As Erisia's body sank, she felt her soul peeling away—slowly, painfully—as though it didn't want to leave, but had no other choice. The world became distant, muffled, and gray.
Above her, shouts and exclamations pierced through the haze.
The last things she heard—cruel and gutting—were what made her stop resisting the darkness entirely.
Her mother's terrified scream:
"Oh my God! My baby! Sierra! What did you do, Erisia?!"
Then: "Someone, please—get her out of the pool!"
Her second brother's commands and concern:
"Sierra, grab my hand—don't panic, I've got you!"
Then, snarling toward Erisia:
"That reckless little freak! I told you to stay the hell away from her, Sierra!"
And lastly, the crowd's words during and after Sierra was pulled out of the water:
"She pushed her! I saw it—Sierra was begging her to stop!"
"God, how desperate can you be for attention?"
"The girl attempted murder? She's insane."
"I heard she grew up in some back-alley orphanage. Honestly, this kind of behavior? Not surprising."
"She shouldn't even be here."
"Trash is trash. Doesn't matter how you dress it up."
Their unmasked venom bled through every word.
It will always be the same.
That was Erisia's last thought before she let go—completely.
Erisia's body sank to the bottom of the pool while Sierra had already been pulled out of the water. Someone quickly fetched a thick, large towel, which Mrs. Wrenford hurriedly wrapped around her. She yelled at them to get more towels and a hand warmer. Then she hugged Sierra to herself, whispering soothing words.
Someone in the crowd, who had just been looking around, glanced at the pool and saw red blood in the water. At first, she thought it was Sierra's blood, but Sierra hadn't been injured.
Then… wait.
Where was the adopted daughter who had pushed Sierra into the pool?
She glanced back at the water and saw that the blood-red color was dispersing. Beneath it, someone was still in the pool.
Her eyes widened, and before she knew it, she exclaimed, "Someone has drowned in the pool! That adopted daughter also fell into the pool!"
Everyone turned to where she was pointing—and sure enough, they saw Erisia's body, unmoving at the bottom of the pool.
⸻
Veyra felt herself being pulled, locked into something. A space that felt eerily familiar—similar to the one her soul had left not too long ago. A tranquil and almost stimulating feeling washed over her, wrapping around her soul like a thick mist.
Then, as if controlled by some unseen force, she was pulled into consciousness.
The eyes that had been closed just moments ago slowly fluttered open.
Veyra's eyes opened to a world of wavering blue.
Cold water pressed against her lashes. A dull, throbbing pain pulsed in her forehead. Am I… alive? She should have been dead—she remembered dying—but now everything was muffled, distant, and painfully present all at once.
She tried to draw a breath and sucked in nothing but chlorinated water. Panic flared; her lungs burned. Only then did she understand: she was underwater, blood seeping from her scalp.
Why am I not dead? Why am I in water?
Instinct overrode confusion. She kicked hard, fighting the drag of her soaked dress, arms slicing upward. The pain in her skull felt like a hot brand, yet survival trumped agony. Her lungs screamed. The water brightened, then erupted into starlight as she broke the surface with a desperate gasp.
She coughed, spat, and gulped in air. Around the rim of the infinity pool, the gilded guests stood in uneasy clusters. None rushed forward. They were too busy gaping at Sierra's dramatics or pretending to care. One bored socialite finally muttered to a male servant, "Oh, for heaven's sake—go fish her out, will you?" The servant hesitated, rolling up his sleeves.
Too late. Veyra—now inhabiting Erisia's battered body—had already dragged herself to the edge. Fingers scraped slick marble tile; nails cracked, but she hauled until she could hook an elbow over the ledge and heave her torso onto the decking. Water streamed from her gown, pooling around her body.
She lay there a heartbeat later—chest heaving, head pounding—while the night air sent goosebumps across her skin. Somewhere behind her, Sierra sobbed theatrically into Mrs. Wrenford's embrace. No one offered Erisia so much as a towel.
Before she could regulate her breathing or get used to the pain radiating from her forehead, a searing bolt shot through the inside of her skull. She groaned, pressing one of her hands to her temple.
Then it hit her.
Memories—alien and vivid yet familiar—flooded in. Images, sounds, sensations, and even emotions not her own surged to the forefront of her mind. It was like reliving someone else's entire life, from birth to death, on fast-forward.
And the death?
It ended here. In this pool. The one she had just crawled out of.
Veyra blinked hard as her mind replayed everything she'd just seen—everything that wasn't hers, but now was. A tight, disbelieving laugh burst from her throat. It was sudden, a little too loud, and just unhinged enough to make the people around the pool freeze.
