When the fall semester began, our boarding school dorm was assigned a new roommate: Cassidy Townsend. She was pathologically lazy and an incorrigible liar.

Her standard routine was simple. She would tear through bags of junk food, scatter the greasy wrappers across the hardwood, and leave them there.

Whenever we told her to clean up after herself, she would clutch her wrist and sigh, "I think I dislocated my joint.

I literally don't have the strength to lift a broom." When her rotation on the chore chart came up, she would curl into a tight ball beneath her duvet. "It’s my cycle.

The cramps are paralyzing.

I can't even stand." She would go an entire week without washing her clothes, wrapped in a sour, eyewatering funk that she defended with bizarre pride. "You guys must have sinus infections," she’d sneer, tucking her chin into her collar. "I smell amazing.

Honestly, I wish I could smell like this for the rest of my life." Worse, she stole our toiletries.

My highend body wash, Morgan’s salon shampoo—bottles would vanish into her vanity drawer overnight.

When we confronted her, she would put on a wounded face and claim she was so broke she could barely afford a single meal at the dining hall. I didn't yell.

I kept my voice level and told Morgan and Beth not to engage. Cassidy took our patience for weakness, growing bolder, convinced she was completely untouchable.

What she didn't know was that something inside my head had shifted. I had been granted the power to make her lies come true. … Cassidy was a walking trash compactor.

Wherever she sat, a perimeter of filth bloomed around her within minutes.

Once she generated the mess, she had no intention of cleaning it, relying on an endless repertoire of excuses to slip away from accountability. Today was her designated chore day.

I walked over to her lofted bunk to wake her. Before I could even clear my throat, a crumpled foil chip bag flew through the air, hitting me square in the bridge of the nose.

Salty, crushed potato chip crumbs and a sticky, browning apple core stuck to my cheek before dropping onto my clean sweater.

Just yesterday, she had sworn up and down she was done leaving trash lying around.

I pulled a tissue from my pocket, wiped my face slowly, and took a deep, controlled breath. "Cassidy," I said, keeping my tone razorsharp. "Is it really that hard to drop your garbage into the can?

You said the old bin was too small, so we pitched in and bought an industrialsized swingtop.

What’s the excuse today?" She rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling with dull indifference. "Oh, I totally intended to toss it in. But my wrist flared up.

Dislocated it again. No grip strength whatsoever." She tilted her head, offering a mocking, saccharine pout. "Bridget, you’re so responsible and hardworking.

Just handle it for me, yeah?" She was utterly shameless. I clamped my fingers around the wooden guardrail of her bed and gave it a sharp, deliberate shake. "Cut the crap, Cassidy.

It’s your turn on the chore schedule. Get down here." She turned her back to me, pulling her comforter up over her ears like a turtle retreating into its shell. "My period started.

It's excruciating. I’m not moving." I gripped the frame and rattled it harder. "Get down. Right now. You've used that exact same excuse twenty times since September." That did it.

The offender suddenly became the aggrieved.

Cassidy whipped her down pillow out from under her head and hurled it violently at me. "Would you shut the hell up already?" she shrieked. "You never stop lecturing!

My uterus is tearing itself to shreds and you’re down there buzzing like a wasp! Now you’re giving me a migraine too!" I didn't see it coming.

The edge of the dense pillow struck me across the forehead, leaving my ears ringing. I stumbled back a halfstep, pressing my thumb against my temple.

In that quiet second of disorientation, a flat, synthesized voice chimed inside my skull: [Host successfully bound to the Reality Manifestation System.] [Ability Details: Any falsehood spoken in your presence can be forced into absolute reality.] I rubbed my eyes.

Had she given me a mild concussion? Was I hallucinating? Up on the bunk, Cassidy was still spitting venom. "Get the hell out of my room and leave me alone!

The cramps are stabbing right through my gut.

My temper is on a hairtrigger right now, so if you don't want your head bitten off, back off!" Direct confrontation had never worked on her.

She had a bulletproof shell of victimhood.

If that voice in my head was real, though… I had nothing to lose by testing it. "Make it real," I thought, focusing every ounce of intent toward her. "Let every word she just said be true." A split second later, a strangled gasp tore out of Cassidy’s throat.

