Chapter 7: SEVEN
"LUCIUS NIGHTINGALE, at your service."
The man smirked at me, speaking sarcastically. I wondered what would happen if I jumped up and started strangling him. I couldn't even touch him. He was a strange man who had just appeared in my bedroom. By my logic, he was an incorporeal pervert. Wait? Lucius Nightingale.
Nightangale.
Lucius.
I didn't need to think twice. He was the name of a character I knew.
'My favourite character this guy, Lucius, he's very gentle.'
The memory surfaced suddenly again. The memory of my sister. I missed her so much. But most of my younger memories of her were blurry. I had spent years the last couple of years suppressing the pain, yet certain moments, certain fragments of her voice, still lingered in the back of my mind.
She was the reason I had become obsessed with novels and shows when I was younger. To be closer to her. To her memory.
I had read the trilogy so many times, my eyes dry from the long nights, each page filled with a painful memory. Why? Well. It was one that had made me cry every night and wonder the reason why such a successful author had committed such a heinous act.
The author murdered my sister.
It wasn't a big mystery as he committed murder, confessed to the killing and was arrested on the same day.
At the time, I was waiting for my sister to come home after school and play games, yet, the call I received hadn't been from her.
It had been from the police.
To identify her body.
On that day, I lost the only family member who mattered to me in to world. I felt broken. I wailed for hours on end. Stayed up for days on end. I became a lost soul.
When the court had imprisoned him and his court date came around, I had snuck into the cell that was holding him, questioned and demanded answers from him, asking, 'Why?'
He had laughed at me, grinning and saying from behind bars, 'No reason, she was just here when I was in the mood.'
I tried to attack him, was captured by security and placed into custody.
From there, my hatred for him grew and I denounced him everywhere I could after being released. Social media, google reviews, book reviews, new articles, anywhere I could, I was there. Under different accounts, different names, different identities.
The world seemed to reject my hatred. People loved him, why? because he was too good-looking. And they loved his series.
'How could such a talented young man do that.' 'He's being framed.' 'I still love him, he's my favourite author.'
I lost count of how many times I've argued with idiots who took his side.
Some had even questioned what my sister had done, claiming it was probably self-defence.
I read the books so many times that I could tear him apart in any way I could. But I was also searching.
For answers.
As to why?
Why did he do it?
Someone once told me you can predict what someone would or could do from their past. So I tried doing that. Yet, I couldn't find anything about him.
Only that he had three successful books.
So I read them, all three and burned them in the back of my head before going to every bookstore I could, buying all of his books I could purchase and burning them in a big fire at the back of my old house.
Most of the jobs I took on were to fuel this hatred I had for him.
That was my only motivation to live in my past life until I was 24.
Hatred.
It left a bitter taste in my mouth.
I had visited my sister's grave so many times. Weeping, crying, talking. Chatting. Doing anything I could do to ease the pain.
Then, one day, I had a dream.
My sister had held the younger me, stroking my face in her lap as we rested in a field of flowers. Blue butterflies danced around us as she murmured softly, 'Move on Bubba, I'm doing well.'
I gained a weird amount of motivation that morning. Though I didn't forget my hatred, I strived to make my life better. I did, however, have rituals every Sunday of burning three books while getting drunk and dancing the fire.
Now, as I lay here in this moment, those memories came back pouring on me like a tsunami.
And a different one, a happy one. Of her talking about a fictional man. Blond and purple-eyed. Tall and handsome. With a scar on his mouth. His name? Lucius Nightingale.
A significant side character in the trilogy.
Frostwood Academy. I recognised the place.
It was an important place within the novel.
I took in a deep breath as I had an epiphany. Not only was I in a new world, I was in the world of a trilogy of my enemy.
Ha.
Ha.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
I looked at the man deeply. "You want me to save the world?"
The man's brow rose, speaking as if it was natural I would follow his orders after beating me to death several times. "Yes, you will."
I looked to the rooftop.
I could finally get my revenge.
I could kill the five main characters. For no reason (well there was one). They're just here and I'm in a mood.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
The author's beloved cast.
That would be my new ultimate goal for living.
Taking his most precious things away from him.
It looked like the floaty prick knew the world would end somehow and wanted to save it. Though I don't know how, he might know a way. Plus, I had several questions. If he was here as a ghost, did that mean he was already dead in this world? He hadn't died in the trilogy till the third book.
Were we that far in?
I'm guessing we weren't. As Frostwood Academy still stood.
It was only destroyed half-way through the first book.
How he was here by my side, that was a mystery.
"How will we save the world?" I asked.
The man looked a me like I was useless trash.
"I will raise you to become the strongest underneath the three suns."