Chapter 9 - Day lily

 

"Y-you see, It's long, thick, and hard!"

 

*CRICKET SOUNDS*

 

'What the f*ck did I just say!?' Demi's face began turning red, 'That sounds so wrong out of context!' Demi knew that she messed up big time as her face became a tomato within a few seconds and her panic was getting out of control.

"I gotta go! HA-HA see ya' around!" She couldn't handle the embarrassment and ran towards where her bike was parked. 'I messed up BIG TIME, Nova!' 'What the hell was I thinking!' Demi kept cursing herself as she walked fast to avoid the crowd. The female students didn't hear their interaction clearly and only looked at her strange.

'I can't wait for what nasty rumors would come tomorrow.' Demi expects for the whole female population of the school to turn hostile towards her.

"Where are you go-"  He wanted to talk to her more but was unable to because she suddenly ran away. He was still processing what she had said and when he finally reached his car. His face began twitching out of control. And in the desolate part of the private parking lot, a man hysterically laughing could be heard. He couldn't keep it in anymore.

"BAHAHAHA-*hiccup*"  He held his stomach and started laughing. His driver, Sir Wells looked at the young master he's serving through the car windows.

'Has the young master been possessed?!' Sir Wells panicked, he didn't know if he should report this or not, he has never seen the young master laugh.

Lucas went inside the car smiling and closed the car door. He was feeling an odd wave of different emotions, from anger and hostility, to funny, and happy. 'God! What's wrong with me!' His heart felt light then felt heavy at the same time. It's as if his mind was having a hard time deciding on what to feel and think.

'It's that guy again.' Lucas remembered the guy from the mall, he's the same one he saw today. His mood turned sour again when they passed by the two people talking in front of the school gates.

'What's good about that Blondie anyway?'

'Wait, why do I even care?'

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*at home*

"Schedule a checkup for Dr. Baron as soon as he gets back."

"Oh, have you been feeling down the weather sir?' Larry, the family butler looked at the young man worriedly.

"My chest has been experiencing irregular beating, it has also been feeling heavy recently." Lucas sighed as he went up the stairs towards his room. He concluded that he had developed heart problems. 'I need to get stricter with my diet.' He thought as he pulled out his phone and listed down something.

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"I'm as good as dead." Demi was lying down on the bed as her head hung upside down. Nova, who was sitting on her chest continued to laugh hysterically.

"This is not a laughing matter! Just imagine the rumors going around by now."

'First, that Lucas guy probably thinks I'm some stalker, second, what the hell is *long thick and hard!?*'

"I want to throw myself 60 thousand ft under sea level right now." He's already seen me following Natalie around two times. I'm not worried about what he thinks, I'm more worried about not being able to collect the orbs. 'Why can't you collect anything from earlier?' I asked Nova who was now finished with his laughing. 'It honestly surprised me, but it may have something to do with the plot line.' I don't know how these things go, so I only came up with random hypothesis based on my knowledge about the leads so far.

'If we can't get any soul orbs here, we might as well jump out the window and find someone else.' I came up with this solution, if we can't get anything out from them, then what's the point of following them around. My sole purpose is to collect orbs. 'If they don't have it, we can search for more leads.'

'It must be him.' Nova wasn't listening to me after all. 'But we didn't

'Who?'  I re-positioned myself and lied down properly to listen.

'The second lead.'

'Ah, that guy. What was his name again? He's the nice guy who owns an art school right? What about him?' I remembered that he was in the same school as the two other leads. He was in a different class but the same year.

'Come to think of it, I haven't seen him?' The plot says that he appears as an art university principal and a famous gen Z artist.

'We didn't do anything though? how was he able to change the plot?' I said

'By this time, he should be acquainted with Natalie, she was the one that inspired him to take arts seriously and have confidence in himself.' Nova said. The second male lead still isn't a "lead" in his teenage years, although he was already an art prodigy, he wasn't able to create marvelous artworks because of his family's restraint. He grew up in a business dominated family and is expected to inherit their family business. In the novel, he inherits the business in fear of disapproval and gets depressed for most of his adult life, until he meets Natalie, his first love that inspired him. They meet again 10 years after high school and the second lead falls in love all over again immediately.

