I woke up in the infirmary. Next to me is Rose, Mia and Heather. They must have saved me. Do I get a gold star for predicting this? Rose bolts awake when she feels me rustle awake, "Are you ok? Why would you do something like that?" You. Though I can't tell her that. The creator would never let me. At least not like this at least. Mia and Heather are crying. I feel gross but I feel more in control right now so I will say something that Violet would say to her, "It is none of your business. Just leave me alone." Rose then says, "It is very much my business otherwise you wouldn't have written this." She says waving the unopened letter. Obviously she hasn't read it yet. I smack my teeth, "Tsk. Why would you even save me? I didn't want to be saved." When I said that in a harsh tone my gross feeling disappeared. Her face looks defeated like the words I said hurt her more than me. Though I have a track record of misunderstanding people's facial expressions. She then says, "Well I guess now I just can't leave you alone can I? Not if you are going to hurt yourself."
I plead starting to feel disgusted again, "No. Please. When you are around bad things will happen. I don't want to hu-" Before I can finish saying what I am about to say the creator takes control and then says almost yelling, "Get out of my sight, you lowly commoner. Don't touch me with your filthy orphan hands." If I was in control right now I would be crying. I don't want to hurt her or talk down to her like this. She looks at me with a weird face and she leaves though I am guessing not far. I still feel gross inside so she must still be close by out there.
It is like this disgusting feeling is my radar to how close she is to me. There is a bucket close to my bed and I use it to alleviate this feeling and go ahead and throw up into it. Mia is holding my hair out of my face as I vomit and Heather is rubbing my back. If I had to describe this feeling it is as if my soul is being molested by an unknown entity. They just come inside my body and say and do things without my permission and leave behind this disgusting feeling in its wake. Fuck their story. I want no part of it. Once I am done vomiting, Mia asks with a weird face I cannot identify, "Did we do something that would cause you to hurt yourself?" I shake my head, "No. I am fighting against something and if I die it saves someone." Heather asks, "Is that someone Rose? It seems you act strangely around her. That and we saw the letter she was waving around." I nod, "The thing that controls me around her wants her to get together with Ren. I personally don't care if they get together or even married for that matter, but this entity is determined to make things turn out a specific way. They want me to torment Rose and I don't want to do that. I would rather die than bring her that kind of pain." I say this and I start crying again. They hug me and I am in a sandwich, "We love you. We will leave now so you can get some rest. The nurse wanted us to get her when you woke up so she could run some tests. We will come back to check on you later." They put my head back on the pillow and lift the blanket and leave.
Since everyone is out of the room for the moment thank goodness and I stumble out of bed and look around for something I can kill myself with while I am alone. I have to succeed. I am sorry Mia and Heather. This is something I must do. I am searching hard for sleeping pills or something but not finding anything. I do see a scalpel in a protective and sterilized case. I grab that scalpel and I lay back down and I slice my neck with it slicing my artery. Blood is shooting everywhere and very far. It spurts on the door which is several meters away from the arterial spurt. Rose comes running back into the room after being alerted by the blood squirting on the door and is freaking out and yelling, "Someone come quick! I need some help!" She then casts heal on me. Oh yea, I totally forgot that she was a saint with holy powers and that was one of the main reasons she was admitted into this academy. How did I manage to forget something so important? Damn it all. Just let me die. Everything goes black again.
When I awoke this time I had a bunch of faculty members around me talking about what they were going to do. I touch my neck and feel a scar from my cut that has now healed. Rose is not in the room or outside the room thank goodness because I hate that gross feeling when she is close by. That creator is so fucking gross. I hate how they make me feel especially around someone as great as Rose. When I raise myself up in the bed some of the faculty realize I am awake and they rush to my side and say, "Take it easy. You lost a lot of blood. Rose saved you with her special ability. You would not be here if not for her. Can you tell us why you would do something so drastic as to harm yourself like that?" I shake my head and look away dejected, "You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you." They said sternly in unison almost as if they practiced though obviously they didn't, "Try us."
