Re: Who needs a prince when you're a queen?

Chapter Nineteen: The schemer, crossroads and Matrix

"After all these years, you are still you," he mumbled. 

"You were saying?" 

Silence followed for a minute. Then more. 

I have always been a fan of horror movies and all things scary but I never realized that it was never fun to be in one. Being stuck alone in a dark, unfamiliar location was not as exciting as it seemed behind the screens. There was no musical score to listen to, no dialogues to hear, no effects to calm myself that everything was fiction. I was in isolation and the silence was deafening. 

"Valentin?" I called out. 

More silence.

"This is not funny," I said. 

My legs gave way and I sprawled on the cold ground, devoid of any warmth. My mind kept thinking back to my past life before all of this happened, but as I thought back, it was weird how the memories are slowly getting blurry. My previous life felt as if a trance. I could vaguely remember that I was an office worker. I died falling off a building. But what was before that? 

"I can't remember," realization struck me like lightning in the middle of a meadow. Was it just because I have been living here for so long? But surely I am bound to remember some other things from my past life. 

Let's see . . . I am an office worker and I read horror novels. My name is-

If you do not know before, silence amplifies the thoughts in your head. That was what was happening to me at this moment when I was completely taken aback by the fact that I could not remember anything else from before I was Marcella. It was as if I have lived my past life only to die and be born as Marcella. 

But, the game! Yes! I played this game in my past life. Where did I get the game though? 

"Valentin!" I yelled. "What is happening?"

I was prepared to be ignored again but I heard the sound of footsteps behind me. Turning my head, my eyes met Valentin's gaze. Unlike his usual wry smile, his expression was stoic and his eyes held a deep meaning I cannot dare fathom.

"Marcella," he started to speak but my desire to know the situation I am in now cut him off.

"Please tell me what's happening!" 

His eyes showed a glint of surprise but the next second, he regained his former self-assured composure. "Now, now, Marcella. That is not the right way to ask your master, is it not?"

"I have no time for your little mind games, Valentin!" I snapped and glared at him. 

"Rest assured, my dear Marcella. I am not playing," Valentin coaxed me. "But it is not time for me to answer your questions yet."

"You must be joking! When is the right time, then? When you are about to cut my head off?" 

He mused at my seemingly immature tantrum. "Ah, that would be the most perfect time. I am glad you are catching up."

"But-"

He put a finger on my lips as if to shush me. "Hush now."

"Val-"

"Shhhh."

"Take your finger away or I swear I'm biting it off." 

"A severed finger is better than a severed head," he retorted clearly unthreatened but still, he kept his hand away. Placing both hands on my shoulders, he directed me back to the two doors- one red and one blue. "Now, time to choose."

"The unoriginality of this world," I complained. 

"Ah, but life's just one big cycle of unoriginality," he thoughtfully said. "In time, you'll just realize that history is bound to repeat itself."