The first round is funny because you survive it. People cheer, someone slaps the table, and you smile like the burn in your throat is proof of victory instead of warning. The room rewards endurance and calls it camaraderie. You laugh when you're meant to laugh. You raise your glass when you're meant to raise it. You perform the version of yourself who belongs here, the one Elizabeth wants to believe in, the one who doesn't have a laptop waiting at home. Then the next cup arrives before the room has finished tilting back into place. The alcohol lands not as pleasure but as permission: a door swinging open onto worse decisions and easier lies. You can still handle it, you think. That's always how it starts. [[Contest Collapse|Push for another round]]