taking my final breath of nostalgia and planning (1)

Alisha woke up with a start, breathing heavily, sweat dripping from her forehead that had mixed into her tears. A nightmare? Why couldn't she remember it? She hadn't had a dream in years, not since her baby had died, the dreams simply stopped after that. She looked at the time from her bright red alarm clock, it was only 4 am, she should continue sleeping, but she was suddenly terrified at the aspect of sleep.

Her legs moved without much thought, and she was in the kitchen before she knew it, searching for something. She remembered what her body seemed to be searching for, her step-mother's hidden anti-depressants. They calmed her mind, she had taken them in her past life after losing Richard, taken a break when she was pregnant, restarted after the incident. Was she addicted? No. That's what she told herself, at least.

Perhaps reliant was the correct word, reliant on something to calm down her withering emotions of happiness and her raging sadness. She knew that Diana's anti-depressants worked because she had used the same product years later, they were good at calming her and didn't suppress her creativity. They had been created after years of research, and that was the only reason she allowed herself to use them. Creativity is something that drives the human mind, without creativity you cannot problem solve, and problem solving was something that Alisha needed now more than ever.

She remembered that Diana kept the pills in a bag containing bags of potato chips, no one in the mansion at chips because they had to be weight conscious and constantly look amazing for the cameras. She pulled out the bottle containing the pills, took one and consumed it with some water, she calmed her thoughts and decided to head back to her room after returning everything to its previous state.

She brought out her computer and opened a document, she made sure that it was one that wouldn't be saved on the internet and began writing down all the events of the past. She needed to make sure that she had all the possibilities down. Life was uncertain, and small actions could have huge consequences. She had gotten rid of the possibility of her sister marrying Leo, and Diana killing her baby, but that left her with three more deaths.

First, Richard, he had died in a fire, the fire had apparently been arson, done by his wife. Though there was no real evidence, thus she was allowed to walk free, but everyone knew that she had burned him alive. One year from now, he would be having his first night with her, and he would be burned to death. She was not the woman he had always liked, she was someone he happened to meet at a bar, heartbroken after he had seen the woman he love kiss another man.

That woman was Annabelle, who was a year younger than herself, but the Richards' family looks hadn't skipped her. But she was born with dyslexia, so people tended to undermine her for this. But dyslexia had never stopped Annabelle, she was incredibly creative and her mind was a weapon. Just because reading and writing could prove difficult to her didn't make her inferior, she was not only a socialist but a powerful business woman. Her decisions were almost always correct and she had helped their family grow immensely. It was most likely that she would inherit the family business, Alisha's own father approved of her.

Annabelle's lover was a wonderful man, who was good to her and treasured her. She too, loved and treasured him, but it meant that Richard would never have a chance with her. Alisha couldn't stop her cousin from loving someone, even if it meant that she would have plan even farther.

Alisha sighed deeply and thought about what event led to him seeing the kiss between Annabelle and her lover, Bryan had been with them that night, and they all had decided to go snow-boarding. Bryan had been talking about the amazing hot chocolate that they had there, and Richard had gone to grab a cup, that was when he had seen the kiss occur. She was surprised at her memory, but then she remembered why it was so memorable, Richard had left the loft in tears immediately after. And the next day he was suddenly dating someone

The woman... what was her name? That's right, he had begun dating Samara Winford, they would meet one month from yesterday.

Next was Annabelle, why had she been out that night? The 'accident' had occurred at 3 am, for some reason she was outside at that time... that's right, Annabelle had been searching for something. Bryan had accidentally let Annabelle and her husband's dog escape, the dog was found, but Annabelle was gone. When she was found, she had been twelve kilometres away from the house.

How suspicious, Alisha thought, why was she so far from her house? She had left on foot, she should only have been two kilometres away at the maximum. She recalled that Bryan had taken a car to search, he might have- no, it would be too ghastly, but it was Bryan, he was nuts! He is nuts.

At this point, Fred had already been overseas, but not even his family had been in contact with him. Before leaving he had left a message 'Please don't contact me. I need to leave behind my past and blossom in my own light.', and so, no one ever got a response from him. Fred hated air-travel, he hated a lot of things in fact. He had always disliked Bryan, and now she finally understood why, but she tried to understand how Bryan had killed him.

How could Bryan have kidnapped him, made him breathe Carbon Monoxide every day for six months, brainwashed him not to reveal anything and then kill him without raising any suspicion? She recalled that Fred had gotten a job opportunity in Country B for Bryan's company, he would be running a start-up that the company had sponsored.