I sigh I don't even know why I am about to bother but it won't hurt to tell someone I guess, "I can't tell you all of the details, but when I get physically close to Rose an entity controls my body against my will to make me say and do terrible things to her. If I don't kill myself, I will be forced to watch them use my body to torment her and I do not want that." One of the faculty members laughs at that. I knew they wouldn't believe me. I sigh and look away, "See that is exactly why I didn't want to say anything. If you aren't going to believe me can you just leave then?" Another faculty member makes that one who snickered leave and then says, "I apologize for their rudeness. Can you tell us more about the person controlling you?" I shake my head, "I am afraid not and nothing can be done about this. I have tried to run away and even kill myself (obviously as I do a motion to say as such) and they won't let me. I think the only way we can fight this is if you separate me and Rose. I don't want to hurt her." This one faculty member that has been talking to me seems like they believe me or really good at humoring people. He is dark skinned and most girls would call handsome and wears glasses with short brown hair. The other faculty probably think I am crazy, but their faces are contorted in an expression I can't identify and I don't get good vibes from their faces. I don't want to tell them how disgusting it makes me feel when I can obviously tell they think I am coocoo for cocoa puffs.
The one faculty member that seems to believe me sends the others out the room and says, "We can do that. Wait, I don't think I introduced myself yet. I am so sorry. I'm Doctor Grant though you can call me Doc. I would normally say nice to meet you, but these are less than ideal circumstances, Miss Treece. I believe you. You wouldn't have tried to take your life twice in one day if you weren't sincere. I will try and help you while you are here so please do not try to hurt yourself anymore." I plead to Doc, "Please don't tell her any of this. She will probably try to get closer to me if she knows the truth. I also don't want to feel that feeling again. When they use my body it feels so-" Saying it out loud I can't finish it and I start crying.
Doc, not sure what to say, holds my hand with his dark calloused hand, "Don't worry, confidentiality is something researchers like me are known for." I replied feeling flooded with feelings of relief, "Thank you, Doc." I start crying uncontrollably. They reach out panicking, "Was it something I said? I am sorry." I nod, but say, "Yes, but it isn't what you think. These aren't tears of sadness. They are tears of relief. In all of my 17 years alive in this world you are the first person who has heard my story and actually tried to help me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart." He gently squeezes the hand he is holding supportively and says, "You are welcome. If you ever need to talk, my door is always open. You are not alone in this academy. I will leave you to rest now. The nurse will come in when we leave to run some tests to make sure you are able to resume classes tomorrow. If you do get a clean bill of health from them, I want you to take it easy. I may not be a medical doctor, but even I know that losing a large quantity of blood makes a person weaker and fatigued and more prone to losing consciousness. I don't want you pushing yourself too soon." He squeezes my hand gently and then he gets up to leave.
He sure is nice. I wish my father was like him. I turn to look out the window and I see Rose and her beautiful red hair flowing wildly in the breeze like a beautiful roaring flame as she is talking with a faculty member. She sees me and she waves and I wave back. Apparently we are far enough away to where I can actually behave how I want and not show any hostility without feeling gross or any outside force interfering. The closer we are I can't control how I act around her. I wonder if I can successfully run away if I can escape the plot for good. Since the creator's control appears to be strongest near Rose. I will see how things unfold with Doc's help. We might be able to avoid a bad ending if he can help me prevent plot events from occurring.
The next day I listened to Doc and didn't push myself too hard. This means no exercising for a week before classes in the mornings nurse's orders. The nurse figured out I exercised when she gave me an initial assessment when I was unconscious apparently when she felt my muscles. Her name is Joy. I almost laughed when I heard it. Nurse Joy. Before you ask, her hair was not pink, but blonde. Pokemon don't exist in this world, sadly either. How cool would that have been? It would have been so dope. Back to Nurse Joy, her skin has so much melanin. She is dark and that paired with her blonde hair was stunning. I am actually glad black people here aren't discriminated against like they were on Earth. I think it is because they aren't a minority here. This world is already fucked up beyond belief with how they treat women. If they were discriminated against by the color of their skin and their gender, then this world might have been better burned to the ground instead. I laugh inside my thoughts at the thoughts I am having. Me over here sounding like an actual villainess now.