She clamped both hands over her lower abdomen, her spine bowing backward. "What the—!

Why does it hurt so bad all of a sudden?!" She began thrashing violently on the mattress, groaning through clenched teeth.

Within seconds, a dark, unmistakable crimson stain bloomed through the light gray fabric of her sweatpants.

As she felt the sudden warmth soak through, she let out a bloodcurdling scream, scrambling upright only to double over in sheer agony. "No! This makes no sense!

I wasn't supposed to start for another two weeks!" The lie had manifested. The cold, synthetic voice in my head hadn't been a fever dream.

Still, it could have been an uncanny coincidence. I needed to see it happen again. Cassidy scrambled down the bunk ladder, her hands shaking so violently she nearly slipped.

She lunged forward, grabbing my wrist like a drowning woman. "Bridget… please. Do you have any extra pads? Midol? Anything?

I don’t have my supplies stocked for this month and campus security has the gates locked until four.

I can’t survive this pain." I wrenched my arm from her grip and calmly sat down at my study desk. "I have plenty of both," I said smoothly. "Why should I give them to you?

Have you already forgotten that you just threw a pillow at my head and screamed at me?" Her face was drained of color, cold beads of sweat collecting along her hairline.

The pain was clearly tearing through her. Cornered, she hunched over, clutching her stomach with one arm while extending a trembling hand toward me. "I was out of line, okay?

I shouldn't have thrown the pillow. I'm sorry." She wiggled her fingers impatiently. "There. I apologized. Now give them to me." Her tone was still dripping with entitlement.

But an apology from Cassidy Townsend—even a forced one—was unprecedented.

I pointed toward the floorboards, which were strewn with her dirty gym socks, empty seltzer cans, and torn wrappers. "Clean the room like you were assigned to do.

The moment the floor is spotless, you get the Midol and the pads." Her eyes flared with pure hatred.

If looks could kill, I’d be buried six feet under. "Bridget, we're supposed to look out for each other! Don't be a psycho! It hurts ten times worse than it ever has!

I can’t even stand straight, let alone scrub the floor!" "Look out for each other?" Since the day she moved in, she had treated our room like a landfill and had not picked up a broom once.

Our suite had been written up three times during residential inspections, costing us dorm privileges.

Morgan, Beth, and I had reached our breaking point weeks ago, debating whether we should just stop caring and let the room rot along with her.

But Cassidy always found new ways to make it worse. When her floor got too piled with trash, she started tossing her garbage onto our beds.

During her actual cycle, she would kick wrapped feminine hygiene products into dark corners beneath the desks instead of walking ten feet to the communal trash chute.

Once, I caught her wiping the dirt off her sneakers with my fresh, clean laundry. No other room in our residential hall would take her.

The housing office wouldn't touch her case either, because her mother, Mrs. Townsend, was our senior academic advisor and chair of the honors committee.

Every formal complaint we filed vanished into thin air, met only with vague platitudes from her mother about "fostering empathy" and "learning to coexist." And now Cassidy had the audacity to lecture me on community solidarity?

I shrugged, turning my chair toward my laptop. "Take it or leave it.

If you don't want to sweep, you can walk down to the health center yourself." Cassidy ground her teeth, realizing she had no leverage.

Groaning with every micromovement, she grabbed the broom and began dragging the bristles across the wood at an agonizingly slow pace. Just then, the heavy oak door swung open.

Morgan and Beth walked in, carrying their backpacks. The moment Cassidy saw them, she lunged as if greeting an emergency rescue team. "Morgan! Beth!

Please tell me one of you has ibuprofen.

Give me a pill, right now, please!" I leaned back in my chair and remarked mildly, "I already told her she gets painkillers the second she finishes her chores." Morgan and Beth exchanged a quick, knowing glance.

Instantly catching on, Morgan zipped her bag tight. "Sorry, fresh out." Cassidy snapped, her voice spiking to a frantic screech: "I am literally dying of pain right here!

And you're making me sweep the floor?!" The sentence barely left her lips before her eyes rolled into the back of her head.

Her knees buckled, and she hit the rug with a heavy, limp thud. The system was real. Terrifyingly, undeniably real.

