Frantic, I wrote to the editorial department for clarification, only to discover that Felicity had submitted a paper two hours before mine—an exact copy of my work.
All the results of my sleepless nights and painstaking effort were credited to her. Yet during that time, she hadn’t even been in the lab; she was busy with graduation trips, nowhere near her research.
Before I could confront her, she publicly complained on social media, sarcastically lamenting, "I never thought someone like me, academic trash, would have this moment."
When people commented, she slyly added, "There’s a certain doctoral student who’s like the academic Lady Macbeth."
Soon enough, everyone who knew me believed I had stolen her work. The shame spread quickly, and my reputation was in tatters.
As the only doctoral student in my class, I was still locked in competition for the coveted spot to stay in school. But now, with the accusations of plagiarism, everything I had worked for was unraveling.
Students despised plagiarism, especially in academic research, and the backlash came fast and brutal. I was bombarded with insults and threats.
"Investigate her thoroughly. Maybe all her previous work was plagiarized too."