This is just the first day of recovery and I feel it is going to be a long week without exercising. I sigh, staring out the window and eavesdropping on other student's conversations and it appears that news of my incident traveled. No one wants to talk to me. Shocker. I am guessing it was those faculty members that didn't believe me that was spreading the rumors. They don't want to associate with the crazy noble girl who just stabs herself with a scalpel 'for attention'. I don't mind though. Mia and Heather are in the other class with Rose so I am alone here, but that is fine. I don't care if they like me.
This is like army basic training over again. I went during the summer when a lot of kids who are 16-17 in between their junior and senior years of high school. We called them Split-Op kids. Well they liked to stay up into the wee hours of the morning talking loudly even though we had to wake up early. So me being in my early 20s not having none of that shit would snitch on them because if I was going to be kept awake, I wanted to be getting swole because the drill sergeants would come to our sleeping bay and 'smoke' us by making us do a bunch of exercises. Needless to say that nobody liked me in the women's barracks because of that.
I sit in the back and avoid people and try to listen like a good student. I even raise my hand occasionally to participate in the lecture. I guess while I am here I can at least try to learn something. That was my initial intention though that proves difficult since a lot of this stuff is really basic stuff that we learned on Earth. It is very boring. How to read, write, numbers, etc. I end up stopping trying to pay attention and writing a journal about what I know so far and how I can change things. As of right now there are a few major differences from the novel so far being here a few days. First being me fighting the narrative. The obvious difference. The second major difference is having an ally in a faculty member like Doc. Violet did not have any faculty allies in the novel. Due to that connection the third major difference is changing classes away from the protagonist. How will these affect the story? I have a feeling I need to do a lot more to avoid a bad ending. After I get my thoughts together, I close my journal and put it away and go back in between looking out the window and trying to be a good student.
Within no time flat it was clear I was going to be the valedictorian of this class. My scores were on top and even the very intelligent Rose is top of her class but is still under my score if you combine our classes which is not like the book. Ren being an idiot isn't even worth mentioning what place he got. I am surprised he hasn't shown up yet here. I was expecting him to try and save the day when I bully Rose, but he wasn't there the first few times we bumped into each other. I am not sure when things are going to go as the story progresses since I am actively not participating in the story progression and fighting it every step of the way. I was not behaving like 'Violet Treece' in the book so that was probably it. If I were to embrace my role I would know everything, but we aren't doing that. I don't want to know everything. People still are avoiding me and me being on top of the class didn't help much. If anything, it probably made more tension.
I eat my lunches on the roof and bring my shades with me and eat by myself. My parents wanted me to bring some staff with me to school but I told them no. I somehow convinced them I would use the facilities here. I just didn't specify how I would use them. I wake up early and make my own things like I did in my previous life. I don't want to put them out with my autistic demands and I learned how to make my favorites over the years so I will just make them myself. This way I can just eat what I want when I want without pissing off the help. I never wanted to piss them off. I even offered to make things myself but they just thought I was patronizing them. It is nice to be away from all of them here at the academy and I feel more independent. I am surprised my parents agreed to not send any help when I refused. I think they think I will give in and beg for someone to come since I have never been without help before (not by my choice). They will be waiting a long time. They unknowingly gave me a longer leash without realizing it.
I would have started my day off with a workout but I still have a few days left of my rest period I promised Doc and Nurse Joy. Since I can't work out, I go to the dorm kitchen to make my breakfast, lunch and snacks. Because we have to have snacks. They do a good job at keeping the dorm kitchen stocked but I will be donating my funds and help keep certain things in stock that I know I use a lot of. Like chocolate. I love chocolate and love to have it everyday with my tea time. I use this time in the mornings to make those as well. I refuse to go to the cafeteria where they serve food since they won't serve what I want and I don't want to have a melt down for not being able to have what I want to eat. I struggled in the army with my food for similar reasons since the DFAC (otherwise known as the dining facility) would only have certain foods. Granted they usually had a variety so I could get some of my favorites but it was never served on the right days and that bothered me. Preparing things myself is just better and I can also avoid everyone so it is a win-win.
