"Hello guys! It's me, your Lavanya. I know it's been a while since my last video, but don't worry! I'm vlogging today because I am officially joining the best university in the world—a place famous for the 'Vanishing Rankers' mystery."
Lavanya walked onto the sprawling campus with a wide, glowing smile. She held her camera high, smoothly panning to capture the grand architecture around her. The other students bustling past completely ignored her, but she didn't care at all.
"Rumor has it that the top-ranked students here just... disappear." She leaned forward toward the lens, dropping her voice to a hushed, dramatic whisper. She cast a paranoid glance over her shoulder, flawlessly acting out a sudden lack of trust in her surroundings. "They make the news, they vanish, and yet, no one ever files a single complaint against the university. But worry not, friends! We are definitely going to uncover the truth."
She practically bounced on her heels, her face radiating a bright, infectious energy.
"Because I'm a genius, I will secure a spot in the top five, solve the secret of the vanishing rankers, and become a part of the mystery myself!"
She spoke with pure, uncontained excitement, her eyes wide with awe. She looked completely refreshed, perfectly absorbed in her energetic persona.
She had walked onto the campus without hesitation, completely unaware of what was truly waiting for her behind those prestigious gates.
For the first two days, everything seemed entirely normal. She made friends effortlessly, leveraging her energetic, lively persona and her internet popularity to blend right in. She enjoyed her first month. But then, the real curriculum began, and she started to notice a disturbing shift in the other students.
They became unnatural. It was as if they had all been holding their breath, just waiting for this exact moment. A strange, collective, almost predatory excitement took over the campus.
"Hello guys," Lavanya spoke into the lens, her voice devoid of its usual bounce. "It's... it's been a few months since I uploaded a video. Usually, I try to post every month, but this place has made me completely restless."
She paused, looking around nervously.
"In this place, you cannot underestimate a single person. Every single one of them is a genius among geniuses. It's only been a few months, and I am already exhausted. Even studying tech—the thing that excites me the most—is completely draining me. Honestly, it's a miracle I'm even functioning. I'm not tired because I can't understand the work. It's just that they are all moving so fast. If I don't force myself to run at their exact speed, I'll never secure a place here."
Her own words seemed to shatter the bright, ambitious dreams she had arrived with. Her face was pale, and heavy, dark circles had formed beneath her hollow eyes.
She slowly lowered her camera, her energetic vlogger facade finally slipping away. She stared out at the imposing university buildings. It felt as though time inside these walls was moving three times faster than in the normal world, ruthlessly dragging her forward until she broke.
Half a year dragged by in a grueling blur, culminating in the first-term exams. The results were an absolute disaster.
She ranked in the top one hundred.
For any other school, it would have been a triumph, but here, it was a brutal wake-up call. She had never imagined she could score so poorly. Almost overnight, she became the laughingstock of the entire campus. The humiliation broke her completely, shattering her both inside and out. A crushing realization settled over her: she had hit her absolute limit, and she had no power left to climb any higher.
"Hello guys," she choked out to the camera lens. "It's... it's me. Nobody."
She let out a wretched sob, wiping furiously at her eyes.
"Please, guys, help me. I have been giving this everything I have. And here... everyone is just openly laughing at me. All the friends I made started avoiding me. No one even wants to speak to me anymore."
She sniffled, her voice thick with agonizing despair.
"Because in this university, only your rank matters. Only the top ten students are respected. Anyone lower than that is treated as completely useless by the professors and the other students. And I'm not even close. The most disgusting thing about this place is the system—the departments aren't separated. You have to be a perfect all-rounder. You have to be talented at everything to even touch the top ten, otherwise you'll never even get close."
Tears streamed down her face, sheer agony and disbelief written all over her expression. Her body was completely drained of its once-vibrant energy. She slumped helplessly onto the cold ground, the camera shaking in her trembling hands as she wept.
The first year finally came to a grueling close. In the last six months, she had only managed to surpass two people; her rank had barely improved.
However, there was no sadness or frustration left on her face. It was hard for her to even think about maintaining her bubbly vlogger persona. To survive, she realized she had to use the one thing she had been hiding—her trump card. The mirror. She began to flawlessly mimic the behaviors, study habits, and cold, calculating demeanors of the few top-ten students she could observe. She willingly surrendered her own identity to become just like them.
THUD. THUD.
"AHHHHH!"
Screams suddenly echoed across the courtyard. Two students had just thrown themselves from the upper balconies, taking their own lives right in the middle of the campus.
Yet, Lavanya watched them with absolute peace. Not a single word escaped her lips. And she wasn't the only one; a few other students watched with the same dead, understanding eyes. They all intimately understood the crushing, suffocating state of mind those students had been in.
Lavanya understood it best, because she had almost done it herself. But she had lacked the courage to step off the ledge. Instead, she had walked away with a chilling, ruthless determination to reach the top ten at any cost.
She slowly lifted her camera, her face an emotionless mask.
"Hello guys. Today is the worst day of my life... but for a few others, they just found their peace by giving up on reality."
She panned the lens down toward the bleeding bodies on the pavement.
