3 The Three Patterns

When Diana had first experienced being reborn, the moment she opened her eyes, she saw a knife stabbing her in the chest. At that moment, because of shock and disbelief, she wasn't able to look at the killer's face, and like that, she had died only seconds after waking up.

This cycle had continued on for so long that she thought she was going crazy. A person could only die so many times, and she had experienced tragic deaths.

The only way she could explain all this journey was that it was a nightmare embedded in other millions of nightmares. She would wake up from one to find herself in another and then sent to another and so on until she was sure that her sanity was going to break at any moment. If anything, she wanted her sanity to break, she wanted to go crazy because she knew that maybe then, the pain would slowly lessen.

She had eventually noticed a pattern. Three patterns in fact. First, was that the time was slowly stretching backward, wherein the end she found herself with five minutes. Second, was that she was always killed exactly at 11:59 on a Sunday and completely died a minute later, just when the clock struck midnight.

The third pattern was; she died with Elliot. It didn't matter if he was the reason, if he was beside her or if neither of these things. But they had inevitably died together, and she always felt it in her bones even if they weren't in the same place.

Other than that she found out that her name and face — when she had time to see or remember them — were always the same. Her background was different each time, though. Her childhood, memories, and experiences were different, which — she hypothesized — evoked different deaths.

But this was the first time she had a full 24 hours to live. And besides that, she was able to get the body's whole memories - which she didn't have the chance or the time to before.

She also didn't know for a fact, if she was living different lives in different times or just different bodies. She was completely oblivious to most things concerning her situation.

This body - or should she say herself? - was a young lady from a wealthy family. Her family was one of the influential families that dominated the country Athe - a country known for its prosper technology advancement and blossoming population rates. Athe had three factions serving the royal family - each faction specialized in something. One in spirituality, one in health and medicine and finally one in attack and defense, the army. Each faction then had a council made of five members that represented their side and made decisions.

It was the same exact country where Diana was originally from. She didn't know if that was a pattern or not since she never got to this point in her head. The only thing that struck her as odd was that, when she was in her original body, she never heard about this body's family name. Gray.

The memory did come back to her eventually, and she realized why she never heard of this supposedly important family; they were the head of the spiritual faction alongside another family called Artios. Artios was the known head of the faction, that is talked about even in other nations, but Gray is the shadow of that family. They worked in the dark and would rather stay low-key, taking secret missions and less heard of rituals. In fact, they were so secretive that only other factions and leaders knew about the Gray family.

When comparing the strengths of the two families, it could be said that both of them were on the same level.

The only thing that had stuck in the back of her head was; there were a lot of ways to get killed this time. Revenge could be one of the reasons why anyone could kill her. There was also jealousy or inner conflicts between factions.

The reasons were just endless and so were the possibilities because Diana could die from natural causes. And let's not forget her fiance too.

Yes, for this body, Elliot was her fiance. Or at least soon-to-be fiance, since they still needed to announce it publicly. Which they were going to do today evening.

But Diana couldn't let that happen, that party had to be canceled. She couldn't deal with the danger that came with holding this party. There would be N-amount of people in a small space and drinks and food going everywhere. Not mention the possibility of someone hiding something in her house.

Even if there was going to be bodyguards implemented everywhere, one thing Diana was taught from her past experience was that if fate wanted something, it would happen.

After all, both of the impossible and the possible could happen with the right conditions.

She took her time to settle in her body. She wanted to make sure that she had considered most — if not every — possibilities.

But first, she had to cancel the party.

The only problem was that it was midnight now and everyone was asleep, but even then, she took out her phone and called Elliot.

She couldn't help but notice how her heart started to slowly beat faster but for various reasons from the past. This was their first conversation here, and she had to will herself to get rid of the chills that ran through her body as she remembered the conversations that she had with him over the past lives.

If they could be even called that.

She had to repeat to herself that Elliot was as much of a puppet as she was in all of this. But that didn't mean she believed in him or that she removed him from her suspect list.

She was many things, but stupid wasn't one of them.

Diana suspected he was probably sitting behind his desk, in one of the offices in his house. She had a vivid memory of sharing silent moments with him there. Him working through papers and agreements, and her working on her own projects.

It felt weird. It was like seeing herself through a screen.

"Hello?" his deep voice forced her back. It somehow startled her and she found herself frozen in her place. "Diana? Darling, are you okay?" His voice was incomparably sweeter than the last time she had heard him on the rooftop. She shook her head. It was better for her not to think about that right now.

"Elliot," She said, she couldn't help with how cold her voice sounded. "Are you free?"

"Yes, sure. What's wrong?" She could imagine him frowning. This was something that he both did in her original life and in this one.

"I-" She genuinely didn't know how to begin saying this. If she said 'let's cancel all of this' suddenly then he would get suspicious as to why she would want that, and if she gave a feeble excuse or even lied then, he would be able to catch that by just her voice.

Elliot wasn't simple-minded, especially this version of him. He was a businessman that took over his father's company with calculative moves and well-thought-of plan. He was able to get the majority of the stockholders to stand by him and support him - not sure, though, if that was because he had blackmailed them to or for another reason. But no one could say he didn't deserve to get that position.

He was known all over the business world for his tactics and ability to convince and negotiate. But more importantly, Elliot could recognize a liar in a crowd.

"I'm coming over." He hung up before she could say anything else, probably anxious from her long silence. She had wanted to tell him not to because that would alert her sleeping parents and the maids.

Diana grimaced at her luck. She typically lived alone in her apartment while she went to and from work, but because of the supposed party, she decided to sleep in the house with her parents for convenience.

Well, there was no use crying over spilled milk. She could find millions of excuses to why she brought Elliot over at this time. But she was anxious and her heart couldn't stay calm. She kept looking at the time and would wince with each second that passed, understanding that she was wasting her precious time.

But she wasn't. She wrote down anyone or any way she suspected dying. She began with Elliot and slowly moved away from her family's circle. But, she found it was harder said than done since she might as well write everybody's name. But even so, it was still not enough because her parents didn't share everything with her that went through the business.

She wanted to ask her father's secretary, James, but the time was too late to do that. He was probably the only one that would rather throw himself into the fire than hurt anyone from her family. That was probably because of how Diana's father had supported him and his family through thick and thin. Whether that was financially or mentally. And her Father never shamed James for that.

They had grown together as kids, one rich and one poor, but they slowly supported each other - each one in his own way.

Her father had become such an important figure in James' life that he could never imagine selling him out or introduce him to any possible danger.

But James had one deadly fault.

He adored Diana too much.