"Arrghh!" James shouted as he awoke. He quickly held his chest, searching for wetness or holes in it, and he sighed as he didn't feel anything. His eyes were still closed, and he moved his hands to touch it as he couldn't open them.
"Lior?"
"Are you okay?"
He heard voices in the background, and his brows raised. 'Lior?' 'Who's that?' he thought but didn't dwell much on it as a smile graced his lips.
"I didn't die!" he screamed to himself. He touched his chest again as he said, now low, "But what was that? A dream? But it felt so real?"
"Beatrice would never do that. What day is today? Is it after or before? Am I to be afraid? Did it actually happen? Is it being planned? Was I saved? Am I to be scared!" His brain was in a tunnel of confusion with no way to escape as he sat down on the soft cushion beneath him.
As he thought out loud, he suddenly felt a hand on him and he flinched. "People are actually in this room?" he muttered to himself.
"Lior, we are sorry that we couldn't protect you. I, particularly, am very sorry, but I'll try my best to nurse you back to health," he heard one of the voices say, deepening his confusion.
"So, I wasn't hallucinating? Who are these people?" James mumbled as he scratched his head. And that was when he felt it—the texture of his hair was different, and it might be said his head was smaller. He traced the hair and was surprised to note that it traced down to his waist.
"I'm not a girl, am I?" James muttered. "That's ridiculous." He chuckled, barely hiding the worry beneath it.
Suddenly, he felt a cooling feeling in his eyes, and his eyes filtered open. He blinked as he took in the sight before him. The voices were real people. Before him were three breathtakingly beautiful ladies staring back at him, and they were so identical he believed he was staring at clones and that made him seriously afraid.
He suddenly backed away from them and pointed at them as he knelt on the bed, ready to run away if anything bad were to happen.
His hands stretched at them, perhaps just one, and he shouted, "Who are you people and what do you want from me?"
The one his hand was outstretched at blinked, her brows raised. The other beside her furrowed her brows, and the third suddenly started sobbing. As he heard the sobs, James moved his head to the third clone in the room, and he could see crystal-clear tears rolling down her eyes.
"Hey… why are you crying? Are you people okay? Why are you suddenly looking sad? Tell me who you are?"
"Elowen, what is wrong with him? Is he supposed to be this way?" the one he had pointed at said as she looked at the crying one.
Elowen cleaned her eyes as she looked up at the other lady. She said, amidst sobs,
"Seraphina, I honestly have no idea what's wrong with brother. Even with my current rank in alchemy, I'm at a loss. Yes, he was trampled by a horse, but he's not supposed to suddenly forget everything."
The one in the middle shook as she stared at James, "Forgetting would be nice. It seems like he lost his mind too. Look at how he looks at us like we want to harm him when we'll never do."
"Isolde, that's the same as forgetting things. He doesn't know us, so it's only right and sane to be afraid of who we are and what we might do. Don't let us start to assume our brother isn't right in the head."
"Okay. What do we do now then?" Isolde asked.
And James, all the while, stared at them as he didn't understand whatsoever they were discussing. It all felt like another language to him, or were they not speaking English? he thought. His mind was in shambles as he pondered.
'They call me their brother… does that mean they are my sisters?'
'Come to think of it, I think I saw these people just before I died… that scene where it was like I was watching a movie that didn't make sense to me because why would that happen when I want to die… it's the same…'
As he thought of this, something suddenly struck his brain and he held his head in pain. It felt as though someone was tugging at his brain, trying to sew something into it. Suddenly, different scenes started playing in his head, he started remembering things that he couldn't before and then just as it started, it stopped. His head felt heavy at first, then light.
James' mouth opened in awe as he stared in oblivion. He suddenly didn't feel like himself. Suddenly, he felt like a person named Lior.
He looked at the three sisters before him and he asked, "Am I Lior?"
The three ladies suddenly stared at him and all nodded at once, smiles gracing their lips. James then started to name them one after the other. From the first, he said, "And you're Seraphina, the eldest twin."
Then, "Isolde, the second."
And, "Elowen, the last."
He added, "And you three are triplets, and we are all Ravenhart. Our parents died after I'd turned four years old, and you were all twelve years old then, so you took me as your precious little brother, took our parents' business in hand, and took care of both. And now, I'm your precious little brother who you don't want anything to happen to and who something happens to every damn time. He almost died."
"Oh! Lior!" Elowen said as she stood up and came to his side. "You're well now."
She turned to Isolde as she said,
"You see? I said he's alright."
"Thanks to the heavens that he is," Seraphina muttered with a smile.
Elowen brought her hand to James' head and he moved back, looking at her with raised brows, "What are you trying to do? Just because I said all these doesn't mean that I'm your brother. You know what?"
He said, looking at them all, "I want to rest. Can you all leave please, so I can clear my head?"
"Oh…" Elowen uttered as her hand still stayed hung in the air as she looked from her supposed brother, Lior, who was now possessed, to her sisters.
Seraphina looked at James for a while, her lips tight as she didn't say anything. Then, she looked at her sisters and said,
"Yes, it'll be nice to give our brother time to understand himself. He just supposedly came back from death. Or, Elowen, what do you say? You know best in terms of medicine and body system."
"That's a great idea," Elowen nodded. Then she turned to James and said with a soft voice, big silver-blue doe eyes which James was just noticing, as the eyes seemed to draw him in—"We'll leave you to rest."
"Okay," James said. And in his mind, he thought, 'Do I also have their silver hair and eyes?'
Soon, the three sisters stood up from their seats and left the room. Left alone, James finally had the whole place to himself, and he could finally settle to think of what exactly was happening to him.
James first looked at the bed to see purple silk bedsheets covering him, and raised purple nets hanging around the frames.
"I ask again, am I a girl? Cause what the fuck!" James muttered to himself as he moved his eyes away from the bed to the room. The walls were colored purple and black, and the couches were all girly colors. James' eyes covered a range of purple, pink, and just little touches of white, black, and blue.
His eyes moved back to himself and he stared down at the silk purple nightwear he was wearing. And then, he finally saw his hair and it was a bright shade of red.
"I'm ginger?" he said, and a smile seemed to curl to his mouth. "Something finally good about all this. I've always loved gingers—one of the reasons I absolutely loved Beatrice was because she was a realization of what I wanted to have."
"Shit! And she turned out to be bad for me."
He stood up from the bed and walked to the mirror he could see nearby, all the while muttering, "Based on what has happened so far, what would I say is happening to me? Possible fit, I'm in another world and I need to complete a quest, and after that I could go to heaven?"
"Is that it? So, there would be a system or what? Or is it just a normal safe new world for me because I died before I even turned thirty?"
"Probably not," he mumbled and finally reached the mirror. As he stood before it, James' eyes almost popped out of their sockets.
"What the fuck!" he shouted, and he heard a loud bang on the floor. James' head turned to the direction of the sound, and he saw a boy about the age of the body he was currently in. He was bent low as he picked up what had fallen from his hand.