Transmigration [4]

ANN 

Silence.

I was drowning in silence and pitch darkness, then suddenly…

“Get up!”

I felt electricity spread through my body and air rushed into my deadbeat lungs. The steady heartbeat in my chest slowly returned, and I felt my paralyzed body move.

First my finger moved, then my toes curled, and I inhaled loudly.

“Get up!” the voice that had awakened me fired above me.

My eyes pulled open as the deafening sound of a gun followed the deep, throaty voice.

I exhaled, listening to the different voices around me that blurred together.

Who did they belong to? The doctors and nurses?

I was dead a while ago. 

Does that mean I survived?

Joy swept through me, and my lips slowly stretched into a smile.

“Water,” I whispered, stretching my hand across the bed.

My heart stopped, and the smile on my face disappeared when my hand wouldn't move forward or separate.

I narrowed my eyes, and the realization hit me.

I wasn't in a hospital bed. I was… somewhere under the open sky, lying face down on the ground.

Confusion swelled through my body as the voices increased and the environment became clearer.

I slowly recognized the blurred voices as horrified cries coming from people around me.

My hands were tied; I was in an open field under a stormy sky with wailings all around me.

Was I in hell? What sin did I commit to be in hell?!

Just as thousands of thoughts flooded my mind, a hand tugged on my back.

“Get up, my child. Those monsters are coming,” a gentle voice whispered behind me.

I craned my neck back, and my eyes caught the worried face of an old lady.

“I will help pull you up, hmm,” the woman said, stretching her bound hands.

My eyes widened in horror, but before I could speak, the woman grabbed my clothes, urging me to lift my body off the ground.

I pushed myself up with all my strength, my fingers pressed against the ground until my knees were in the air. I straightened up and breathed out, then turned to thank the woman.

The words went down my throat when I looked behind her and saw the numerous people bound and bleeding just like her. No, like us.

I looked down at myself, and my stomach twisted when I saw myself in tattered clothes covered in blood, blood from my own body. Cuts were spread around my hands, and my back stung with so much pain. I narrowed my eyes down to my scraped knees and my bruised feet.

My heart raced, and horror rose to my throat as I shifted my gaze towards the people around me. Some of them looked half-dead, and about two were being untied from the tight ropes binding us together in a straight line.

A sickening feeling rose in my stomach as I watched two well-built men in strange uniforms pull the bodies of a man and a woman and roll them down.

A scream of horror escaped my lips as a painful thud sound of their skull cracking below the cliff we were on pierced the air. 

I remained rigid at the spot, paralyzed with horror and confusion.

I couldn't believe the horror I had just witnessed.

I couldn't believe where I found myself.

I was supposed to be at the hospital, receiving treatment. Or even better, I should have been drowning in darkness, resting peacefully in death.

“Move!” the well-built men growled, shoving the bound people along. 

We moved with the people, trying to avoid the steep paths of the cliff.

Pain, confusion, and rage filled me up as I struggled to keep up with the people.

Should I slip off the cliff and die again? This was definitely not my life. Perhaps dying here would take me back to my original life.

I tilted my head to the side, staring at the steep edges of the cliff. One wrong move and I'd be fulfilling the law of gravity and cracking my skull.

“You look better now, dear. When you fainted, I thought you were dead,” the woman behind me said.

Could that mean I switched souls with whoever owned this life?

That wasn't true! It only happens in fiction. Everything seemed too crazy to believe.

I tilted my head back, my lips parting.

“What happened before I fainted?” I asked the woman.

I should at least know the lady’s last moments before she died.

The woman sighed, dragging her feet after mine.

“Someone threw himself over the cliff and dragged a lot of people with him,” the woman said, sighing in despair.

I darted my gaze around, studying the well-built men leading us.

It was becoming clear that these were slave masters. It seemed whoever lived this life was a slave.

I wouldn't survive here.

I looked at the edge of the cliff again, my heart tightening as the woman’s words flooded into my mind.

I would end up dragging everyone down with me.

“Is everything okay, child? You are not worried about your father, are you?” the woman’s voice tore me out of my thoughts.

I tilted my head back, my brows rising.

I couldn't understand what she meant by my father.

As I parted my lips to ask, I saw one of the men approaching me, a vile-looking axe in his hand.

“What are you waiting for, huh?” the man growled when he stopped in front of me.

Fear gushed through my body, and my stomach twisted violently.

“I… I…”

“The chief’s daughter is not feeling well,” the woman spoke in my stead.

Chief’s daughter? Was the owner of this life a chief’s daughter? What was she doing in a crowd of slaves?

“She is the chief’s daughter?” the man said, narrowing his eyes over me with a strange glee in them.

“Yes, sire,” the woman replied. “If you can please give her a little water–”

The woman’s words stopped flowing as the man grabbed my chin. Pain snapped through my body, and I let out a wince.

“What is your name?” he asked.

My heart stopped as the words rang in my head.

What is my name? What is her name?

My lips slowly parted as I searched my mind for anything like an information chart. This was common in transmigration books, but mine wasn't coming up.

The man’s face twisted into a dark frown, and the glee in his eyes was replaced with burning rage. From the corner of my eye, I saw him grip the axe tighter.

My heart raced, and panic spread through me.

“Ann!” the old woman blurted out as he raised the axe to my neck.

My closed eyes pulled open, and I swerved my head towards the woman.

“Ann Lannister!” the woman whispered in a trembling voice.

My throat ran dry as my own name pierced the air above my head.

Suddenly, the reporter’s question flashed in my head.

‘Are you the woman who bears the same name as a side character in Miss Juliet’s bestseller?’

I scoffed as everything began to make sense.

“That bitch!” I spat under my breath, my chest tightening with rage.

“What? Bitch? What’s that?” the man asked, leaning closer with curiosity.

Juliet named a forgettable side character after me in her bestseller. I had written about that character with her name and given her the most painful death. After she stole my drafts, she switched the name to mine.

Everything made sense now.

I wasn't in someone else’s life. I was in my plagiarized book— Juliet’s bestselling book.

The backstory of this character filled my head, including the present and future events surrounding her.

“Move!” the men growled again, shoving us forward. “Chief’s daughter, my ass!”

Pain rose in my chest as I watched my whole world clash before my own eyes. I was going to die a painful, undeserved death even in this life? A death caused by Juliet… again.

I sucked in a deep breath, enduring the rope sinking deep into my wrist and the stones cutting my feet.

I looked up and noticed the smoke rising in the distance. Most of the people here, including me, would be sacrificed to the seven Lords of Hell. 

The seven male main characters of this book.

Juliet didn't just kill me in my original life, but I'm forced into the same story I crafted to be brutally killed by the same deadly characters I created.