Alena's pov:
"Lady Alena, may I come in?"
I glanced up from my book to look at the servant girl, who held a tray with an insulated, silver pot of coffee at its centre, as she stood timidly by the doorway.
"Yes, you may come in", I ordered.
The servant girl then proceeded to put the coffee on her table and hurried out of her room.
I continued to read my picture book about "Roschwik, the adventurer"; it was a kids' picture book, but I enjoyed reading it nonetheless. It was a story about the adventures of a man named Roschwik, who may or may not have existed in the past. He was rumoured to be the first person to try to voyage across the world, but the records of his existence are inadequate. The book was close to my heart as it healed the inner child in me who dreamed of exploring the world one day when I grew up.
But those dreams of mine were quite futile, after all, I am a noble lady and I had to manage the estate of whichever household I would married into, and looking at the current state of affairs, I was very likely to be married into the dukedom of Estach. Now, the heir of the Estach household isn't exactly an interesting personality. I didn't know him one bit to feel anything for him. But I had to do what needed to be done to uphold my duties. I wasn't too much of a rebel after all. The fact that I was up there this late at night, reading my picture book instead of sleeping early, was a big act of rebellion in itself.
I continued to read my book while sipping coffee in complete silence except for the occasional noises made by my pet turtles, who patted on the glass wall of their aquarium, begging to be let out. Time passed by as I read until late at night, until the fatigue of the day finally kicked in, and I just fell asleep at my able, like I usually did.
Merkha's pov:
I woke up with a jolt as the alarm bell rang that annoying tune. I had fallen asleep on my table again, and an empty cup of coffee lay amidst the scattered pages of my notes all over the table. Mind maps were pasted all over my walls and many pages of my short notes were kept in a mess on my table. I wasn't exactly an organized person. It was the day of my mid-semesters today, I needed to hurry up, I hurriedly got up, brushed my teeth, got ready, took one last look at my short notes and hurried to reach the main campus building.
On the way, I took one look at my mobile to see my friend group's GC filled with the weird brain-rot memes and distraught messages of the idiots who seemed like they were going through a mass extinction event.
I texted, "y'all, need to sybau :3 and @braindedblue-eyed owes me a coffee", into the group and then I added brain rot of my own.
Finally, when I reached the main college campus, I proceeded to walk towards my friend group's meeting spot, which was just benches laid next to a tree, which, for some reason, had quirky graffiti on it. The weirdos were already there, as always, and I was the last one to arrive. I really needed to work on my time management for a change.
Despite them being quite the weirdos, I had been quite close to the three of them. To get into this college, I had to leave the country I grew up in, and two of my friends, Merrissa and Iwachsner, were from the same country as my own. Merrissa was a tall, brown haired woman with doe eyes; she had cute freckles all over her face. I counted her in my list of pretty women I had the blessings to talk to and I was quite open to her about it, and Iwachsner had fluffy, dark auburn hair, steel-rimmed rectangular glasses, and underneath them, he had beautiful, grey eyes. Moreover, He had a little goatee and a bit of sideburns on his face. The two of them had been my friends since high school, whereas Jeremy was another friend whom they met this semester in college; they all just adopted him into their friend group the moment they knew he loved the same anime as the three of them. Jeremy had blonde hair, blue eyes and looked like he used a good level of tanning spray. He had the ultimate gym rat bod; out of the three of them, he was definitely the most athletic one.
"Hey, Merkha, did you do this part? Was this supposed to be important? " Merissa asked her anxiously.
"Yeah, I did do it, but I don't think it's that important. I just did it for the sake of it," I replied.
"Yeah, I'm definitely not coming out alive today." Stated Merissa.
"Yeah, it would be a surprise if you did. " Said the blue-eyed blonde man sitting crisscross on the bench with an open book in his lap
"Jeremy, sweetie, you're the last one to talk,"I remarked, he was what came to my mind when someone mentioned the word himbo to me, "and besides, you owe me a coffee or something," I added.
" Wait, what? Why?" Jeremy asked in shock.
"I don't know, I really need some caffeine, and I chose you as the target because I'm too broke to afford it, and you're real annoying. ", I said
"hmm, maybe you wouldn't need to be so desperate for caffeine if you actually slept at night and took care of yourself." snarked Iwachsner.
