I was nothing special.

A shut-in. A chubby, ordinary girl who blended into the background like a shadow. Easy to ignore. Easier to mock.

The world never ran out of ways to remind me I didn’t belong. Cruel jokes in hallways. Laughter that followed me home. Words sharper than blades, carving deeper than bruises ever could. 

Bit by bit, I shrank into myself until there was nothing left but silence and the weight of my own loneliness.

That night, I decided I’d had enough.

The chair creaked under me. The rope swayed above. My room was still, suffocating, as if the world didn’t care whether I breathed or not. And maybe it didn’t.

Then—music.

It came from the neighbor’s stereo, muffled through the thin walls. A single voice cutting into the darkness.

A voice that shouldn’t have reached me, but did.

Strong. Raw. Alive.

It wrapped around me like a hand pulling me back from the edge. The lyrics told me not to hide my light. That even if it flickered, it still burned.

I gasped, stumbling from the chair, clutching my chest as though those words had physically struck me. Tears blurred my vision, but for the first time in forever, they weren’t from pain—they were from something I thought I’d lost.

Hope.

That voice saved me.

His voice.

Eric. The lead singer of AUREA—the boyband that would one day become gods in the music world. To me, he wasn’t just an idol. He was my lifeline.

And then . . . years later, when he died, the world mourned. I mourned. The one who saved me, the reason of my life, was gone, ripped from life far too soon.

I thought it was over.

But fate had other plans.

One desperate wish, one shattered night, and when I opened my eyes—I was ten years in the past. Before the world knew AUREA. Before Eric was swallowed by fame. 

Before his voice was silenced forever.

I’m just Emy—ordinary, clumsy, and invisible to most. 

But this time . . . it’s my turn.

Eric saved me once.

Now, I’ll save him.

No matter what it takes.

I searched online for the next songwriter contest that Star Entertainment was hosting. Just my luck—there was one a month from now.


A whole month. Thirty days. Seven hundred and twenty hours. Not a lot of time when you're planning to outwit an entire entertainment empire using future knowledge.


First things first—I grabbed a notebook and listed down all of AUREA's songs from now until ten years into the future.


Don't ask me how I knew them. Let's just say I was the kind of fan who could recognize a B-side track from the first three seconds of background vocals.


Yeah, my brain was basically an AUREA encyclopedia. Totally useless in school, but now? It was my golden ticket.


After that, I started compiling a list of viral hits from other artists and groups. The kind of songs that exploded on social media with dances people pretended not to care about but secretly practiced at 2 a.m.


I knew which ones would dominate the charts, and trust me—this was no coincidence.


Of course, there was a catch. If I submitted a song that hadn't even been written yet but would release in six months, someone might question how I magically predicted the exact same melody.


And explaining "Oh, you see, I time-traveled," wasn't exactly a winning strategy.


So I decided to play it safe. A hit from a year later would do the trick. Just enough foresight to look like a prodigy, not enough to make me sound like a plagiarist.


I stared at my growing lists and nodded to myself. "Alright, let's go with that."


And that's when it hit me—if I was going to do this, I needed more than stolen future songs. I needed the look, and the confidence.


The confidence of someone who didn't cry when trying on jeans. Which meant: self-love and healthy living.


Ugh. Two words I had avoided like they were an allergic reaction.


But this was war. And in war, you needed weapons.


Mine just happened to be oat milk, jogging shoes, and maybe the occasional green juice that tasted like grass but promised "glowing skin."


So I rolled up my sleeves and whispered dramatically to my reflection, "This is the beginning."


The beginning of my journey to beat Star Entertainment, conquer my insecurities, and save Eric!


And if I to suffer in the process, then so be it.


Chapter 8 - The Beginning of My Beginning