Morgan jumped backward, her jaw dropping. "Holy crap—what just happened?!" Beth froze in the doorway, staring down at the unconscious girl. "Did she just faint midsentence?

Is it hypoglycemia?" I wasn't about to mention the cosmic retribution software running in my brain. I kept my expression composed. "She said the cramps were blinding.

Guess she passed out from the shock." [Host awarded +20 Points.] [Reach 100 Points to unlock an exclusive reward.] The voice remained aloof, offering no further explanation.

But whatever it was, it was the ultimate equalizer against Cassidy. The three of us hoisted Cassidy up and hauled her down two flights of stairs to the campus health center.

When she returned that evening, she was considerably subdued, but old habits die hard.

A few days later, she tried pulling the phantom medical emergency routine again to dodge trash duty.

After a second, identical blackout landed her right back on the infirmary cot, she finally conceded and pushed a broom without arguing.

She did her chores, but her personal hygiene remained an absolute nightmare.

She wore the same oversized hoodie and flannel pants for an entire week straight—underwear included—without stepping foot near the shower stall.

The resulting odor was an eyewatering blend of stale grease, sour sweat, and damp laundry. Morgan finally cracked one afternoon. "Cassidy, this is disgusting.

Nobody lives like this." Beth pinched her nose shut, violently waving a notebook in front of her face. "God, it’s choking me.

Even if you don’t do laundry, you have to at least change your clothes and shower!" "It's rank," I added, stepping toward the window to throw it wide open.

Instead of feeling shame, Cassidy puffed out her chest, indignant. "What are you talking about? Are you all having hallucinations?

If your noses are that broken, go see an ENT!" She sniffed her sleeve with theatrical pleasure. "I smell like wild vanilla.

I wish I could smell like this forever—actually, no, I wish this scent was ten times stronger so you'd finally appreciate it!" "Ten times stronger?" "Have it your way." Within thirty seconds, the musk radiating off her transformed from an unpleasant draft into a concentrated, chemicalgrade biohazard.

The stench hit the air with the weight of rotting garbage baked under a midday summer sun. Morgan and Beth gagged, leaping backward against the wall. Cassidy froze.

Even she couldn't ignore the thick cloud settling around her collar.

She lifted her shoulder, took a cautious sniff, and immediately flinched, her eyes tearing up from the fumes of her own making. Yet her stubbornness ran deeper than reason.

Wiping a tear from her cheek, she glared at us through bloodshot eyes. "Why are you backing away like that? You're discriminating against me!

I smell like flowers!" Her voice cracked in hysteria. "Don't you look at me like that! I'm going to the dean!

I'm reporting all three of you for targeted harassment and bullying!" She spun on her heel and stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

The three of us stood in the stunned, foulsmelling silence.

Morgan wrinkled her nose, looking bewildered. "She was literally crying from her own stench, and she thinks "we’re" the ones bullying her?" "If anyone's committing an assault, it's her sweat glands," Beth wheezed, spraying half a can of lavender room mist toward the ceiling. "It’s midOctober, not the middle of an arctic winter.

How do you go a week without water touching your skin?" Ten minutes later, our phones buzzed simultaneously with an urgent summons from the residential administration: "Report to Mrs.

Townsend’s office immediately." When we walked in, Mrs. Townsend was seated behind her broad mahogany desk, tapping the nib of a gold pen against a legal pad.

Her expression was icy. "You three are seniors," she began, her tone dripping with quiet authority. "College applications are due in less than two months.

I thought you were model students.

What on earth possessed you to gang up on Cassidy?" She leaned forward, leveling a look at us. "Community life requires compromise, patience, and kindness.

It does not allow for three privileged girls to isolate and bully an innocent roommate.

I am more than prepared to call your parents in for a formal conference to discuss your behavioral standing." The mother bear was out for blood.

She had deliberately placed Cassidy in our room at the start of the year because Cassidy had already burned bridges in every other dormitory on campus.

Her reputation as a slob and a boundarycrosser was widely known among the faculty. Mrs.

Townsend had pulled rank to stick her with us, thinking that as conscientious, highachieving students, we would silently pick up her daughter's slack.

Cassidy was slumped in a leather armchair beside the desk, dabbing her dry eyes with a tissue. "Mom, you have to write them up! Call their parents! They've been terrorizing me!