They stared at her. Then glanced at each other. Did the water scramble her brain?
Mrs. Wrenford looked scandalized. Her disgust twisted her mouth as if Erisia had just rolled in dog shit and climbed out of the pool to announce it. Sierra, wrapped up like some fragile doll in her mother's arms, on the other hand, stared at Erisia with a glint of hope in her eyes—hope she had gone crazy. That would be so convenient.
Veyra kept laughing. A few seconds more. Then she stopped.
"So," she muttered under her breath, voice raspy and soaked with disbelief, "I fucking transmigrated, huh?"
Accepted.
But also—What the hell?
Why did she land in the body of the just-dead cannon fodder character who didn't even survive past chapter fifty of a thousand-chapter, dog-blood, Mary Sue mess of a novel?
The same shitty web novel she'd dropped halfway through reading on her phone, just before her surgery. Which, spoiler alert, had been pointless. Because Veyra Halden was dead.
And it wasn't just the transmigration trope making her lose it.
No.
She laughed because this character, this Erisia, belonged to a family just as trash as her own in her previous life. A family where being the bastard daughter meant you were a permanent stain. An inconvenience. Something better left out of photos and official statements.
That was the punchline, really.
So this is my new life, she thought, blinking chlorinated tears from her eyes. A shitty family and a headline-ready accusation before I can even breathe.
But she was breathing.
She was alive.
And that, for now, was enough.
Veyra thought this—but what she didn't know was that her laugh had already pissed off Leander, Erisia's biological second eldest brother.
She was just beginning to get used to the throbbing pain in her head, the sluggish weight in her limbs, and the ragged way air scraped into her lungs, when she felt fingers clamp around her arm, yanking her.
Her eyes flew open—to find an angry face looming over her.
Before she could even register who it was, the man snapped, dragging her into a sitting position.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing? Faking it so you can get away with what you did?" His voice was sharp enough to cut. "First pretending to drown, and now pretending to be injured? Your stupid little tricks might work on others—but not on me."
Then, without waiting for a response, he threw a glare over his shoulder.
"Didn't I tell you, Mom? I told you not to let her come to this party! Why? Because of this. I knew she'd try some shit—"
But before he could finish his righteous monologue, Veyra—who had already had more than enough of his voice—ripped her arm out of his grip with a grunt. Her balance wobbled, but she stood anyway, ignoring the dizzy roll of her vision and the wet squelch of her gown.
She turned to face the crowd, eyes scanning until they landed on them—the mother-daughter duo.
Selena. Erisia's biological mother.
Sierra. Their delicate little rose. The fake white lotus.
Both were now upright. Selena stared at her like she was a stain that wouldn't wash out of fine silk, all disgust and sharp lines. Sierra, meanwhile, had her head bowed, gaze cast downward in a picture of false remorse.
Pitiful.
Veyra clicked her tongue.
That expression of fake innocence—she hated it the most.
Behind her, Leander stiffened at the sound. Something cold slid down his spine. For a brief second, he had a bizarre thought: that the girl in front of him wasn't Erisia at all.
But before he could say a word, Selena stormed forward, her heels clicking across the decking. The crowd fell quiet, all eyes snapping to her.
"You filthy, vile thing!" she seethed. "How dare you embarrass us like this? How dare you bully your sister? Are you that starved for attention?!"
The accusation echoed but Erisia didn't respond.
Pain pulsed behind her eyes and Selena's voice only made it worse, slicing through her skull like an icepick.
Irritated by her silence, Selena stepped closer—and slapped her.
Hard.
The crack echoed through the garden like a gunshot.
Veyra's head snapped to the side. The force sent another bolt of pain ricocheting through her brain. She tasted blood.
The slap jolted her back into sharp, crystalline clarity.
Slowly, she turned back.
She wiped the blood from her split lip, the copper taste grounding her into this ugly, twisted reality. Her gaze flicked to Sierra, who was still wearing that expression on her, but Veyra caught the smirk on her lips.
Snake
Veyra chuckled softly under her breath, wiping her bloodied finger against the skirt of her A-line dress, leaving a deliberate, crimson smear.
"This is definitely my new life, alright," she murmured.
Selena's rage exploded.
"You're smiling?!" she shrieked.
But Veyra wasn't smiling for her.
She was smiling at the irony.
Because the rage she had buried in her first life—the anger that had later found no outlet—was waking up.
And she didn't plan on bottling it up.