Betrayed by one of my best friends. And that’s not the half of it. I’ve known this kid since as long as I can remember. I even asked him at one point: “If I were your target, would you have killed me by now?” He looked me straight in the eye and said, “Of course.” I would have expected more from an Eagle Scout. And then he waited. Oh, he waited. He wasn’t satisfied with just a nice, clean, honest kill. No… he wanted to convince me first that I was safe. He had countless opportunities over the course of the game. Somehow, the fact that he waited makes the kill even worse. Whenever I think about it I become bitter and enraged. Here’s how it went down:

At about 10 pm the same night, I avoid a kill from someone in my dorm by not letting him into my room. I assumed that he was in the Other Chaimpaign Dorms game; what are the chances that a campuswide game would assign him a target in the same dorm? NEVER ASSUME ANYTHING. It was the last assumption I will ever make. I nervously walked to the shower in my robe, without a weapon. Before I went in, I told my friend and to- be killer that I didn’t have a weapon. Then I went into the shower.

As I was lathering my lean, muscular body, I got to thinking. Why hadn’t my friend told me who his target was yet? Perhaps he is hunting me… But I figured that a) he would have killed me already, or b) he would have told one of our mutual friends and that person would have told me. So my mind was at rest. I walked cautiously out of the bathroom with wet flip- flops and a robe on, carrying a towel and stuff. As soon as I opened the door, I saw four or five kids from my floor standing there with these stupid grins on their faces. I knew something was up. As I walked back to my room, my killer leapt out from hiding, ran me down, and stabbed me in the back. Mind you, I had about four seconds to react, because I saw him coming. But I was so sure it wasn’t him that even as he was running at me with a spoon, I couldn’t believe it. So I just turned back around and kept walking. Had I known it was him, I would have grabbed the spoon hand, body- slammed him into the wall twice, judo- flip him over onto his back, stand on his neck and break his arm, then scoop his eyes out with the spoon and replace them with cadbury eggs.

Afterwords I found out that he had turned all my best friends against me from the beginning. Everyone had known about it but me, right from the beginning, even my roommate. It was like some sort of twisted, demented Truman Show without a happy ending. It was like the mafia – if someone does it, it will be your best friend. I was the victim of the cheapest, most underhanded, backstabbing, double- crossing, dishonest betrayal in the history of the Assassins Guild. To my killer: I hope you choke on the guilt from your Judas kiss, traitor. To everyone who was in on it for days on end without telling me: Treachery is still punishable by death in some countries, folks. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

Well, this taught me a valuable life lesson. But I’m not going to tell you what it is, because this experience has made me very antisocial, paranoid, closemouthed, irritable, and bitter. So you’ll just have to find out yourselves.