Ms. Abrams

Ms. Abrams

First appearance: Catharsis, chapter 1
Last appearance: Catharsis, chapter 4
Appears in: Catharsis

Latest status

Alive — unresolved in Jason’s real-world storyline; her memory-construct is killed inside Jason’s initiation trial, but this does not affect the real person

Ms. Abrams is a high school administrator whose institutional authority is wielded as a tool of class-based prejudice, favoring wealthier students while working for years to see a lower-income student expelled or stripped of his standing. Her cruelty is petty, persistent, and dressed up as discipline, making her a formative source of the resentment and anger the protagonist carries into the wider story. A construct drawn from those memories later resurfaces as a symbolic test of how he will respond to that abuse, without implicating the real woman in the events that follow.

Book 1: Catharsis

Ms. Abrams is a Richmond High administrator and Richmond alumna who singles Jason out for punishment over a tardiness infraction, while treating Alex Lane, who arrives under identical circumstances, with warmth and leniency. She has spent the three years of Jason’s enrollment attempting to have him expelled or his scholarship revoked. When Jason is later brought to the principal’s office on Alex’s false assault accusation, she actively works to maximize his punishment, backs Alex’s account, and adds a charge of lying to Jason’s record with open satisfaction. She mutters the phrase “welfare case” under her breath, a remark that directly triggers Jason’s outburst against the accusation.

When Jason later enters Awaken Online and undergoes the game’s initiation trial, the system generates a construct of Ms. Abrams from his memories to test whether he will submit or fight back. The construct delivers the same class-based abuse as the real woman, including the “welfare case” line, and its appearance grows increasingly monstrous as Jason’s anger rises. Jason kills the construct with a rock, ending the trial and unlocking the game’s Dark Path; the demonic features vanish immediately after death, leaving only an ordinary body, and the game confirms the figure was a memory-generated test subject rather than the real Ms. Abrams. The real Ms. Abrams is not present in the game and does not die in this scene.

Status: Alive — Richmond High administrator, actively pursuing Jason’s expulsion → Alive — unresolved in Jason’s real-world storyline; her memory-construct is killed inside Jason’s initiation trial, but this does not affect the real person

Jason: Her long-running hostility toward Jason culminates in the ‘welfare case’ remark that triggers his outburst at the principal’s office hearing, and a memory-construct of her becomes the target Jason kills to complete his game initiation and choose the Dark Path.

Key quote: “‘Are you even going to respond? I guess this sort of rudeness is to be expected of a welfare case.‘”

Appears in

• Catharsis — 3 chapters