Priya was not impressed that I ditched her, as expected. 

But otherwise, the rest of the day went okay. I gave my gifts, we said our farewells, and I settled down for a final chess game with her.

Sadly, each tap of the chess clock didn't remove the disgust that was curling around my heart.

Fake. Manipulative. Untruthful. Shady.

I was no better than any of these girls I had exposed - in fact, I was worse. Well, at least, I felt much worse at the moment. For an entire year, I shut the rest of the school out after the Bathroom Incident, locking the gates to my heart and hating on the entire school. I had partly allowed my own preconceived notions and newfound trust issues to make me believe that all of them were responsible for ruining my social life.

I made myself out to be the victim, later believed that I was being heroic as I ripped apart their reputations - but I was unable to see what was staring right back at me in the mirrors.

Selene Chan had become the monster that she despised most; she was a pawn who rose to be an evil queen on a twisted throne built of cruelty and malice. 

She was the real villain.

I was the villain all along - and I didn't even realise it.

"Oh, crap," I let out a bitter laugh as Priya cleverly got my pieces into a trap. 

"You should've seen it coming, sis," she leaned back in her chair, satisfied. "You know, we should play online."

"Yeah, sounds good!"

I knew what I did on a basic level - I exposed my peers. I tore off their gem-studded masks in a universe of masquerade balls, revealing the repulsive blemishes that lay beneath their exemplary achievements and outward appearances. I chose to bring out their dark sides for public judgement and gossip - just the way they had done so successfully behind my back.

And I succeeded. I made it - I was the pawn that found my way to the eighth rank and promoted to become a Queen. Angeline didn't have shit on me; or at least, to even have the dirt, she'd have to do digging that would probably be difficult and risky unless she was some kind of spy sent by some suspicious intelligence agency - which was pretty unlikely. 

She wouldn't do it, and I knew that.

We were at a stalemate. She couldn't win - but I hadn't won, either.

As I strived for their defeat wearing a mask of subservience, I failed to notice what was happening to the person behind it. Every wicked smirk, every click of my phone had slowly begun to morph the person I once used to be into someone I always thought I could never be.

I thought I was still good ol' me - weird, quirky but a decent human being.

But I wasn't. 

Throughout the entire process, I focused on them - the girls I hated and how they would fall to their knees in defeat with bruised reputations and egos. I focused on ruining them so much that I forgot about the most important person of all.

Myself.

I had lost myself.

That mask of purity and innocence wasn't me at all. It had always been a facade, a facade for the teachers and my classmates. The real me was a jealous, bitter and shady teenager ready to bring down others for her own satisfaction.

I was feeling something that I had never felt for myself before - disappointment. I hated what I had subconsciously begun to stand for, I hated that I was a hateful little snitch, I hated that I was nothing but a nasty tornado of darkness with a dull personality devoid of any goodness. I had let the things I hated change me - a truly pathetic state, for someone who had spent her whole life valuing her so-called individuality.

From under my stack of notebooks on my table, I slowly uncovered the black Rifton school diary and flipped it to one of the note pages in the book. Nice and empty.

And I began to write.

#1. NATALIE KINGSLEY
main mastermind who ruined my social life
(shady video exposed)

#2. GILLIAN BISHOP
helper to Natalie, was terrible to Mrs Walters
(Mrs Walters Insta post reported)

#3. ANNALISA KNIGHT
truancy, asshole in doing school projects
(truancy reported)

#4. RIANNE CLIFFORD
corrupt, hypocritical, guilty of cronyism
(boyfriend and smoking reported)

#5. JULIETTE QUINTON
two-faced, treated me as a charity case
(diary content exposed)

Indeed, it was true five wrongs didn't make a right.

I paused for a moment as I saw the names of the people I'd screwed over, hesitating a little as I considered the idea brewing in my head. It would potentially blow up in my face and whatnot - but hey, that was exactly what I should've known long ago. Every dark secret would be exposed one day, whether or not I liked it. 

And honesty sounded like a decent policy at the moment with regards to my mental health, at least.

With that, I scribbled the name of the last person who deserved to be exposed for who she really was. 

She was no innocent, she was no pawn, she was no queen. 

She was just another one of those masked girls - and for the sake of myself, she had to go, too.

#6. SELENE CHAN

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