New life(1)

The girl's eyes fluttered open slowly and it took a moment before her gaze could focus on the ceiling. For the first minute, she simply stared at the ceiling dumbly. Her mind was completely blank and devoid of anything as she stared at the ceiling.

Her brain was taking a really long amount of time to process what was happening around her. She shut her eyes and then opened them again as if trying to reboot her brain. This time, when she looked at the ceiling, she noticed how different the pattern was from hers. This looked more old-fashioned than her modernized design. Where was this place?

As her brain continued to boot, she realized that she wasn't alone. There was someone else in the bedroom. She assumed it was a bedroom since she was lying down on a soft flat surface that she could only assume to be a mattress. She could hear the other person making some sounds. The person sounded happy but was crying. She was saying something about being grateful that she was finally awake. Her eyes slowly moved from the ceiling and darted around the room to see where she was.

"My Lady!" The young girl who was standing beside her bed exclaimed excitedly when her eyes finally settled on her.

My lady? Who was this person? Why was she referring to her that way? The young girl looked very unfamiliar, and from the looks of her, she probably wasn't more than eighteen years old. She was dressed funny and had a strange accent. 

"You have no idea how happy I am that you are up! I was so scared." She said and broke into a sob of relief, leaving the girl who was lying on the bed wondering what was going on.

Was this a movie scene? How could she be playing a role in a movie she knew nothing about? She wondered, still looking at the crying girl without saying a word. Why did the girl's clothes look so different and outdated anyway? Had she been involved in an accident and lost her memory? She mused as she tried to remember anything she could about herself, while the girl kept sobbing.

Alicia Queen. That was her name. She almost sighed in relief, grateful that she still had her memory. Yes, she was Alicia Queen. A 25-year old orphan. But that wasn't all there was to her. She was also an award-winning actress.

She had struggled through her talent and consistent hard work to climb the ladder of fame and success until she had finally succeeded in becoming famous with her name and face on almost every large billboard in every major city in her country.

Her life had been picture-perfect until she has had the misfortune of offending a nosy journalist. The journalist had then taken an interest in her and decided to dig into her past, revealing every dirty detail of her life. The journalist had started by exposing the fact that she wasn't the daughter of an influential family as she had claimed. And then the journalist had gone ahead to reveal the fact that she was a high school dropout, and had also worked as a waitress in a strip club. How the journalist had gotten hold of some of the pictures from her past was something she still didn't know, but from there, things had gone downhill for her. Many other dirty secrets suddenly began to come to light, one after the other until she could no longer handle the weight of the scandals. It got to the point where no individual or company wanted to work with her anymore, and then she began to receive death threats from anti-fans. Or maybe they had been her fans but went rogue after her dirty life was exposed like that. 

What was a star without loyal fans? What was a star without the media? All stars wanted their names to be on the ranking chart forever for a good reason, not a terrible one like hers. 

Having gotten to the point where she could not take it anymore, she decided to end it all. She remembered climbing a bridge, ready to jump down and put an end to her misery since that was what the world was pushing her to do. She had already forgotten her past life and had moved on from it, hence she couldn't stand others reminding her of it and bullying her over it anymore.

It was just at that moment when she was prepared to jump that she received a phone call. Who thinks of jumping off a bridge with their phone in hand? Alicia Queen. Initially, she had wanted to ignore the call but had hesitated at the last minute since she knew it was her manager, because of the special ringtone she had assigned to her manager's line.

She couldn't remember how she managed to keep her feet on the rails of the bridge and receive the call, but she did.

"ALICIA! I have good news!" Her manager announced excitedly. 

Good news? Her ears perked up. 

"I received a call from P &J company. They want you to do a promotional ad!" 

P & J Company was one of the biggest companies in the country. Why did they want her to do a promotional ad? Hadn't they been seeing the news? One ad with them would change her life and account balance. She was in great debt at the moment.

"WHAT? SERIOUSLY?" She asked in shock, wanting to get off the bridge and hear what her manager was saying.

But her heels! Damn her for wanting to die in a grande style by being completely dressed in her best outfit and heels. She had wanted whoever found her body to know she wasn't poor. She had wanted to make a statement even in her death. Unfortunately, at that moment when she changed her mind about dying, her heel caught on the rail, and her sudden movement due to the surprise caused her to lose her footing and before she knew it, the phone fell first before she did with a loud, regretful scream.  

"Oh, no!" Alicia gasped as she sat up on the bed, startling the maid who had been sobbing.