Backstabber's Diary
Episode 4: The Golden Lie
"Sometimes the biggest liar wears the cleanest crown."
— Backstabber's Diary, Page 4
---
Velmont Academy loved its trophies.
Not the kind polished with glass and gold. But the kind that smiled on cue. That aced tests. That gave speeches so spotless they sounded rehearsed by ghosts. Students weren't nurtured here—they were sculpted.
And no sculpture gleamed brighter than Aidan Vale.
President of the student body. Debate team legend. Charity committee poster boy. If Velmont had a heartbeat, it probably whispered his name.
His voice? Smooth like velvet in winter. His smile? Handcrafted for camera flashes. His eyes? Calculated kindness—just enough warmth to blind you before the blade.
Aidan wasn't just respected.
He was untouchable.
But even gold gets fingerprints.
And Rhea just found one.
---
It began with an accident.
A mislabeled envelope in the donation bin. She had reached in for a discarded pamphlet to use for a project—when her fingers brushed the edge of something thicker. A receipt.
> Paid to: SkyImage Studios
Service: Digital Manipulation – Historical Records (Custom Package)
Client: A. Vale
Rhea stared at the page. Her first thought: No way.
Her second: Too perfect to be fake.
Her third: This changes everything.
She snapped a photo. Just in case.
Then went straight to Caleb.
He was in the tech lab, soldering something that looked illegal. He read the receipt, once. Then again.
"Digital manipulation," he whispered. "Historical records?"
"GPA files. Awards. Attendance. All school-owned data," Rhea said. "He edited his past."
Caleb's lips tightened. "We need to find the source files."
Rhea didn't blink. "Then we burn the golden boy down."
---
The server room was three floors above the gym. Restricted. Dusty. Cold. It smelled like secrets.
Caleb had an old keycard—stolen, copied, and rerouted through a magnet strip reader. Rhea had adrenaline.
Inside, dozens of blinking lights lined the walls. Red. Blue. Breathing.
They found the Velmont Memorial System.
A locked drive.
But Caleb was Velmont's former prize techie before he stepped away from the spotlight and into the shadows. In 90 seconds, the archive opened like a skeleton's jaw.
Folder: Vale_Aidan_GPA_Records_Backup
Inside: three transcripts.
Version 1: GPA: 3.6
Version 2: GPA: 3.8
Final: GPA: 4.0
All digitally altered. All uploaded within a four-week period—right before the school launched its "Spotlight Wall of Excellence."
Aidan Vale had rewritten himself.
Rhea stared at the screen, disgust and awe mingling.
"He didn't earn anything," she muttered.
"He bought perfection," Caleb said. "And the school printed it on a plaque."
They downloaded the files. She backed it up in three locations. One on a cloud. One on a USB she wore around her neck. And one… burned into her fury.
---
That night, Rhea printed the evidence. Three pages. Crisp. Bold.
She didn't post. She didn't text.
She walked into the student council room and slipped the envelope onto Aidan's desk.
Right in the center. Like a crown waiting to be claimed.
---
Morning assembly.
The auditorium was full. Students sat with bored faces. Teachers lined the walls, pretending to care.
Aidan stood at the podium. Smile like sunshine. Speech ready.
He welcomed the semester. Quoted Emerson. Cracked a joke about senioritis. Called for "integrity and excellence."
Then he opened the envelope.
His hands paused.
His eyes moved.
His jaw tensed—only slightly.
But Rhea saw it.
Every tick of guilt.
Every breath caught in the wrong place.
And then—he looked up.
Right at her.
And winked.
Rhea's stomach flipped. Not with guilt. With rage.
---
She found a note in her locker that afternoon. Folded in four. Printed on gold paper.
> "You really think Velmont wants truth? It wants a story. I just made mine better."
She turned the page.
> "Expose me, and they'll bury you first. This school protects its investments."
She didn't reply.
She didn't need to.
That night, a post went live on Velmont's anonymous confession page.
> "Velmont's golden boy edits his history. The only thing real is the lie he tells himself."
Attached: screenshots. Timestamps. Receipts. No names. Just truth.
The school's digital walls trembled.
---
Within hours, the post hit 2,000 views.
By sunset: 6,300.
Students whispered. Teachers avoided eye contact. Aidan walked the halls still smiling—but now his smile had cracks.
Two days later, he stepped down from the Honor Committee.
Official statement? "Prioritizing college applications."
Real reason? Avoiding scandal. Avoiding press. Avoiding Rhea.
But Velmont didn't punish him.
It covered it up.
Buried it under fake concern and softer announcements.
Rhea knew.
The school didn't care about honesty.
Only image.
But still—she'd cracked the mask.
And that was enough.
---
In her diary, she wrote:
> "Golden crowns are just painted metal. And paint peels.
Aidan Vale: Unmasked."
Caleb peeked over her shoulder.
"That makes three."
She nodded. "And there are more."
"You going to stop when you reach the bottom?"
Her voice was steel. "Not until the foundation breaks."
---
But that same week, the air changed.
Rhea began noticing things.
Students whispering and going silent when she walked by.
Notes passed quickly between people she didn't know.
Teachers pausing mid-sentence when they spotted her name on roll call.
Velmont didn't just dislike truth.
It feared it.
And feared her.
Then, on Friday, after lunch—her diary went missing.
She tore apart her locker. Her bag. Even retraced her route.
Gone.
Until she returned to her locker again during sixth period.
There it was.
On the top shelf.
Her diary.
With a sticky note:
> "Careful. The page you turn might be your last."
Her blood went cold.
---
That night, Caleb showed up at her house. No warning. Hoodie pulled low.
"We need to talk," he said, eyes dark.
He took her through the back gate, through the old maintenance path that led to the library basement.
There, hidden behind decaying chemistry textbooks and locked in a drawer he swore no one knew about—he pulled out another book.
A copy of her diary.
Word for word.
Every name. Every note. Every plan.
Except one thing was wrong.
One page.
It listed people she hadn't written about. Yet.
She flipped back, her hands trembling.
"How?" she whispered. "How do they know what I haven't written?"
Caleb didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
Because whoever had made this diary wasn't copying her words.
They were predicting them.
Studying her. Thinking like her. Living inside her shadow.
> "Someone's inside my head," Rhea whispered.
---
That night, she didn't sleep.
She stared at the ceiling, journal clutched to her chest, heart racing.
She had unmasked liars.
But now?
Now someone had unmasked her.
---
Author's Note 🖤
Velmont runs on reputation.
And Aidan Vale—once its cleanest crown—was never real.
But the story doesn't end with a lie exposed.
It evolves.
Because Rhea just learned the price of digging too deep.
She's not alone in the shadows anymore.
Someone has read her diary.
Someone knows her next move before she does.
And someone is ready to play back.
Next Episode: "Echoes and Imitations"
Where Rhea learns that truth has a twin—and not all mirrors reflect what's real.
Stay sharp. Stay suspicious.
The fire is spreading.
🐼 Aarya Patil
Your ink-stained witness.
Your favorite backstabber.
Still writing, even as the walls close in.