"That's a minimum of 7 hibernation's until I can fully grow." I realized that we still had a minimum of 7 to 13 years to spend here. 'Yes, a long way.' Now that I remember it, Nova would go into a hibernation period this coming month. Nova seems to be more of an animal than a god to be honest. He says that he needs to constantly sleep when he absorbs more of the spiritual orbs to be able to grow and accumulate more of his scattered pieces and eventually grow back to his original state. His hibernation lasts for almost a month.

"The winter festival is coming, you're gonna leave me behind when a large encounter is going to happen?" I needed Nova's help to locate when, where, and exactly how I'm going to get the orbs in the most efficient way possible.

"Don't worry, I'll be back before that." Don't worry? It's four weeks away! I just laid down on the bed trying not to stress over the fact that he'll be sleeping like a comatose person in a place that I don't even know, what if something happens?

'I have to hibernate somewhere nobody knows, even you.' Nova's hibernation state is very fragile and unguarded, he has to hide somewhere that no one knows even me.

"What happens after I finish what I came for?" I thought back to our original conversation and asked. Will I die as Yvonne? Will it be painful? Will Yvonne come back?

"This body you're residing in will slowly die." Naturally, a body without a soul, without a life, will rot.

"Will I feel the pain?" I asked. I'm not afraid of the pain that I'll experience, I'm already thankful enough that I experienced luxury even if it's only for a short while. What I agreed to is the money that I'll receive after helping this little fluff, let's just focus on that.

"No, since this body and your soul were never a match in the first place, this body will reject you. The symptoms will slowly show but don't worry, It won't be painful." Nova reassured me. This body has a time limit. The original body would've died when the original soul was removed from it, but Nova held it together as hard as he could so we could collect all his spiritual energy trapped in orbs.

"What type of symptoms?" I asked. Will I look like a zombie or maybe my skin would rot slowly.

"Diseases will start showing such as cancer, lung disease, heart disease, and etc." Incurable diseases? Did the old Yvonne also experience this. Now that I thought about it, where is her soul?

"Where's Yvonne?" This question never popped in my mind. How was she? Was she residing in someone else's body? Maybe my body?

"She's...one of the forgotten now." The forgotten? So she was a figment of the past?

"She's now considered a forgotten soul? But..." I didn't know how to react to this, I felt somewhat sad and my heart felt heavy. 'So, she can't go back anymore?'

"Not anymore. Her death wasn't something that I have written purposefully. The book continues on it's own when a hole in the story is created. She was only a cannon fodder that was sent away right before graduation."

"If she's a forgotten soul, does that mean that no one remembers her? What about Victor and Michael? Even if there is a strain in their relationship, how can they just forget her like she never existed?" But based on Nova, that was what happened. Yvonne spent 3 years in the states and the relationship between her and her family were severed. Right after she turned 21, Her father, Michael, stopped giving support. She tried contacting them when the tuition fee wasn't paid anymore.

She dropped out of college during her 3rd year and started working. Although she suffered through a lot since she wasn't used to working, she pushed herself and learned a lot of useful survival skills. She had too much of a pride and never called the two men, but when she was in her worst, she let go of that pride and knocked on their door only to be rejected and even humiliated. After 10 more years of going into debt and suffering malnutrition, she died. Her only family, the two men, does remember her, but as a nasty and manipulative b*tch who knew nothing but to leech off of people. Soon enough, she was forgotten.

'She must've latched on to a rich 60 year old guy, why should we bother with her?' Her "supposed" brother didn't even worry about her. He filled his questions of her whereabouts with assumptions and brushed it off as if it was some unnecessary dust on his coat.

Yvonne reminded me of myself, although we both suffered, we seem to have those small happy moments that we treasure. Although we came from two different backgrounds, we pretty much suffered the same. I fell asleep that day with a lot in my mind, how Yvonne was, how she felt, what she wanted to be in life. My knowledge of this reality is based on the novel Nova created, I don't know the living people here personally. I don't personally know how they grew up, and even though they're book characters for Nova, they're still human beings. Creatures with a soul and life given to them to carve their own path.

