students are absolutely enthralled by. He’s friendly, hard-working, and very attractive for his age, so a lot of rumors have sprouted about him and his relationships with various staff members and students. There’s no credence to any of them as far as I can tell, but it might be worth investigating a bit. If she is involved with Mr. Karlsson, which seems unlikely, there might be some way to blackmail her...

Wait… what am I thinking?

No. There’s absolutely no way I’m going to resort to blackmail. 

But what about the other players? Will they be alright with using blackmail? What about other things?

Will other players… kill people? Where should I draw the line if everyone else will be playing dirty?

My mind is clogged with questions that I don’t have answers to. Will I have to do bad things to succeed in this game? Is merely playing this game a bad thing?

Will I be able to do anything if I don’t throw away my morals?

It’s a question I don’t want to answer.

The bell rings, pulling me out of my thoughts. My classmates begin to pack up, and Ms. Sinclair sits down at her desk. It’s now the lunch period, so everybody has an hour and a half of free time before their next courses. I get up to leave but am stopped by Ms. Sinclair's voice on my way out.

“Sam? Are you alright? you seem a little shaky.”

“Uhm… yup. Everything’s fine here. Nothing wrong at all.”

“Hmmm… alright then. Make sure to drink plenty of water.”

I step out of the classroom and my frenzied thoughts peter away. I’m still worried about what I might have to do to succeed in this game, but at least I’m up and moving around now. I have quite a while to investigate Ms. Sinclair and see if there’s anything I can use to assist in my capture of her. The first thing I’m going to do is investigate the rumors about her and Mr. Karlsson. Although they seem pretty unfounded, they’re my only lead at this point. 

I could just go try to court her as is, but I can’t imagine she would respond well to being hit on by a student, even if he is devilishly handsome. I need Something. Whether that’s something to mutually bond over, something to make her more attracted to me, or something I can use to lessen the gap between teacher and student. I need to have an in, just like with Carolyn.

KevinStann

Heyo readers! Sorry about the big delay between chapters. Due to my computer's SSD and Hard Drive simultaneously failing I've been unable to work on writing for a while. On top of my college courses being surprisingly awful, I just haven't had much time to write. Until things calm down with school, and... well... life, my upload schedule will probably be a bit inconsistent, but I'll try to upload once a week. Thanks for reading!