"The best revenge is watching your enemy destroy their own reputation."
Room 247 had become my war room.
The team assignment list sprawled across my desk in a chaotic array of ink and parchment. It looked like a battlefield map drawn by a general who knew his troops were already corpses.
Which, in many ways, it was.
Red ink marked the locations where students would die according to the original timeline. Each crimson dot represented a life snuffed out before it had truly begun. A future erased by the cruel mathematics of narrative convenience.
Blue lines traced the intricate passageways of the goblin warren. Their serpentine paths committed to memory from Chapter 847's exhaustive descriptions. I'd read that chapter three times during my previous life. Marveled at the author's attention to geographical detail while completely missing the human cost buried beneath the prose.