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"Mama!" I heard a girl scream joyfully. When I slowly opened my eyes, I saw a woman with blonde hair and black eyes approaching me.

"Oh, my little Belle! What do you have there?" She crouched down to me and smiled. She was a very attractive woman. She's like a Victoria's secret supermodel with her slightly tan skin, skinny built, and tall figure.

"Look what I got!" The small girl handed the woman who seems to be her mom, a bouquet of flowers. "It's your favorite mama!" The girl shouted as she put one flower on the woman's ear.

"My baby! You know mama so well!" The woman held  the yellow flowers in her hand and carried the child called Belle.

"Daynini!" The little girl shouted as she hugged her mother.

"Yes baby, they're Day lilies." The woman answered the child with a warm smile. The scene before me felt so familiar. It felt light and dear to my heart. I've never seen this woman before, how could I be familiar with her? I stared at the two as they walked farther and farther away from me, it felt like a distant memory that I held dear. Who was she? Who were they?

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Soon after that, I woke up with a heavy feeling in my chest. I felt a huge wave of sorrow as a tear ran down the sides of my cheeks. I looked towards my right side and saw Nova sleeping peacefully on the pillow. I could only remember parts of the dream that I had. A woman with blonde hair, and a flower called "Day lily". I soon brushed it aside and went towards the bathroom to take a shower.

However, the dream that I thought would only happen once, had repeated again and again. Every night, without a miss, I kept having the same dream. Two weeks had passed and every time I wake up, the urge to break down keeps getting worse. I always felt heavy and sad whenever I woke up. I wanted to tell Nova, but he has slowly gotten drowsy all the time, until he started spending 15 hours just to sleep, only to wake up a few hours and sleep again. I was eating in the school garden with Alastair, I seem to stare at nothingness and was aloof.

"You seem to be out of it." He said as he eats his food and stares at me.

"Not *seems*. I am out of it." I sighed and put down my drink.

"That's a first, you actually put down food first over something else?" He said sarcastically to which I replied "Ha-ha-ha." In a dry tone. He looked at me seriously and spoke once again. "What is it?" He said as he raised his eyes. I looked at him for a few seconds and spoke.

"Do you know what Day lilies are?" I said which made him even more confused. "You're thinking of flowers over food?" He was in some sort of disbelief. Gosh! Am I a pig in his eyes?! I was offended by his tone so I glared at him and answered back.

"Just answer me!" I said

"It's part of genus Hemerocallis. It mostly grows in hot climates." He said with a straight face. I smiled at him and sarcastically said. "Now that's a good answer." as I patted his head. After a few moments of silence, he looked at me again and asked. "What do you need Day lilies for?" He asked.

"I wanna see them." I said. It has been a full week of repeated dreaming, I just can't seem to get my mind off of that flower. For some reason, I feel like I have to see that flower no matter what. I have to touch it with my own hands and feel it.

"In the middle of winter?" He looked at me with a dumb face as if he just heard an unfunny joke. I glared at him and rolled my eyes. "You'd have to travel to Sunni Province." The place rang a bell inside my head, I've heard it before. If I'm not mistaken, Sunni Province is where the kidnapping scene will happen in the book. It was a school trip for seniors that would happen in the second month of the next year.

"How would you even see one in this busy season? We have a school festival coming up. And it's almost Christmas." Alastair continued as I was being consumed in my own world thinking of the events that are about to come up. He seem to notice this as he was in the middle of talking. "Are you even listening?" He just sighed and shrugged it off. He continued eating with me in silence as we sat down in the school garden peacefully.

The whole school has started a week ago on assigning leaders and dividing classes to start working on the winter festival. The elementary and middle school students were tasked to hold performances and do activities on their own whilst the high school students and seniors (me) were tasked to make booths and serve food. The college (which is built right in front of us) will hold performances and booths as well. It was a big thing, a lot of us had prepare for a month. Us, year twelves we're preparing for a prison booth where the host would announce and describe random traits such as color of clothing, hair length, eye color, and attire.

"Me? Mascot!?" I screamed to my hearts content. This was a very unreasonable job to give me, there weren't even a mascot in the original plan, why was there one now?