Reborn, I Let Them Take the Cursed Graduation Photo Chapter 01

Reborn, I Let Them Take the Cursed Graduation Photo Chapter 01

There was a legend at Kingsley College.

No graduating class was allowed to take a full class photo.

Anyone who did would be cursed.

Nobody knew where the story had started. Nobody could prove it was real. But for years, students had avoided testing it.

Everyone except Isabella Collins.

As the school’s beloved Homecoming Queen, Isabella laughed off the warning.

“I’m leaving the country after graduation,” she said with a bright smile. “Don’t we deserve something to remember each other by?”

The room immediately erupted with support.

“Of course we do.”

“Let’s take it.”

“It’s just an urban legend.”

“Who actually believes that stuff?”

I did.

Or rather, I believed in something else.

Since I was a child, I’d had an instinct for danger.

Whenever that feeling appeared, something bad always followed.

In my previous life, that same uneasy feeling had settled in my chest the moment I heard about the graduation photo.

So I reported it to the dean.

The entire event was canceled.

Isabella boarded her flight disappointed.

Then the plane crashed.

The whole school mourned her death.

During the memorial service, people realized there wasn’t a single group photo of our graduating class.

And somehow, that became my fault.

They blamed me.

Shoved me.

Beat me.

My childhood best friend, Ethan Vance, pushed me down a stairwell.

“You robbed Isabella of her final wish,” he spat. “You deserve this.”

I fell from the eighth floor landing.

My head struck the concrete steps.

I died before the ambulance arrived.

My classmates helped Ethan cover it up.

They all claimed it had been an accident.

The shock destroyed my parents.

Unable to bear the loss, they locked themselves in the garage and ended their lives.

Then I opened my eyes again.

And found myself back at the exact moment everything had begun.

Isabella looped her arm through mine, smiling as brightly as ever.

“Katherine, can we take the graduation photo? Please?”

I gently pulled my arm free.

“Sure.”

…

The room went silent.

Nobody had expected me to agree so easily.

Isabella’s face lit up.

“Katie, really? That’s amazing!”

Someone stared at me in confusion.

“Wait. You’re okay with it? Aren’t you the one who’s always worried about stuff like this?”

I closed the book in my hands and looked up.

“If I said no, would any of you stop?”

“Of course not!”

The answer came instantly.

In perfect unison.

I wasn’t surprised.

Behind my back, they called me the dean’s watchdog.

The student council president who thought she owned the school.

The friendless nerd.

Why would they care what I thought?

Ethan studied me from across the room.

His expression was unusually complicated.

“What are you planning, Katherine Ellis?”

I met his gaze.

Ethan and I had grown up together.

Fourteen years of friendship.

At least, that was what I used to believe.

But in my previous life, when everyone turned against me, he never defended me once.

Instead, he had shoved me toward the stairs.

Then pushed me over the edge.

“You made Isabella die with regrets,” he’d said. “This is what you deserve.”

That was the moment I realized the boy I’d grown up with was gone.

Or maybe he’d never existed at all.

He loved Isabella.

Enough to kill for her.

After my death, he and the others lied to my parents.

“Katherine slipped. Nobody pushed her. It was just an accident.”

Then came the acceptance letter.

The graduate program at Archmont Institute of Technology.

The most prestigious university in the Commonwealth of Aurelion.

The school I’d spent years sacrificing everything to get into.

I had made it.

And then I died before I could even begin.

My parents knew exactly how hard I’d worked.

They couldn’t let it go.

In the end, they held my acceptance letter in their hands as they took their own lives.

“Katie, we’re coming to find you. We’ll help you finish your dream.”

The memory hit me like a knife.

My eyes stung.

Ethan narrowed his eyes.

“What’s wrong with you now?” he asked coldly. “What kind of act are you putting on?”

I forced the tears back.

“Ethan, my life has nothing to do with you.”

For the first time, he looked genuinely stunned.

As if he couldn’t believe I would speak to him that way.

After a moment, his expression hardened again.

“But you’ve always believed in this stuff.”

He counted them off on his fingers.

“You wouldn’t go into abandoned hospitals.”

“You avoided haunted apartment buildings.”

“You wouldn’t go near old forests, reservoirs, or abandoned amusement parks.”

I ignored the accusation.

Instead, I asked quietly,

“Do you actually know the story behind the rule?”

Ethan snorted.

“Everyone knows it.”

Five years earlier, the entire graduating class of Kingsley College’s Mathematics Department had taken a class photo.

Within a month, half the students were dead.

Car accidents.

Falls.

Drownings.

Electrocutions.

The survivors fared even worse.

They developed a mysterious illness.

Most slipped into comas.

Their bodies appeared covered in unexplained wounds.

When they finally woke up, none of them could remember the previous month.

After that, the tradition died.

No graduating class at Kingsley College ever attempted another full group photo.

Most students followed a simple rule:

Better safe than sorry.

Ethan rolled his eyes.

“Coincidences. That’s all.”

I shrugged.

“Then why ask me if you’ve already made up your mind?”

His jaw tightened.

The answer clearly annoyed him.

He stepped closer and lowered his voice.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do.”

“I’ll be watching you.”

“Don’t even think about reporting this.”

His eyes flashed.

“If you stop us from taking that photo and Isabella ends up regretting it for the rest of her life…”

He didn’t finish the sentence.

He didn’t have to.

Suddenly, everything clicked into place.

Ethan remembered.

Just like I did.

He had been reborn with memories of the previous timeline.

But unlike me, he couldn’t see the rules.

None of them could.

At that moment, a line of blood-red text flickered across the classroom wall.

Only visible to me.

The letters looked as though they had been painted in fresh blood.

[DO NOT TAKE A GRADUATION GROUP PHOTO. MISFORTUNE WILL FOLLOW.]