Everyone is looking at me. I wish I could just be invisible.
Whispers followed me the moment I stepped into the lecture hall.
"Ugly eyes."
"That's her. The cursed child everyone's been talking about."
"Ew. Scary that she doesn't cause people's death. I hope she doesn't sit near me."
I kept my head down and took a seat in the very back corner of the room as the lecture began.
My left eye was green, with a faint blue ring around the iris. My right eye was hazel. My name is MariaI and when I touched someone for the first time, I see how they die.
I was used to this kind of attention. I had been bullied since I was young so much that the insults barely surprised me anymore. Still, no matter how often I told myself it didn't matter, I wished I could disappear.
I wished I could be like this character in the novel, someone no one ever notices, yet someone who tries so hard to get attention.
A side character from one of my favorite novels, Rihanna.
Rihanna was always fighting for her father's attention, but no matter who it was, the Duke, the King, or the Prince, she always wanted someone to notice her. Since everything always revolved around her brothers, she never got any attention growing up, which made her unbearable by the time she turned fourteen.
She hurt people from the lower classes just to provoke a reaction. Any reaction. But no one ever cared enough to stop her.
She had beautiful blue eyes that sparkled even without light, long wavy brown hair but beauty meant nothing when it came to love.
She never got the attention she wanted. She wanted it from everyone, just not him.
Unlike me, she didn't want to disappear.
She wanted to be seen.
"I can't believe someone as pretty as her mother made a child that looks like that. Her mother must be cursed."
"Of course. How else would she make a demon-looking child like that?"
Finally, the lecture was over.
My first day wasn't bad, just the usual gossip.
I wish people would give me a chance, I thought. Just once.If I were Rihanna, I would do things differently.I wouldn't seek attention.I would stay invisible.
I woke up gasping, my body slick with cold sweat.
Birds chirped outside the open window. Sunlight streamed into the room, illuminating a wide garden beyond the glass. I ran a hand through my long, wavy brown hair and exhaled slowly.
"…Another dream."
Dreams of my old life still haunted me.
"It's been almost nineteen years since I got a second chance," I muttered.
Rihanna's fate had been cruel.
Years of injustice and cruelty toward the people eventually came to light. The King found out and ordered her public execution. Not only had she killed many people, but she had also stolen from the poor. No one stood up for her. No one cared that she was dying in her final moments. She died. I was thinking about her death when a truck hit me.
And when I opened my eyes again
I was Rihanna.
I had lived her life from the beginning for the past nineteen years yet I still had my power from my original life on seeing how someone dies when touching them for the first time and unless I try to make an effort to save them, their death stays the same no matter how hard I tried.
As I walked down the stairs, I froze.
My father and my three brothers were sitting in the dining room, laughing and talking while waiting for breakfast to be served.
And he was there too. My older brother's childhood friend was someone who had practically become family but to me, he was a nightmare.
"There you are, Rihanna. I'm back. Did you miss me?"
Landon smirked.
No. Not him.