Foreword
Dear Reader, if you’ve found this diary, then I must be dead. That’s the only way I’d have let anyone find this account of what’s been happening to me. What they’ve put me through. What they’re still putting me through.
If you’re reading this…then I’m dead and the Devil’s Backbone Society is responsible. You, whoever you are, will probably be next.
I should probably start at the beginning, so you have context for what I record next, so you can understand how they fooled me for so long and how I ended up where I am now.
Probably dead. Definitely dead, because you, dear reader, have found my journal.
I swore that if they let me live, I’d destroy any evidence against them…
Because of where I plan to hide this book, you must be a student at Nevaeh University. I was too. When I got awarded the Mariah Greenberg Scholarship, I thought I’d won the lottery. All my dreams were going to come true at Nevaeh. How utterly wrong I was.
The first time I heard about the Devil’s Backbone Society was a month after the school year started.
I was at a party with my friends, beside Lake Prosper, and overheard some girls whispering about “initiation” and speculating on who would be chosen.
The criteria for selection seemed to be obvious.
Wealthy, influential, beautiful—only the best were invited to join.
But then apparently, each year a few extras were chosen at random. Cannon-fodder, the girls called them.
Someone died. No one will talk about it, and when I tried to ask my TA what had happened, she shushed me very abruptly.
All I know is that a girl named Sarah Black supposedly jumped off Cat’s Peak at midnight.
But if it was unrelated to the DB Society, why is everyone pretending it never happened?
Or worse than that, they’re pretending she never existed at all.
It’s creepy, and knowing now what I know of their initiation…
I’m 100 percent convinced she was pushed.
You’ve probably already guessed by now, the DB Society selected me as one of their supposedly “random” initiates this year.
Just a week after Sarah Black’s so-called suicide on Cat’s Peak, they grabbed me on my way to the dining hall for dinner.
Someone put a bag over my head, and I was manhandled into a van.
For far too long, I genuinely thought I was going to die.
I didn’t…obviously. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be writing this account now.
But that first initiation made me realize I needed to start writing things down…
just in case I ended up like Sarah. Like I probably have, if you’re reading this now.
Shit. If you’re reading this…please don’t end up like me. Be smarter than I was and don’t trust anyone.