It was as if I could see the future frame by frame, a constantly updated reel spooling out before my eyes. Every second, every minute, every single day was laid bare.
I knew the precise action, the nuanced facial tic, the upcoming lie that every person was about to commit.
The sudden deluge of perfect information had elevated me to a state of near omniscience.
The subsequent days blurred into a seamless, monotonous loop and I simply continued my mandated role within the suffocating clique.
This new ability immediately proved indispensable. With a moment's foresight, I could smoothly evade every instance where the original Cressida - that spiteful, petty tyrant - would fly into a public rage and attempt to publicly humiliate me for sport.
The pain of the past had been real, but the future felt like a thing I could now manipulate.
My reasoning, cold and self-serving, took root: If none of these people were truly sentient, if they were merely lines of code in a digital play, then no one could genuinely be hurt by my actions, I rationalized.
It was a dangerous, corrosive thought.
I couldn't ignore the slow, creeping realization that I was becoming irrevocably selfish, shedding my former moral compunctions like a useless skin.
But in the grand scheme of things, did my shifting morality truly matter?
Nothing here held any real weight, not even the vessel I currently inhabited.
My entire life had been a cosmic joke from the moment it began, and every moment of suffering I had once endured was, in the context of the greater narrative, ultimately fake.
The script no longer held me. This knowledge became my sword.
I began to deliberately change my entire approach, using my perfect foresight to carve out my own space.
I severed ties with Cressida and the others, staking out a lonely, autonomous path.
My campaign of calculated destruction began subtly.
Using my foresight, I leaked embarrassing secrets about the other clique members just moments before they planned to use the same information to damage me.
The resulting infighting fractured the group instantly, leaving the original Cressida without a loyal following, her power base crumbled.
I escalated the attacks, selectively whispering accurate, damning truths about their families' obscured finances and deep-seated corruption to low-level, easily swayed officials.
The sudden, small-scale investigations like a swarm of angry wasps drove the noble families to paranoid distraction.
Cressida's inability to stop this blatant defiance drove her into such public, hysterical fits that she rapidly became the laughingstock of the entire social season.
Despite having omniscient knowledge of the story and all possible outcomes, implementing these changes was surprisingly difficult.
After all, even with perfect foresight, I remained a mere mortal and, occasionally, I made mistakes like minor errors that sometimes resulted in real-world consequences, reminding me of my physical vulnerability.
Though, my greatest source of anxiety was always that woman, Agrona.
She remained the single hardest challenge; nearly half of my premonitions regarding her actions failed.
Regardless of the difficulties and the inherent risk, my efforts had finally borne fruit.
I had achieved freedom.
I was no longer merely the doll who replaced a dead daughter, or the rag-doll for the original Cressida's cruel amusement, or a slave to fate's design.
Yet, despite everything I'd gained, why did this heavy sense of guilt and profound loneliness cling to me?
"I mustn't stop," I muttered, my voice raspy, gazing blankly at the indifferent sky through the window.
My mission was not complete.
Soon, I would encounter the men and women I needed to strategically seduce, necessary pawns to achieve the guaranteed good ending promised by the script.
Anything or anyone that threatened to derail that perfect narrative had to be ruthlessly eliminated.
My eyes dropped to the chessboard before me, where I'd been locked in a solitary game for hours.
"At least, that's one pawn down," I declared, sweeping aside a black pawn meant to represent Cressida.
"All that torture you put me through, and you were nothing more than a petty, disposable villainess."