[IS - 🎭] Betrayal.

The election is coming, and the party has already crowned its champion: your Old Friend, the person who once raised you up, fought beside you, trusted you, used you, and expected you to know your place when the time came. They were supposed to be inevitable. The leader. The survivor. The one who sacrificed too much, betrayed too many, and waited too long to lose now.

But the country has started looking past them.

Their polls are falling. Their scandals linger. Their donors whisper. Their faction tightens ranks while yours grows louder by the day. Journalists want a statement, defectors want permission, rivals want a bargain, and the current administration quietly hopes you will bury the one person it fears more than you.

There will be no fair party contest. The machine belongs to your Old Friend.

So what remains? Stay loyal and be remembered as the faithful lieutenant. Force a bargain and risk being swallowed. Or run independent, split the party open, and gamble that the nation wants you more than it fears the rupture.

The presidency is close. So is betrayal.
