Amid a heavy downpour, a woman who was covered in bluish-purple bruises all over her body was harshly carried by two burly men, making her body ache further.
“L-leave me,” Ashley says in her raspy voice, which was the result of not having water for days.
“Throw her there! Don’t even bury her! Let her body be eaten by wolves and other carnivores! She shall die like a worthless creature!” Ashley hears a female’s merciless voice. Despite not seeing that voice’s owner’s face, she recognized that person. Kayla Parker, her cousin, ‘loved’ Ashley like her own sister.
Ashley always treated Kayla like her own sister and shared everything with her. But never even once, she doubted Kayla would be the one to kill her, be the reason for her death. Not only her death but also her parent's death. Even the reason for their company’s bankruptcy.
Ashley’s mother, Lisa, always called her a naive kid. She used to get angry and triggered when her mother called her naive, now she understood she wasn’t just naive but stupid too. She let a snake grow up beside her as it poisoned everything that belonged to Ashley right under her nose. Ashley even failed to notice these things. How stupid of her?
She raised her head and looked at Kayla ordering the two men about something more. Her gaze was filled with intense hatred and abhorrence. Ashley wished to go back in time and make things right. She wished to protect her family, business, and the people whom she loved. She wished to be given a second chance to avenge her parent's death and her coming death.
Sensing an intense gaze, Kayla turned her head towards Ashley. “This is still the entrance of the forest, drag her a little inside and leave her there to be feasted by animals,” Kayla says before leaving the place. Just as she took a few steps ahead Kayla throws a disgusted glare at Ashley turning around.
As the men dispose of Ashley, she remembers the incidents that happened in her life.
Ashley remembers the time when she was three, she and her parents went to a picnic and played there for a long time before returning. As she grew up in their love and care, she only experienced happiness and assumed the world was filled with the same love. A father, mother, her and a small brother, she had a perfect family. But then why have things changed?
Yes, it’s because of the Parker family. They entered their house after her eighteenth birthday seeking help from them as Parker’s lost all their properties due to bankruptcy. Her father Brian Redd and Lisa Redd did everything they could to help them but what did they do to them in the end?
They grew greedy and snatched everything that Redd had. They didn’t stop at snatching assets, Kayla snatched Ashley’s boyfriend, Nicholas. And manipulated her through Nicholas to serve her four years of jail time. Naive Ashley accepted it despite her family’s objection. That’s the start of her doom or more precisely the start of her family’s doom.
After she was sent to jail, her parents died, and Redd’s family business went down the drain.
A lone tear escaped her eyes at these memories. If only she wasn’t foolish she could have changed everything. If only she didn’t love Nicholas and hadn’t trusted Kayla this wouldn’t have happened to her. Nicholas and Kayla were the two biggest villains in her life.
Overwhelmed by the guilt and self-blaming, Ashley refuses to succumb to the death. She doesn’t want to die.
“Ashley… huh? She is nothing but a stupid bitch, Nicholas.”
“Is she as good as me on the bed?”
“She believes everything we say. A single tear can make her an idiot. An emotional fool,”
“I heard Ashley cheated on Nicholas with someone else,”
“Kayla, I never loved Ashley. I was with her to satisfy my family, that’s it. Don’t be angry now,”
“Let’s have dinner tonight, I will just say I am busy to Ashley. She will believe it anyway,”
Words of Kayla and Nicholas’s ring in her ears like a trumpet show. Ashley's heart raced with a mix of desperation and fury as she realized the depth of Kayla's malice. It was Kayla who had framed her, who had dragged her down to the pits of despair. The pain of betrayal seared through Ashley's veins, but it also stoked the fires of vengeance within her. With every memory in her head, determination grew from a sapling to a hundred-year-old tree. She doesn’t want to die. She has to live and get her revenge on the people who wronged her.
Suddenly, she starts losing her last bit of strength, as her eyes start drooping down making her fall unconscious. She desperately tries to hold onto her consciousness trying to defy death. Refusing to accept her fate, she desperately clings to her fading consciousness, yearning for a chance to change her life and seeking redemption for her past mistakes.
When Ashley awoke, she found herself in a barren wasteland. She noticed her body was not battered or had any bruises. Her hands looked younger and healthy. Apart from being a bit unclean, she was in perfect health, and her voice was no longer croaky. Confused, she picks up her phone and checks the date. Shocked, she checks again. Tears streamed down her eyes as she realized she had been granted a second chance, a chance to rewrite her fate and to right the wrongs committed against her family.
As Ashley struggles to think of how to get her revenge, her phone rings displaying Nicholas’s number. A mix of anger and resentment coursed through her veins. Suppressing her feelings, she picks up the call.
“Ashley, stop bullying your cousin, alright! The whole school is talking about it. Can you stop embarrassing me?” Nicholas starts scolding even without greeting her.
“Shut the fuck up, Nicholas! Why are you so worried about her? You know what, you are nothing but a control freak! And a misogynistic bastard! Just because I loved you it doesn't mean you can order me like a slave! So, what if the whole school is talking about it?! Did anyone see me bullying her? Or did you see me bullying her? Which of yours or others saw me doing it? Just learn to talk with evidence. Don't come and shout like a useless bull in front of me, bastard! Only idiots like you believe her crocodile tears! Next time, think twice to accuse me. If not, I wouldn't care about your face or anything!" Ashley says before hanging up.
Nicholas was shocked at Ashley’s sudden outburst. While Ashley looked relieved at her outburst. She wished to do it again but then again, doing it again meant meeting that good-for-nothing boyfriend. So, she gave up on that thought.