"So many connections, how did I not notice before?" She wondered aloud, it was incredible that Bryan was connected to all of their deaths yet she never noticed, nor did anyone else. She wondered what was happening after her death, did anyone even care? Would Bryan marry Susanna? The fact was that she would never know, not now, not ever.

Once she had written down everything she could remember, she noticed that her room had a pale crimson light flowing through, she pulled apart her sheer, grey curtains, and watched the sun rise on her day. Day 2 had begun.

This time, Alisha decided that she was going to earn some money on her own. She knew that working part-time in a cafe or something along those lines would result in her being kicked out of her own family, she could either gain work experience by working with her father or model with Eliza. For some reason, her father despised her existence, he refused to acknowledge her, he had never even given her a present. Every year, Eliza would have a birthday banquet, but Alisha wouldn't even be wished 'Happy Birthday', it seemed petty but these differences truly tore apart any love she could have had for her rich dad.

In this life, she was going to figure out why he hated her, she had never hurt him, what right did he have to dislike her so much? When she had come into live with them, thirteen years old, nervous but hopeful, he simply glanced at her. He pet his 'real' daughter, kissed her head and then glared at Alisha, before leaving the room. It was Eliza that approached her, with her blissful smile, holding Alisha's hands and leading her through the house.

Eliza had been married off at the age of twenty, Alisha too, though Richard loved Eliza, he loved his business more. He wanted Leo's family's company and Alisha was already married to Bryan, both girls had so much life in them, but because of a terrible father they had to sell their souls.

Alisha's life was not a good one before she had moved in with her father, as you know, her mother wasn't good to her. She had tried to sell Alisha into slavery multiple times only to be caught by the police time and time again. One of their neighbours had always been fond of Alisha, and always made sure that she would be safe. She was a wonderful old lady, who smelt like warm wool and cake, but she died when Alisha turned twelve. That was when she decided she had to leave her failure of a mother, so she found her father, made an appointment with him and asked him to give her a home.

After a quick DNA test, her father accepted that she was in fact his daughter. What Alisha didn't know was that James felt an immense amount of guilt towards her. He had always known that he had impregnated 'that woman', always known that Alisha existed. He simply had never expected that things would become this bad. He was someone who rarely experienced guilt, he always thought he was above it, but seeing the small child, trembling in fear, begging to be saved from her mother, he felt the guilt in chest spread like poison. He hated the feeling, he hated that Alisha made him feel this way, hated it immensely. Perhaps if he had less pride, less ego, he might have been able to change that guilt into love and tried to make her happy. But, James was only human, he couldn't bring himself to love something- someone that made him feel so choked.

Thus, he ignored Alisha as much as he could, in her past life, when he was murdered by Bryan, he felt like he had repented. Of course, he hadn't, it was just his heart trying justify his end. Alisha too was never aware of how he had died, and honestly she didn't care about her father, but in order to stay safe she had to help his business. How would she do this? Annabelle, of course.

She needed Annabelle to start running the company as soon as possible, sooner than in the next month, for once Annabelle started running the company, she would meet Richard less. And once she created some distance between the two, she could throw Richard into blind-dates. The first trip she needed to avoid was the Snow Trip, but it had been planned months ago, and Bryan 'coincidentally' met them there. So she had to ensure that Richard didn't see the kiss, and if he did, that she was with him.

Her father's death came before Annabelle's, and he had been making terrible business decisions and the company was almost bought out. But almost instantly after Annabelle's taking over of the company, everything was back on track, which made her an obstacle for Bryan, perhaps that was another reason why he killed her. In this life, she had to make sure that the company was taken over by Annabelle now. But how could she convince her prideful father to do something like this?

If she could prevent Bryan's takeover of her father's company, she could prevent three deaths, Annabelle, her father and indirectly Fred's. For now, though, she had to talk to her father about wonderful young Annabelle's future, she had to convince him to take Annabelle as his chief adviser.

She had an hour before he left, for it was 7 am currently, he would come out of his room in thirty minutes, then he would eat toast with coffee, then he would read the newspaper for fifteen minutes before called Mr Thompson, Mr Reynolds and Mr Ford with his instructions for the day. Mr Reynolds was Eliza's driver, he generally had the most instructions because of how busy Eliza tended to be, then Mr Ford who was his own driver and finally Mr Thompson, who was generally only told to pick up and drop off Alisha from school.

Suddenly, an idea popped into Alisha's head, she got up and ran from her room. Yes, this might work.