Since everyone eats at the dining hall, I don't have to worry about anybody coming up in this kitchen I am currently in. They would probably have a heart attack if they saw a noble wearing an apron cooking in the kitchen. The thought makes me lightly chuckle through my sour mood but doesn't quite lift my spirits. Even though I am not in that great of a mood, I feel like singing. I started singing a song from my childhood here in this world that everyone knows. It is a song that Rose sings at an academy talent show and wins with her gorgeous voice. That performance of hers made Ren fall in love with her more in the book. I like putting some flair in this song like they did on Earth. This song sings like a nursery rhyme that is kind of boring so I made my own version with an almost Ariana Grande twist on it minus the whistle notes because I am good, but not whistle notes good and changed it to a minor key. Like nursery rhymes on Earth this song is kind of morbid. I do like this song even though it is on the dark side. Similar to how 'ring around the rosie' was about the plague. This song was about a war through the eyes of a child. I just hate to sing in front of others. I was like that in my last life too. I don't want to sing in front of others but I love to sing. I am pretty good at it too. I just liked singing around those I was comfortable with like my wife and my friends. Here in this world I guess the only person would be Doc. He is the only one who believes in me in this world and I would sing with him in the room.
I sing the lyrics, "Mother, Father, where did you go? I miss you so much that you don't even know. Everything is a flame and everything is ash. I even was wounded. On my arm, there you see is a gash. I am hungry, I am scared. They say I'm lucky, compared to how they fared. Is this really luck or is this really despair? All I wish for is for someone who cares." Putting my own riffs in there and inserting vibrato as well and I hear clapping before I could continue with the next verse. I don't turn around and I feel really gross.
I stop singing and say loudly, "Rose, I can't tell you how I know that is you, but I can't be near you." She replies through a door, "Why? Why can't you be near me?" I cry a bit but I wipe my tears. Hopefully she didn't see though I am faced away from her right now and there is some distance, "I can't tell you. It would be against the rules right now." She replies, "What rules? I don't understand." I reply, trying to hold back more tears, "The only way I can protect you from them is to stay away from you." She replies, "Who is 'them'? What is going on?"
I shake my head, "I can't tell you that. Should I rephrase, they won't let me tell you that right now. It is in both of our best interests if we stay far away from each other. Bad things will continue to happen to both of us if we get in close proximity to each other." She then replies, "Both of us?" I replied trying to backstroke, "Pretend you didn't hear that. PLEASE LEAVE." It feels like one more wrong word here and I will lose myself. She isn't close enough to cause my person to be possessed but it feels like I could. If that makes sense. I feel the curse's influence slowly wrapping itself around me as if an anaconda preparing to squeeze its prey. I am sweating bullets and sick with the feeling of disgust feeling the creator. I am very cognizant of the sweat beads falling on my face. I then hear her sigh from the other side of the door, "Ok. I want to talk to you more about this though." I wave at her through the glass assuming she is looking at me though I still don't turn around while sighing a deep sigh of relief when the gross feeling disappears.
I don't want her to see the tears in my eyes. She of all people deserves the truth, but I don't know if I can physically tell her without the creator taking control of my body. I wish there were telephones in this world. HOLY SHIT. I just had an idea. I can make a primitive phone like we did with solo cups as kids on Earth with string. We can be at a distance and I should be able to say more from further away. I feel grosser when I am honest with her when she is close, which I hate. I want to be honest with her but it is almost as if the creator is trying to condition me to lie and mistreat her because of this.
After I finish making my food for the day I go to see Doc. I need to talk to him and he might be able to help me acquire what I need to make my primitive phone. I go to his office and I knock on his door and hear, "It is open, come in." I walk in and Doc perks up, "Hey Miss Treece, how can I help you today?" I start off by saying, "I have an idea that will allow me to speak honestly with Rose, but I will probably need your help in acquiring what I need while here at the academy. I don't want to get in trouble for using something I am not supposed to." He crosses his leg and curiously adjusts his glasses, "What do you have in mind?" I then tell him about the primitive phone concept and he is curious and says, "I am curious to see if this will work. You seem pretty certain it will, how is that?" I shrug, "For the same reasons I cannot tell you everything about my situation with Rose I can't tell you some of these. I don't think it would be against the rules like those would but you might start thinking that I am actually crazy like the other faculty."