"Stop bullying me, Iwa. I have barely slept 3 hours to prepare for today." Merkha sighed. He wasn't wrong but he didn't need to act like such a smartass every time.
"Honestly, that's a lot of sleep time. I think I only slept for like an hour. Besides, stop whining, we need to go to the exam halls now, it's almost time for the exam," remarked Jeremy.
"Yeah, I know." I sighed as I started to drag my exhausted body into the exam hall. Merrissa had given me a dark chocolate as a source of caffeine, but it wasn't much to make her feel very energetic. I dared to scramble through her mind maps, one last time before the examinations, to ease my anxiety; after all, I couldn't afford to have a CGPA lower than 8.7 and lose my scholarship. She used the examination adrenaline to survive through her exams and was very glad and fatigued when it all ended. Now all I had to do was somehow reach her beloved dorm room and plop down on her warm bed, and keep on sleeping until at least a millennium.
"Oh, Merkha, how did it go?" I heard Merrissa's voice from across the hall as I headed towards the exit of the building.
"It went alright, at least I survived through it without falling asleep," I said with an exhausted voice.
"I don't think my CGPA will be any good after this." Merrissa remarked with a defeated tone." But let's not talk about this. You wanna visit this new cafe? It's not that far away from here; it's probably a 30-minute drive from here," she added excitedly.
"Girl! That's like really far from here, there's no way I want to do anything but sleep now." I whined.
"Dude, come on, I would buy you your favorite brownies-"
"I'm in if you're gonna buy me that, I guess." I folded in to the temptation of the offer under ero pressure. They were my comfort snacks Afterall, nothing could compete with the heavenly smell of those choco brownies.
"Yes! That's cool, we don't need to ask the weirdos to join us, lets go together, Jeremy said he had somewhere to be anyway and Iwa had to run sum errands for his aunt. The two of us can have a nice hangout together." Merrissa exclaimed excitedly. "You know that cafe is so aesthetically pleasing, I really can't wait to take pictures of it and post them on my blog," she added. She posted photography content on her social media as a content creator to make some extra money on the side.
"But we need to be back before 6 pm I also have some unfinished projects on my hands, " I emphasized. I couldn't procrastinate on them any longer.
"Yup, we'll easily be back before that. its only around 2pm right now." Merrissa insisted.
So that was how I got dragged to a cafe far away from the comforts of my dorm room and into the bustling, crowded cafe. It was full of people so there was no space for the two of us inside it, Merrissa decided that she would be the daring one to wait in line and order their drinks, while I waited on one of the benches kept outside. I glanced at my mobile to see the time to be dangerously close to 5 pm now, at this rate there was no way they could be back before 6 pm, but Merrissa was so close to fetching the drinks. I felt stuck in the middle now and there was nothing I could do, but wait. So I opened my notes app and started noting down ideas I had for my web development projects.
I was just typing furiously into the notes app, when I felt something approach her, something gigantic and with very bright headlights. A CAR!!?? before I could even grasp the situation a jolt of pain hit my body ,I felt my ribcage shattering. blood was splattered all around me, my vision started blurring out, and my consciousness faded into nothingness.
(Alena?)'s pov :
I woke up with a bloodcurdling scream. The pain was overwhelming, but wait, what pain? didn't my ribcage just shatter? no? I was fine, I just woke up, I had fallen asleep on my table, my picture book was kept in front of me, but why weren't my usual short notes there, where were the mind maps pasted all over the walls of my room. But wasn't I just hit by a car? What exactly is a car, again? But I was there with Merrissa wasn't I? But who... who is Merrissa?
Who is she? Who was I?
Was her name Alena or was it..... Mer... Merkha.
What was I, what was this world. I couldn't grasp anything, I felt too overwhelmed. My stomach couldn't contain the weight of my emotions, I threw it all up, vomiting all over the floor, my hands clawed at the floor perhaps they were also looking for desperate escape from this wretched body.
My fingernails broke from the friction, blood was all splattered on the floor now. My mind couldnt contain it.... as I felt my consciousness blurring and I fainted.