Michael’s eyes widened. He grabbed my arm.
“Did anything… strange… happen before all
this?”
I racked my brain, trying to remember. Most of
the memories from that time were blurry,
overshadowed by the trauma that followed. But
one thing stood out.
About a month before the plagiarism scandal, I
kept waking up on the floor. I’d go to sleep in
bed and wake up sprawled on the carpet. I
<
figured I was just a restless sleeper. I’d
mentioned it to Ethan, and he’d dismissed it as
nothing.
But it had never happened before, and it
stopped after the Olivia incident.
I told Michael about it, and then about the
disturbed earth at my parents‘ grave.
His eyes went dark. “I think I know what
happened.”
“There’s this ritual… where you take soil from
the grave of someone’s loved ones, take it
home, perform a ceremony for 49 days, and
then… drink it. It gives you the ability to briefly
possess that person three times a month.”
My past life made more sense now. I was a
hardcore skeptic, but after being reborn, I was
open to… possibilities. Ethan knew where my parents were buried. He’d been there with me.
<
My fists clenched. If they wanted to steal my
content, I’d give them something to steal.
I created a new Instagram account and followed
Olivia. Without my ideas, her content had gone
stale. Her latest video, clearly an attempt to
appease her dwindling followers, was back to
her old, boring style. She claimed it was old
footage, but the blooming crepe myrtle trees in
the background proved otherwise.
Looking out the window at the rolling hills,
inspiration struck. I wrote a script, filmed, and
edited a stunning new video.
As soon as I posted it, Olivia, predictably,
uploaded her version. But the comments.
weren’t what she expected.
“Is this background music a joke? Seriously
disturbing.”
“This is disgusting. Unfollowing.”
“May your life bo on inuful as thin orgony
<
“May your life be as joyful as this creepy
music.”
