Chapter 1The Boy Who Finally Smiled

I am the most miserable man on the internet.

Three years in the industry. While others sell smiles and sparkling charm, I market my own gloom.

The public calls me dramatic, a fraud, a desperate attention-seeker.

My agent begs me:

"Man, can you stop playing the tortured artist every time you're on camera? Your follower count is cratering."

My parents urge me to walk away:

"We have enough money. Just quit."

My girlfriend sent me one final text before she blocked my number:

"I love you, but I can't build a life with a man who doesn't know how to smile."

I ignored them all.

Not because I wanted to cultivate some dark, moody persona for the aesthetic, but because of a curse. Before my grandfather died, his skeletal fingers clamped around my wrist like a vice, whispering a terrifying prophecy:

"Before you reach adulthood, you will face eighteen deadly trials."

At first, I didn't believe him. But after surviving one brush with death after another, year after year, the skepticism burned away, leaving only cold, hard certainty.

Now, seventeen of those trials are behind me. The shadow hanging over my chest has finally begun to lift.

But a week before my eighteenth birthday, my agency suddenly signed me up for a wilderness survival reality show.

* * *

"Beck, what is the big deal if you let Cyrus borrow your survival pack?"

My agent, Gideon, stood in the doorway of the green room, his hand outstretched with effortless entitlement.

I pressed my back against the cold, unyielding drywall, my fingers white-knuckled around the waterproof black canvas of my pack.

"This is my personal gear," I said, my voice flat, devoid of warmth. "According to my contract, I don't share."

"Can you lose the corpse face for five minutes?" Gideon's patience snapped. He took a sharp step forward, reaching for the bag. "The internet is tearing you to shreds for being a selfish prima donna. This show is your chance to clear your name. Don't you get that?"

I didn't move an inch. I merely pivoted, letting his hand grasp empty air.

Clear my name?

In my playbook, public relations didn't matter. Only survival did.

Next week, I would turn eighteen.

The final trial my grandfather warned me about was looming, a guillotine suspended by a thread.

Getting thrown into a tropical rainforest for a survival show at this exact moment felt less like a career move and more like a carefully orchestrated execution.

There was no way in hell I was parting with a bag I had personally inspected twelve times.

"Gideon, please don't force him."

The voice was bright, clear, and dripping with performative warmth.

Cyrus Novak, the golden boy of the network, stepped into the room. He was dressed in pristine, high-end technical outerwear, his face—the one fans routinely called 'the human sunshine'—pinched in a look of perfect, sympathetic distress.

"My pack got lost in transit, but it’s really fine. Even without gear, I can manage in the jungle. I'll make do." He walked over, looking up at me with eyes so earnest it made my stomach turn. "Beck has been struggling, and he’s always so... heavy. He needs these things to feel safe. I want him to have them."

Gideon’s face softened instantly, morphing into a mask of maternal concern.

"Cyrus, you are far too good for your own good. You're about to shoot a blockbuster film with an Oscar-winning director next month. If you get hurt out there, who pays for it?" Gideon whipped his gaze back to me, eyes spitting venom. "Beck, I am telling you one last time. Give him the bag."

"And I'm telling you," I replied, my voice dropping to a near-whisper, "no."

In the blind spot where the production cameras couldn't reach, a flash of pure, venomous malice crossed Cyrus's eyes. It was gone in a fraction of a second, replaced by a gentle tug on Gideon's sleeve.

"Gideon, let it go. I know Beck has some resentment toward me—he thinks I took his spots, his endorsements. But I've always admired him. Everyone drags him online, but his mental strength is incredible. He just does what he wants."

The words were wrapped in compliments, but each one was a calculated strike. He was framing my boundaries as petty jealousy, and my caution as sheer obstinacy.

Sure enough, the crew members lingering in the hallway began to whisper.

"Jesus, Beck is unbelievable. No wonder his girl packed her bags."

"Cyrus is being a saint, and Beck is still acting like a sociopath."

"Wait till the livestream starts. The chat is going to eat him alive."

The whispers floated through the door, sharp and clear.

But my expression didn't change.

I survived my first seventeen trials in the quiet spaces of other people's mockery.

When I was six, I refused to board the school bus. My parents whipped me for it. Thirty minutes later, that bus plunged off a mountain pass.

When I was thirteen, I refused to eat a slice of cake my cousin handed me. The family called me ungrateful and rude. The next day, the cake was found to be contaminated with rat poison.

So no, I didn’t believe in human kindness. I didn’t trust smiles.

I trusted the antivenom, the broad-spectrum antibiotics, and the three distinct tactical knives packed neatly inside my bag.

"Cyrus, stop coddling him!" Gideon snapped, lunging forward to wrench the bag from my hand. "He's handing it over today, whether he likes it or not!"

I caught Gideon’s wrist. I didn't shake him off; I just squeezed, my fingers finding the pressure points with clinical precision.

Gideon gasped, a sharp yelp of pain escaping his throat as his grip failed.

"You touched me?" he hissed, cradling his wrist, staring at me as if I'd grown a second head.

"This bag is my life," I said, locking eyes with him. "Anyone who touches it gets hurt."

Cyrus immediately rushed to Gideon's side, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, his eyes wide with a perfect mixture of shock and heartbreak.

"Beck, that's enough! Gideon was just trying to look out for the production. How could you be so violent?"

Just like that, he branded me the loose cannon. The aggressor.

I looked at his flawless, lying face.

"Cut the act," I said softly.