Second Life, Different Choice

I grabbed my phone and quickly searched for my classmates' livestream.

On the screen, Hayley was holding her phone up, laughing as she floated down a wild river with Terry and the others, all of them lounging in inflatable tubes.

Our homeroom teacher, Megan Reed, had already found the stream and was flooding the comments.

[There's only half an hour left to submit your applications. Why aren't you all filling them out yet?]

The moment Hayley saw that, she clutched her stomach and stood up.

She rushed back to the bus, pulled her laptop from the overhead compartment, and filled out her applications as fast as she could.

Seeing that, Megan immediately called Terry.

"How many times have I said this? Applications have to be submitted on time. And all of you ran off to a dangerous place like that? You're the top class! Every move you make affects the teachers' futures. Are you trying to drag the whole school down with you?"

Viewers who stumbled into the stream started spamming the comments.

[There's zero safety out there. Who's responsible if something happens?]

[These parents are way too relaxed. I can't believe they'd let their kids go somewhere like that!]

[These straight-A kids have guts. That branch just missed that boy's head by a few feet.]

Even Megan, who usually favored Terry, sounded shaken now.

"There are only ten minutes left. You're our school's best shot at sending someone to a top-tier college."

Right then, a scream exploded from Hayley's livestream.

Several tubes had been ripped open by sharp rocks in the river, and a few students dropped straight into the water.

On the other side, a group messing around with water guns suddenly started arguing.

One smaller student got pinned down and blasted in the face with water for a full five minutes. He covered his eyes, thrashing wildly, knocking others off their tubes and into the river.

When he finally went under, blood began spreading from beneath him.

The once carefree group panicked. Everything spiraled into chaos. Then the sound of an ambulance siren cut through the noise, and the livestream was abruptly shut off.

Back at the hospital, the students froze when they saw their parents waiting outside.

"Wait, today was the application deadline? I thought it was tomorrow!"

"If I don't get into college, my parents are going to push me to get a job…"

"Hayley said it was tomorrow. What are we supposed to do now?"