"I'm making this video today to say I successfully passed my first year in the top hundred. As for the students on the ground... this is the most usual thing in this place. There will be no investigations, no answers, and no complaints. Because this place is for the best. Not for losers like them."
She had completely broken past her emotional limits. She had become the very monster she needed to be to survive, knowing that if she didn't surpass them, she would end up just like the bodies on the pavement. In this university, there was no place for a loser.
After a few brief months of reprieve, her second year began. This time, she arrived fully prepared for the psychological torture and the sheer ruthlessness that awaited her.
During the break, she had managed to make one normal friend outside the university—a desperate attempt to tether herself to some remaining warmth and humanity. She had also issued a grave warning to her younger brother, Abhi, about the soul-crushing pressure of the place. He was slated to enroll next year.
"I have to survive this place again. I'm getting that top rank this time, no matter what it takes."
She stood before the towering iron gates of the university, a cold, hardened determination settling over her. Once, she had arrived here as a bright-eyed girl hoping to uncover the mystery of the vanishing rankers. Now, she was slowly becoming part of the mystery herself—warped from a normal girl into a machine built for a relentless, breakneck race where a single moment of rest could shatter your psyche.
Just like the previous year, the first few days were deceptively silent and comfortable. However, this time, there was no buzzing excitement among the returning students. There was only the suffocating silence of shared realization. They all knew the slaughter that was coming.
"Hello guys," Lavanya spoke into her camera, her voice eerily calm and detached. "I almost forgot to make a video. I'm not the person I used to be. I was always a great actor, a genius in my studies, and good at martial arts. But now... I've become something monstrous."
She stared dead-eyed into the lens.
"I can perfectly become anyone just by observing them. I can mimic their fighting styles, and I can instantly memorize absolutely anything in this world. I don't even know how it's possible anymore. Everything is just falling into place. Creating complex inventions and massive breakthroughs just feels like a mundane, everyday schedule to me now."
She let out a dry, hollow breath.
"But forget all that. I'm making this video because I improved my rank again. I surpassed ten people this year. It's a massive achievement in a place like this. And yet... I feel nothing. I'm not happy, and I'm not satisfied with the result."
She passed her second year with unnatural, terrifying success.
The fiery, passionate determination she had at the very beginning was completely gone. Surviving and climbing the ranks was no longer a dream; it was just a cold, mechanical process her life was forced to follow. Her expression had become permanently neutral—a blank, empty canvas.
Still, compared to the brutal realization of her first year, this year was somehow easier. She hadn't just survived the monsters; she had become one of them.
This time, she didn't even take a break. She stayed on campus throughout the entire holiday, dedicating every waking second to her studies and training. She finally understood the brutal truth: to survive, she had to completely break her own limits.
Her third year began with a massive rumor spreading like wildfire across the campus. It was about a brazen first-year student.
A freshman named Yug had publicly announced that he would claim the number one rank by the time he graduated. Even though he wasn't anywhere close to the top yet, the sheer arrogance of his declaration shocked the seniors. It reminded them of the foolish, naive dreams they all used to have before the university crushed them.
Yug, huh. I feel like I've heard that name somewhere, Lavanya thought idly.
Because of the trauma of her childhood, she had deeply suppressed the memory of their encounter in the park. She simply assumed this boy would end up just like her—crushed by the reality of the university until he became a cold, emotionless machine.
"Sis, what do you think of the rumors?" Abhi asked her one afternoon. He had just enrolled, still fresh and untouched by the horrors of the campus.
"Nothing," Lavanya replied sharply. "Listen to me, Abhi. You have to work hard and never get distracted by outside issues. Focus only on yourself."
She couldn't directly tell him the terrifying reality of the campus, but she could warn him indirectly. Abhi nodded, never one to go against his sister's word.
A few months passed, bringing the end of Yug's first term and Lavanya's fifth.
New rumors exploded across the campus. Yug had actually done it. He had shattered the natural order and placed himself in the top ten, taking Rank 6 in his very first term. While a few arrogant seniors still laughed at him, the rest of the student body began to fear and respect him.
Darker rumors followed his academic success—whispers that Yug brutally beat down anyone who dared to laugh at him. And the most bizarre part? The people he beat up eventually ended up joining him, forming a strange, fiercely loyal following.
Lavanya found herself increasingly drawn to the stories about Yug. Something about his name triggered a hazy, vivid itch in the back of her mind. Furthermore, she had a friend in the first-year class—a genius girl who had just taken Rank 3. Lavanya decided to visit the first-year campus to check on her friend and, perhaps, catch a glimpse of this anomaly named Yug.
Lavanya was walking down the quiet, empty hallway of the first-year building when a voice suddenly resonated right beside her ear.
"Hey, Yug. What are you doing here?"
Lavanya froze instantly.
He had recognized her immediately. A violent shiver ran down her spine at the sound of his voice. It was absolute—completely devoid of warmth, empathy, or any human emotion.
Slowly, fighting to keep her expression neutral, she turned around.
Yug was standing just a few inches away from her, staring at her with those same dark, calculating eyes.
"I'm Lavanya Gotri," she replied coldly, her face a perfect, unreadable mask. "You have me mistaken for someone else."