They force me to do their chores, they yell at me for taking a rest, and today they told me I smelled like garbage and tried to kick me out of the suite!" Mrs.

Townsend's jaw clenched. "I’m dialing your parents right now." I stepped forward, subtly positioning myself behind Cassidy’s chair, and gave her shoulder a light, deliberate brush.

Cassidy, still unsteady from her theatrics, stumbled sideways, knocking right into her mother’s desk. Mrs.

Townsend opened her mouth to reprimand me, but I spoke first, my voice ringing clear and steady: "Mrs.

Townsend, with all due respect, even if Cassidy is your daughter, you can't ignore basic campus residential guidelines. She hasn't showered in seven days. The room is uninhabitable.

Asking a roommate to observe basic hygiene isn't bullying; it's selfdefense." "I don't smell!" Cassidy shrieked, burying her face into her mother’s lap.

Determined to prove her daughter's innocence, Mrs. Townsend leaned down and took a deep, supportive breath. Her expression warped instantly.

Her spine went rigid, her nostrils flared, and her eyes widened in pure, unadulterated horror.

She recoiled so violently she nearly knocked her desk chair over. "Cassidy!" she sputtered, covering her mouth with her sleeve. "Did you… did you fall into a septic tank?!" Cassidy’s face turned paperwhite. "Mom!

How could you say that?!" Across the room, Mr.

Albright, who had been quietly grading AP Literature essays in the corner, cleared his throat and peeked over his reading glasses. "Marian," he murmured delicately, "I didn't want to intrude, but… the moment Cassidy walked through the door, the ventilation seemed to struggle.

If I may suggest… perhaps she should visit the locker room showers?

It is rather disruptive to the floor." Two other department heads in the room nodded in solemn, uncomfortable agreement. Mrs. Townsend’s face burned a furious shade of crimson.

Humiliated in front of her colleagues, she shoved Cassidy toward the door. "Go! Right now! Get into the residential showers and do not come back until you are scrubbed raw!

From now on, you bathe daily.

If I catch you wearing dirty clothes to class again, I’m canceling your card privileges!" Thwarted and publically shamed, Cassidy stomped her foot, but had no choice but to scurry out of the building.

It took her nearly two hours of continuous scrubbing to rinse away the unnatural funk.

When she finally returned to our dorm room that evening, she reeked of an overpowering blend of sandalwood, citrus, and mint. I glanced over at our bathroom vanity.

My imported glass bottle of body wash was entirely drained, rolling empty in the basin. Morgan’s salon shampoo was inverted and scraped clean.

Worse, our face serums, toothpastes, and laundry detergents had been deliberately squeezed into the toilet bowl, and our toothbrushes were snapped neatly in half and tossed in the shower drain.

Every single toiletry we owned had been ruined. Morgan looked like she was about to commit a felony.

Beth’s fists were clenched so hard her knuckles were white. "What the hell is this?!" Morgan shouted.

Cassidy folded her arms, leaning against the doorframe with smug defiance. "My mom cut my card limit. I’m broke. I can barely afford lunch at the bistro, let alone fancy soap.

What did you expect? That’s what you get for humiliating me in front of the department!" She smirked, tilting her chin up. "Too bad I don’t have a dime to my name.

Honestly, if I had real money right now, I'd throw every cent of it in your greedy faces just to shut you up!" Beth took a menacing step forward. "You little—" I laid a calm hand on Beth’s arm, stepping past her to look Cassidy dead in the eye. "Deal," I said softly. "Pay us back.

Right now." Cassidy’s smirk froze.

Her eyes went completely glazed, like a marionette whose strings had just been seized by an unseen puppeteer. "Right," she murmured mechanically. "Paying you back immediately." Moving in a robotic trance, she unzipped her backpack, reached into the secret bottom compartment of her designer duffel, pulled out a thick envelope of emergency cash, and dumped a cascade of crisp hundreddollar bills directly into my hands.

Morgan and Beth gasped, frozen in sheer disbelief. A second later, Cassidy blinked. The haze vanished from her eyes.

She looked down at her empty hands, then at the thick stack of bills resting in my palms, and let out an earsplitting shriek: "Aaaaagh!"