His end is my...oh wait, we both died. Ironic.

The story of his family goes, some odd a couple hundred years ago-- like he'd have remembered, the Harper family was at one point down to its last dredges, only a son and a daughter left to the family.

The son, of course, had taken up the mantle as 'head of the family'. The Harper family had once been well off, rich enough to hold the title of 'Lord', complete with a Manor and all that fun stuff.

Of course, being twenty, or, well, who knows, the last known mention of him was in his little sister's diary, after all; the last known young Lord had killed himself.

Maybe he did, maybe it was her who did it, yada yada, family drama and all that.

Either way, because women couldn't own their own hard earned money or land at the time, all the family coffers and the manor grounds along with any other land the family owned was either consumed in a power vacuum or sold off by the bank.

It left the sister with nothing. She promptly fled to France first, in search of work, then shortly after, she managed to make one child, another girl, and then died of a sexually transmitted disease.

Of course, who knows which one it was, considering doctors were pants at identifying such things at the time. Anyways, that daughter then went on to keep her own diary, along with her mothers, and swiftly 'bribed' a man to sneak her off to America.

There, along with other immigrants, she tried to make a place for herself in the 'new world'. That led to her having many children, with many different husbands.

Then the witch hunt started encroaching on her area, and she was burned along with two of her eldest.

The rest, five left, split apart and took different belongings of hers to either sell or keep in sentimentality.

The second youngest, a young man, finally made a good established home in what is now known as 'the boonies'.

He had many kids, who had more kids, who had more, and so on, you get the picture. And then, eventually, I was born.

Did I have a good life? Considering the circumstances of my family tree? Oh, absolutely. But by modern standards? Not really, no.

I dropped out of school early, because of my Father. Drunk off his ass all the time, it drove me to drink as well, as much as I am ashamed to admit it. Between shifts at whatever fast food joint would take me in for the measly two weeks I could keep, I tried to make ends meet.

Making ends meet downgraded to losing electricity, which then further spiraled to me buying small propane tanks at the store along with a camper heater and trying my best to make it last throughout the week so I could cook meat enough that I wouldn't get sick.

When we didn't have water, I washed my clothes using a large water jug bought at the convenience store down the road, and using my bathtub and hair soap.

Soon my Father died of liver failure, thankfully his life insurance hadn't expired yet, so I managed to bury him, if barely, and then sold all his stuff of value.

I was able to turn my gas back on, if only for a few weeks. I could manually heat up water in a large pot and gradually add it to the tub. It was the first hot bath I'd had in a while.

I nearly cried, I won't lie about that.

Rifling through my Father's stuff, I'd found our ancestor's diary. I thought I'd sell it to the museum, they were always greedy for 'first hand' accounts of the early days before the migration to America.

Of course, I'd gotten interested and read the damn thing. Super depressing, I'll tell you that.

I sold it afterwards, and then got fired from my job about three days later.

The bout of depression from that mishap led to me swallowing the bottle of painkillers my Father had kept in his 'secret cabinet' that I could finally bust open now that he was dead.

I hadn't been thinking at the time, all that had been going through my head was that I wanted to just sleep, I didn't care how long, I just wanted to lay there, and forget about the toxic loop my life had become.

Before I knew it, I was dead.

And then I'd woken up in a bloody bathtub, made of marble, with metal claw feet.

I hadn't even been given time to think, to wonder what the hell was going on before someone had busted in and promptly started screaming their head off.

Which leads to now, in the moment. I knew for sure, after hearing my name, which wasn't the one I was 'born' with, that some kind of miracle, or curse, rather, had happened to me.

I was back in time, but not my time, but the time of my ancestor, no, not the sister, the brother.

I was Jude Josias Nazereth Harper, the twenty year old son of the late Josias Sebastian Harper, the current Lord of the Harper coffers, manor, and lands, and, as of two days ago, had tried to kill himself.

The first thing that happened when I'd been patched up by the 'family doctor', because we were rich enough for that apparently, and I'd been confined to my bed to recuperate, my younger sister had busted in screaming, a mob of maids trailing behind her, begging her to leave it be.

I'd read her diary, I traced the faded words that spelled out the absolute hellfire rage she held for her brother, even before he killed himself.

When I tell you Myrna Harper hated her brother, she somehow hated him so much that the word I'd use instead to describe it would be beyond despise.

So of course when I saw the young lady I instinctively ducked in case she'd make true on her written vitriol and kill me right there and finish the job her real brother started.

Of course the maids held her back from openly strangling me, but I knew if they hadn't been there I'd have surely died twice.

"What were you thinking?! Do you not love me? What do you think would have happened should you decide to die without an heir?"

Upon closer look, the woman had tears in her eyes, which was understandable. She hadn't been married off to any strapping young man of high standing yet, which was a great disgrace considering she was eighteen, of course she'd be pissed.

Jude would have been leaving her to the wolves, like she was, running to France with her tail between her legs.

I folded my hands over my covered lap, the Harper ring was heavy on my thumb, the pretty caribbean emerald glittered mockingly back at me. I felt the urge to sell it, but reminded myself that I had money now, and there was no need to throw away material items anymore.

I didn't know this woman, I didn't know her struggle, or her hatred, for Jude, or me now, I suppose. It made it easier to look her in the eye.

"...I'm sorry." The words were smooth and fled my mouth like water. I often said them in customer service, it was just like now, appeasing a person even if it wasn't your fault, or you couldn't do anything about it.

"I will think things more thoroughly, next time." Which, I would. I was never well off like this, it left me feeling a bit giddy, despite the situation, theres no way I'd kill myself now, that I could afford food without worry of what I'd have to trade to get it.

The surprised look on her face made me feel like I'd said something wrong. Her pretty, aristocratic features twisted, making her look not so pretty. She scoffed, and turned back around, the silk of her dress made the movement extra dramatic.

"You're so selfish! And spiteful, at least adopt a boy before you go off and kill yourself next time."

And with that, she left. The maids bowed multiple times in apology, before leaving me as well.

Of course, mental health here was abyssimal, why would you leave a known suicidal man in a room alone by himself?!

I groaned and rubbed two fingers on the bridge of my nose, trying to ward away the oncoming headache.

Okay, I was Lord Harper, everyone knew he tried to kill himself, the scars on my wrists all but proved so. What was his goal?

I waved away the self doubt, he knew what he was doing, and what I was doing was trying to stay out of poverty again.

And the only way to do that? Be a damn good Lord.

I glanced at his bandaged wrists one last time, before kicking off the covers and calling in someone to dress me, I had no idea how any of these clothes worked.