Alena's pov:
"Lady Alena, may I come in?"
Alena glanced up from her 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", ordered Alena.
The servant girl proceeded to put the coffee on her table and hurried out of her room. try
Alena continued to read her picture book about "Roschwik, the adventurer"; it was a kids' picture book, but she 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 Alena's heart as it healed the inner child in her who dreamed of exploring the world one day when she grew up.
But those dreams of hers were quite futile, after all, she was a noble lady who had to manage the estate of whichever household she married into, and looking at the current state of affairs, she was very likely to be married into the dukedom of Estach. Now, she wasn't exactly fond of the heir of the Estach household. She didn't know him one bit to feel anything for him. But she had to do what needed to be done to uphold her duties. She wasn't too much of a rebel after all. The fact that she was up there this late at night, reading her picture book instead of sleeping early in preparation for tomorrow's event, was a big act of rebellion for her.
She read her book while sipping coffee in complete silence except for the occasional noises made by her pet turtles, who patted on the glass wall of their aquarium, begging to be let out. Time passed by as she read until late at night, and she fell asleep at her table, like she usually did.
Merkha's pov:
Merkha woke up with a jolt as the alarm bell rang that annoying tune. She had fallen asleep on her table, and an empty cup of coffee lay amidst the scattered pages of her notes on her table. Mind maps were pasted all over her walls and many pages of her short notes were kept in a mess on her table. She wasn't exactly an organized person. It was the day of her mid-semester today, she hurriedly got up, brushed her teeth, got ready, took one last look at her short notes and hurried to reach the main campus building.
On the way, she took one look at her mobile to see her friend group's GC filled with the weird brain-rot memes and distraught messages of her friends who seemed like they were going through a mass extinction event.
She texted, "y'all, need to sybau :3 and @braindedblue-eyed owes me a coffee", into the group and then sent brain rot of her own.
Finally, when she reached the main college campus, she proceeded to walk towards her friend group's meeting spot, which was just benches laid next to a tree, which, for some reason, had quirky graffiti on it. Her friends were already there, as always, and she was the last one to arrive.
Merkha had been quite close to her friend group. To get into this college, she had to leave her country, and two of her friends, Merrissa and Iwachsner, were from the same country as her own. Merrissa was a tall, brown haired woman with doe eyes; she had cute freckles all over her face. Merkha counted her in her list of pretty women she had the blessings to talk to, 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 her 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," Merkha 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, and besides, you owe me a coffee or something," Merkha remarked.
" 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. ", Merkha said while trying to seem as nonchalant as possible. "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.
"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." Merkha sighed as she started to drag her exhausted body into the exam hall. Merrissa had given her a dark chocolate as a source of caffeine, but it wasn't much to make her feel very energetic. She dared to scramble through her mind maps, one last time before the examinations, to ease her anxiety; after all, she couldn't afford to have a CGPA lower than 8.7 and lose her scholarship. She used the examination adrenaline to survive through her exams and was very glad and fatigued when it all ended. Now all she 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?" she heard Merrissa's voice from across the hall as she headed toward the exit of the building.
"It went alright, at least I survived through it without falling asleep," Merkha 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." Merkha whined.
"Dude, come on, I would buy you your chai tea latte-"
"It's supposed to be called chai, you dumbo, just chai. Stop defaming my favourite drink. And I'm in if you're gonna buy me that, I guess." Merkha gave in to the temptation of the offer.
"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, "Merkha emphasized.
"Yup, well easily be back before that. its only around 2pm right now." Merrissa insisted.
So that was how Merkha got dragged to a cafe far away from the comforts of her dorm room and into the bustling, crowded cafe. It was full of people so there was no space for the two of them inside it, Merrissa decided that she would be the daring one to wait in line and order their drinks, while she waited on one of the benches kept outside. she glanced at her 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. She was stuck in the middle now and there was nothing she could do, but wait. So she opened her notes app and started noting down ideas she had for her web development project.
She was just typing furiously into the notes app, when she felt something approach her, something gigantic and with very bright headlights. A CAR!!?? before she could even grasp the situation a jolt of pain hit her body she felt her ribcage shattering. blood was splattered all around her, her vision started blurring out, and her consciousness faded into nothingness.
(Alena?)'s pov :
Alena woke up with a bloodcurdling scream. The pain was overwhelming, but wait, what pain. didn't her ribcage just shatter? no? she was fine, she just woke up, she had fallen asleep on her table, her picture book kept in front of her, but why weren't her usual short notes there, where were the mind maps pasted all over the walls of her room. But wasn't she just hit by a car? What exactly is a car, again? But she was there with Merrissa wasn't she? But who... who is Merrissa?
Who is she? Who was she?
Was her name Alena or was it..... Mer... Merkha.
What was she, what was this world. She couldn't grasp anything, she was too overwhelmed. Her stomach couldn't contain the weight of her emotions, she threw it all up. She vomited all over the floor, her hands clawed at the floor perhaps looked for desperate escape from this wretched body.
Her fingernails broke from the friction, blood was all splattered on the floor now. Her mind couldnt contain it.... she fainted.