I tuned him out, climbed into bed, then yanked the curtains closed to shut out the noise.

He kept on with his apologies, begging me to stop being so stubborn.

I closed my eyes, trying to silence the world.

The pounding headache was like an alarm clock, waking me up to my second chance at life: back to the first day of school.

In my previous life, today was the day Joanna, with her camera always rolling, would fuss over me, promising to clear up my acne.

I was thrust into the spotlight, but instead of support, I was drowned in a sea of cruel comments.

My photos spread among students and I became the biggest joke in the school.

Joanna, with her flawless beauty, was always held up next to me, making me feel even more insecure and miserable.

One day, she whispered a promise, "Work with me on a skincare routine, and I'll make you beautiful."

Trusting her, since she claimed to be a blogger fighting against beauty pressures, I naively gave her several vials of my blood.

However, my acne did not get better; it spread like wildfire across my skin.

As she grew more stunning by the day, I clung to the hope that she could somehow fix me.

I never imagined that this hope would lead to my downfall.

…

My face started to decay, and my body ballooned out of control.

Still, Joanna used me for her live streams, preaching self-acceptance to her viewers while my condition worsened.

She became an internet sensation.

Meanwhile, she lived a wild life, bringing different guys back to our dorm. I warned her about the dangers of her reckless lifestyle, but she brushed me off, telling me to mind my own business.

Then, I got sick, really sick. I caught a bunch of infections, even HIV.

When her secret flings were exposed, she flipped the script and blamed me, claiming I was the one who could not keep it in my pants.

My boyfriend, devastated, confirmed my illness during a live stream, and just like that, I was a pariah.

My friends turned their backs on me, and strangers told me to leave school before I infected them.

Disgusted, my parents threw me out.

With nowhere else to go, I dropped out and holed up in a tiny rental all on my own.

I once believed that if I could just get away from them, my life would get better.

However, instead, my health spiraled, and my stomach seemed to expand every day.

Joanna showed up at my doorstep with her crew, pretending to care about body image issues, only to film me at my lowest.

I became the talk of the town, and not in a good way.

"People are probably betting on who the kid's dad is."

"Looking like that, plus the HIV? Might as well check out early, you're a walking hazard."

"Seriously, how can you stand being so huge? Doesn't it make you sick?"

The gossip and insults hit me like a tidal wave, destroying any peace I had left.

Kicked out by the landlord, no one else would take me in.

I was left with no choice but to scrape by under a bridge.

My belly did not stop growing, and my skin was a roadmap of stretch marks. I even birthed a hideous placenta that seemed to ooze darkness.

A Mystic took one look at me and declared I was cursed, which explained the disasters befalling me.

All the hurt was piling up on me.

I had to find the source and smash it.

Joanna noticed what I was up to and teamed up with my boyfriend to trap me in a basement.

She blocked every exit, her face twisted with rage.

"We're so close, I can't have any slip-ups!!

"When you're gone, I'll just move on to the next one."

Lucky for me, fate handed me a second shot.

I was going to find the source and make them pay.

…

To keep the curse from striking back, I stripped my life down to the essentials.

However, I was still out of it, too weak to even make it to class.

I decided to take a break and track down Joanna and send back the agony she had caused.

I tore through her desk, searching for a clue, but came up empty.

The room started spinning worse than before.

I struggled to breathe, shocked by how frail I had become.

I flopped down on my bed, a sudden poke from something small and hard under my pillow jolting me awake. I flipped the pillow and found a little amulet, weirdly warm to the touch.

Clutching the amulet, a chill ran down my spine, and I felt like I had just dived into an icy lake.

Then it hit me: that was the birthday present from my boyfriend.

Oddly enough, he had made me promise to keep it under my pillow.

My anger was like a wildfire, growing out of control.

I chucked the amulet to the floor with all my might, but it was as good as new. Not even a scratch could be seen.

I grabbed a craft knife and tried stabbing it. I even took a hammer to it, but nothing worked. It would not budge.

My head throbbed like crazy. The more I tried, the worse I felt, like I was suffocating.

Desperate, I tried to torch the amulet, but instead of it burning, I felt like I was the one on fire.

Was I somehow tied to this thing? Was death the only escape from its grip?

I looked closer at the amulet and its weird patterns. They seemed… familiar.

A memory clicked, my previous life. The Mystic had given me stuff with the same patterns before!

I snatched the amulet and bolted outside.

I ran all the way to the underpass, and there he was, the Mystic, acting like he had been expecting me, not even bothering to look up.

He murmured, "Darkness clings to you. You can't shake off that gloomy vibe. Looks like you've got an evil trinket on your hands. It's an amulet, am I right?"

I nodded and showed him the amulet.

He looked grave and pointed at it, "This thing's bad news. It feeds on human blood. Whoever tries to hurt the owner of the amulet ends up hurting the blood donor instead."

He sighed. "Then again, a life's at stake. That's what really counts."

He let out a sigh, brushed the air around me with a handful of willow fluff, and sketched a sigil of protection I could not make heads or tails of, pressing it onto my forehead.

"This amulet's got a deep hold on you. Keep these sigils of protection, tuck them under your pillow, and you'll start feeling like yourself again soon."

The moment he said that, I felt like a weight lifted off me, and the tightness in my chest eased up.

The amulet in his grasp let out a mournful cry and then just fizzled out.

I tried to pay him, but he would not take my money.

Back at the dorm, Joanna barged in with some guy I had never seen before. They were all over each other right off the bat.

I was totally grossed out. "You're always dragging random people back here. Aren't you worried about catching something? Take your guy and beat it!"

She just rolled her eyes and shot back, "They're into me because I'm hot, and they hit me up. Can't say no to that kind of attention."

Then she had to go and rub it in. "Hey, Wren, how come Zack hasn't been around looking for you lately? He's so into you, I bet he doesn't even care about a couple of zits. No biggie, we've got to be the heroines of our own stories."

With that, she and her flavor of the night headed for the bed, and I even caught him muttering under his breath, "Your roommate's face… It's kind of freaky. It's not catching, right?"

I could not stand the thought of them putting on an X-rated show right there, so I bolted to find a hotel to crash at for the night.

I only started to relax after I had dropped off my application to live off-campus.

Then my phone buzzed with a new notification. It was Joanna's latest update on her social feed.

[Just another night of hitting the dance floor and knocking back drinks.]

The photo showed a sea of empty glasses with a bunch of guys lounging around. The comments were already rolling in.

[Totally jealous! How do you party like that every night and not break out or pack on pounds? Meanwhile, your roommate's cooped up and just keeps getting bigger…]

Amidst a sea of comments, she zeroed in on one to respond to.

[Hey, don't talk like that. Girls gotta have confidence. We should all embrace our imperfections. I'm just lucky to have this natural glow, while my roommate's been battling zits every single day.]

[We need to be kinder to her, keep her from feeling so down on herself.]

Her words were dripping with sarcasm, aimed right at me. No matter how much I tried, I could not compete with her flawless complexion.

That message got my blood pumping with anger.

'Without that amulet, I'd love to see how you'd keep up this phony chill vibe!' I seethed silently.

The phone rang off the hook all night long.

It was Joanna. I cut the call and crashed hard.

The next morning, as I was getting my stuff together, I noticed the protection sigil I had stashed under my pillow had vanished.

Joanna looked up, her gaze locking onto me, the mega zit on her chin impossible to miss. It made her look downright spooky.

A look of suspicion crossed her face. "What's the deal with these? You know they're bad mojo, right?"