Doc shakes his head, "I wouldn't think that. Plus the brightest and most brilliant tend to have a screw or two loose." He says pointing to his head. He continues with a comforting yet unfamiliar face, "So even if it were true, don't let something like that prevent you from achieving great things. If this 'phone' works, it will really help with communication across academy grounds. We can set up an array of strings from certain places where faculty can have conversations with each other from a distance. It would be revolutionary so don't worry about the supplies. Come see me after classes today and we will create your phone." I reply back, "We will need something to drill a hole in the bottom of the cups so we can feed the string through. So when getting supplies, can you pick up something that can do that as well?" He nods, "I sure can. I am really excited. I love these kinds of experiments." He rubs his hands vigorously together in anticipation and I wave, "See you after classes Doc." He waves back with a smile and I head to class.
After classes I head back to Doc's office and I see two cups, a really long piece of string and a manual drill that requires both hands to use. His eyes light up when he sees me and I giggle a bit at his enthusiasm. I go straight to work and I get the drill and start spinning the bit with the manual crank drilling a hole in the cups. Once both cups have holes, I feed one end of the string through one cup and tie a knot and do the same on the other end. I look at Doc and say, "That is it. It is ready. Do you want to test it inside? You can stay in the office and I can take this one down the hall. I will shake the string three times when I am about to say something and tug once when I'm done speaking." Doc smiles and is wiggling in anticipation saying, "I am so ready."
I take one cup and I take it all the way down the hall as far as the string will allow and I then lightly tug the string three times and say, "Hello Doc. Can you hear me?" Followed by a tug. I wait and I feel tugs on his end then he says, "Yes I can! This is amazing! I am going to make one myself and take it to the rest of the faculty. This is amazing! Alright, you can come back now." I feel the string tug. I smile and giggle at his enthusiasm and I shake the string, "Okay, coming back now, Doc." I start to feel gross and I know that Rose is close but I ignore her for now and go to Doc's office. We can have a talk later.
I get back to Doc's office and he is jumping and dancing and yells, "Miss Violet Treece, YOU ARE A GENIUS! This device is revolutionary yet it is so simple! Communication as we know it will be forever changed because of this!" I put up my hands and say, "Technically speaking I did not invent this. Though wait. I guess in this world I did." Doc, now intrigued, then says, "What do you mean you did in this world?" I laugh, not thinking he heard me there, "I didn't realize you heard that. Forget I said it." Sorry Doc. I am not ready to tell you everything yet. I almost gaslit him, but I didn't want to lie to him. He is one person I don't want to lie to here. He looks a tad disappointed, but that is short lived because he then starts going off on an academic rant out of his excitement over the phone and I giggle at his excitement. I still feel gross and I think Rose is eavesdropping on our conversation. As long as she doesn't get too close to cause the creator to take control. I wonder how much she heard. Though another person who deserves the truth is her. Hopefully this phone will work.
When Doc is done with his academic rant about the phone I still feel Rose outside. I tell him, "Can I take this phone and use it with Rose? She has been here the whole time." Doc then says, "Really? How do you know that?" I then say, "It is a feeling. I feel gross not because of her but because of those who control me around her. The feeling of them forcefully controlling my body against my will makes me feel dirty and gross and I want to take a never ending bath after feeling it (still really missing showers from Earth). Last time I puked from disgust after they left my body. I feel so vulnerable and helpless and I hate that feeling. When she is close I feel their gross presence close but they aren't invading my space if that makes sense. The closer she is the more it feels like a large snake is wrapping me tight, suffocating me." Doc has a serious face, "I didn't know you felt that way. Here I will give Rose one of the cups and you stay in here so you don't get too close to each other. I hope you two can talk things out." I replied, "Thanks, Doc. I hope so too. I just hope I can tell her what I want to tell her without them taking control of my words." He nods and he leaves the office and escorts Rose away and the gross feeling goes away.
