In Another World

While Riliana was lost in her thoughts as she was returning to her small apartment, silent as a haunted house, she opened the door of her apartment and went inside, changed her clothes and hugged a pillow and sat on the sofa thinking of everything that had happened to her and how life never smiled upon her, as if happiness had not been created for her, and her memories took her back to the day her parents died in a car accident two years before, and her older brother who should have been a support for her and for her brother who was a year younger than her was on the contrary a drug and gambling addict and because of him they went bankrupt and there he was now in prison sentenced to seven years, and all the burden fell upon her younger brother, a year younger than her, who gave up his university studies to look for a simple job for the two of them to live on, and as the days passed the pressures and expenses weighed him down and he died by suicide, leaving her to struggle through life alone, and she had no one left in the world; after her graduation from university she found a job, not what she had dreamed of, but enough at least to live on, until she met a young man named Rick and thought that at last life had decided to grant her some mercy out of pity for her, but alas, she had only just discovered today his open betrayal of her on the day that was supposed to be the day of her joy, which had become a nightmare for her, and she was humiliated in public, losing the last thing she had left; the rain refused to stop and her tears refused to subside even for a moment, her sobs overtook her, she could not stop them no matter how hard she tried; she had no friend and no lover, no close kin and no distant one, as if she had vanished from existence in the blink of an eye, as if no one in the universe saw her or saw that she was a human being among them, not even a heart to pity her nor a hand to hold her; at that moment she felt as if the whole world had conspired against her; for a moment she had always tried to appear as a strong girl, hearing their biting opinions and wounding comments and either smiling as if she had not understood or remaining calm with an impassive face, and they thought she did not feel and was not hurt by what they said, but inside she was very fragile, a single word from them she would turn over again and again in her head, and every night she slept amid her tears, drowning in the darkness of her apartment alone; whenever she tried to become harsher her heart betrayed her and she forgave anew, even though deep inside she knew she would regret it later; she had always tried to leave this world as her brother had done, but fear had stopped her, and each time she tried to do so she told herself, perhaps if I live and endure a little longer I will attain even a speck of happiness, what if I live a little longer and one day obtain some peace, perhaps one day I will become a successful, beloved woman and be looked upon as truly myself and be loved for who I am and be seen as a real person of worth, not as a mere marginalized character in the corner of the story, but her wish was not fulfilled, as if it were a far-fetched request or a fantasy illusion; thoughts crowded in her mind until she finally decided to end this miserable life and decided to do it in the least painful way so that she might join her father and mother and brother in the world of the dead, perhaps she would find a tranquility to heal her broken heart, and she stood and headed toward the drawer in the room and took out boxes of sleeping pills and began to swallow one pill after another until she had almost finished an entire box, and she was weeping bitterly over the miserable state she had come to, and no one would weep for her even if she died, if anyone even noticed her absence at all, and she tried to pull back, but she remembered her previous failed attempts where she had clung to a false hope in life and was betrayed in the worst and most painful ways, separation and abandonment, and she continued taking those medicines until at last she collapsed to the floor and the image of the cruel world that had shown her no mercy began to fade slowly before her eyes and her consciousness gradually slipped away until her body grew still and cold; when she opened her eyes again she thought herself now in the world of the dead, until she saw around her many servants with stern, impassive faces as if they were machines, and around her luxurious furniture in an extravagant Victorian aristocratic style that screamed opulence, beneath her a bed soft as silk and warm; she raised her head toward the mirror before her and was shocked by what she saw before her, her short blond hair and green eyes had become shining sky-blue, wide eyes with long lashes, skin white as snow, red lips, and hair black as night, wavy and long, her body slender as if sculpted; she stood approaching the mirror in astonishment, the maids were puzzled by her actions, but just when she thought happiness was to be her lot this time, fate decided to play its game and a sudden sharp headache struck her head as if her mind would explode, new memories not her own were invading her mind as if she were no longer herself after today, and at that moment she realized that what she had come to was not paradise but perhaps a hell worse than all she had lived through.

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