I then feel three tugs which I guess Doc told her the signal and I put the cup to my ear. "Can you hear me, Lady Treece?" I feel a signal 'over' tug. I tug three times, "Yes, I can hear you just fine Rose. You can call me Violet by the way." I feel three tugs, "Ok Violet, can you tell me more today?" She tugs once then I tug three times, "I will try to tell you everything. You deserve to know. I have never told anyone this before, but of all the people in this world you deserve to know. I torment you not because I choose to but the creator of this world takes control of my body. Before you ask, I know it is the creator because I have memories of my last life. I read a book which was a medium of prophecy for this life apparently and every terrible thing I have done and will do was written before. They are forcing me to act out the antagonist of the story I want no part in so you will get together with Ren, my fiance, and live happily ever after. I have tried to run away so you can just take him and I have tried to take my life as you already know but I can't do that either apparently. I would rather die than cause you pain. In this story I read if things continue I will be beheaded on my 19th birthday after an attempt to poison you. I don't want this to happen obviously and if I am going to die I want it to either be random or how I want, not as a part of a dumb story where you fall in love with an idiot. I don't even know why Violet bullies you for him when he is so dumb. You are so much better than he is and so much smarter and you can do way better than that dumb ass. I was hoping you would take him away initially, but the longer I thought about it you deserve way better. You could definitely marry the crown prince even since you are so amazing. Sorry that was a lot to dump on you at once. I just wanted to get it out in case they tried to take me over again." I tug the line to signal I am finally done and pause to give her time to respond since I just laid a lot on her taking a deep and shaky exhale. Scary thoughts start to dance upon my mind 'what if she doesn't believe you?' 'You said too much.' 'No one would believe such a crazy tale.'
I feel three tugs that pull me from my spiraling thoughts, "That is a lot. I had no idea. Why would they give you knowledge of the future if they won't let you change it?" I tug and respond, "That is exactly how I feel. The creator is very cruel to have given me this knowledge and no choice in changing my fate. Or maybe another power stronger than the creator gave me my memories so I could try to change it. I honestly don't know. Doc is helping me by helping us stay apart. He knows that when we get close my body gets possessed so he is trying to help. You can go to him if you have any problems. He is a really great person." I find myself sighing thinking warm thoughts of the man I wish was my father.
I feel tugs and I put the cup to my ear, "Can we do this every day? I would love to talk to you more like this." I tug back feeling my anxious heart relax a bit with a warm feeling in my chest, "I would love that. I apologize in advance if I say or do terrible things to you if we get too close. I will try my best to fight it…" She tugs on the line, "Then we can try to keep our distance and talk from afar like this for now." I tug on the line, "Hey Rose, I am very sorry for the words they said to you. I don't think you are any less than me as a commoner. We are both alive and I was just born in a different family. If anything I am jealous since you are not cursed like me. Though in a way I guess you are cursed by proxy since I am forced to torment you. Please don't trust me if you get close to me. The next major event will happen near stairs so please never get near me when I am near stairs. I don't want to push you down and hurt you like in the book of prophecy. I think the minor bullying events should be avoided now that I switched classes so we shouldn't have to worry about those." I feel tugs, "Ok, I will believe you. I promise to avoid you the best I can. Tomorrow throw the cup out of your dorm window and we can talk more like this everyday. You are really smart to have come up with this device. What is this device called?"
I tug and respond, "In the world I lived in my past life this was a phone. I am not smart enough to make one without the cord so this is a very primitive model. We had ones that worked without the string and you could do all kinds of useful things on them. In a way they actually made us dumb though since they did so much. They had screens on them and you could ask it almost anything and it would give you an answer. Like for instance a recipe or how to fix something."
I feel tugs, "I want to hear more about your past life and that world. That sounds very interesting." I tug back, "I know what I will tell you first. I will tell you all about my wife from that life tomorrow. She was amazing. I have plenty of stories to tell so we will have plenty to talk about everyday so don't worry." There was a slight hesitation then I felt a tug, "I can't wait to hear about her. I will talk to you tomorrow at your dorm. I will leave first today. Bye, Violet." I tug back, "Goodbye, Rose. Talk to you tomorrow." I take the phone and I pull it back and loop the string in an organized fashion for easy mobility and I wait a while to ensure Rose is gone before leaving.