Ludus Mania

Chapter 1 Papers lying all over the wooden floor, some crumbled, some scribbled and some torn apart. The room was dark and the rain outside had been pouring down for hours it seemed as the courtyard had been completely wet and small streams were forming in the corners flowing into the bigger stream. But despite the pouring rain, it was quite a humid day and little rays of sunshine peeped inside the room every now and then. Inside the house, aside from the papers on the floor of what looks like a study room, the other parts of the room and the house were fairly clean. There wasn't much furniture inside the house other than the necessities like, chair, table, couch, an evergreen plant in the corner of the room. In the bedroom there was a king size bed as well as a smaller one attached to the corner of the room beside the big glass window. Like the other room, there wasn't much furniture in the kitchen, however a lot of spices and ingredients were present. The fridge was filled with a lot of convenient food, fruits and sweets. And the water from the tap kept dripping drop by drop on the unwashed dishes kept in the sink. After some moments the rain outside finally led up and following it the woman who was sleeping on the couch this whole time finally woke up with a lazy groan. The place had no signs of other people living there as she was really the only person staying in that house. All in all, the house was not really a place where people often come and go, it was on the outstretched side of the main city and the neighborhood was a quiet and peaceful one. Looking at the girl for the first time, not many will think she will be at her age as she looked a few couple of years younger than her actual age; she was a 29 year old woman who lived alone in that single floor house. Her skin was made pale by the lack of sunlight on her skin, her middle length hair was dark black in colour which was supposed to be straight but because of all the ruffling she did and her current sleepy mood it had become a mess. She had pitch black eyes and those dark eyes remained unmoved as she looked for some few seconds at the ceiling above her almost as if she was looking at something through it. If someone had looked right back at those eyes without moving then they could have almost seen an endless abyss. Her height was between 5.3 or 4 not too short even though not that tall as well but because of her petite looking and slender body she appeared like a college student or a teenager. And she looked even more younger with the silky plain light blue night dress she had on. It was obvious that she had not given herself any time for changing clothes nor washing up from the morning and so it looks exactly as if she had just woken up even in the daytime. The woman picked herself up lazily from the couch and stretched her whole body out from head to toe with a big yawn like a cat, even smacking her lips together after she was done. She turned back and scanned the entire room then walking a few steps towards the window she saw that the pouring rain had finally led up. Once more she stretched herself, finally getting her mind straight and fresh. She picked up a pin that was lying on the table and rolled her hair into a messy bun she stuck it in. Then getting her energy ready she turned on the lights making the tim room bright, however the empty furniture still remained monotone. She went into her room and changed off her night dress to a simple oversize shirt and a short. After changing she first walked up to the sink and shut the sink completely to make the water stop dripping, which she eventually opened up again after rolling up the sleeves of her dress. The dishes were few as it was only her portion and they were quite easy to wash off as well, as it was just a cereal bowl and some cups; a coffee or tea cup, one for water, another for juice. After she was done with the dishes she went into her study room with a small bucket shaped basket at hand and started throwing all the rolled up papers which were scattered on the floor. Obviously she had a hard time coming up with an idea she can be satisfied with and ended up making a lot of mistakes resulting in the many torn out papers. Then she picked up the papers which were all over the table and slowly arranged them in order, just then the work laptop which was on the table alerted her of an incoming message. She took quite a few minutes before going over to finally check the contents of the message and noticed that there were quite a few of them, mainly from her fans. She went over the comment section on her work webpage and scrolled through the latest ones, because most of her works were based on modern realism many people, mainly youngsters who were about to step into the real world found them to be very useful and relatable. Many adults read over her books with a sense of humor and nostalgia as it reminded them of their past which has become a fond and loving memory now. Younger kids read her books mainly for its popularity and somehow found it hard to understand the meaning behind but still loved it for like any other books, it increased their knowledge even if it's just a tad bit and also gave them a sense of achievement. And like such, apart from the other praises and critical comments, the youngsters who found it the most useful constantly flooded the comment sections with tons of questions asking for advice and answers. She obviously couldn't read all those comments and reply to them but she tries her best to reply at least to the earliest ones, and right at that moment she was once again reading and replying some suggestions and advice to them. User@1: Dearest author, I love and admire your work. I have been in one of such situations myself, like the male lead in your book. I don't know whether I should stay with my current line of work or try to go further, I have a good chance of succeeding but I am also afraid of whether I don't and whether the people who've supported me will end up disappointed in me. Reply: @..... ( Author)Thank you for reading and loving my work. And I would suggest that you think about your career in this way, will you not regret your life later on if you don't go after your goal? If people live in regret, neither them nor the ones around them can truly live satisfactorily, people can end up getting disappointed not only in themselves but also towards the ones around them, taking out their frustrations upon them. However if you try and fight for it, no matter the result you can always say, ' I tried and did my best.' And move on without any heavy burden. The choice is up to you, I hope you make a good one. (Smiling emote) >reply: thank you so much for giving me such precious advice. I have made up my mind, I'll strive for my dream goal and I have a feeling I'll do great no matter the result. Thank you. The girl smiled looking at the reply and hoping the best for the person went on to reply another two or three comments. She was no expert in human psychology but whenever she found people who were cornered in their lives she couldn't help but try to give some sort of suggestions to them and most of the time those people always found it useful and thanked her. Knowing that she could be helpful in such situations she was glad but in giving these advice she let the others make the choices for themselves and not force too much of her own ideals upon them. After checking the comment sections she went on to open other mails and noticed that she had one from a close friend of hers as well and wondered, ' why didn't she just call me up and bother to send me an email? ' Nonetheless she checked the content, it was an email with the username leal... @gmail.kom. She frowned quite a bit before clicking on the email and checking it. The bad feeling which made her frown came to reality when she saw the content of the email. It was an email from her childhood friend whom she was right at that moment considering whether to still keep considering her as one. The content was, " Dear dear dear bestie, I have called you a hundred times but since you didn't pick up I had to resort to sending you an email knowing you have more chances of checking your work laptop than your private cell phone........ " And the real content followed. Right after reading the mail she went to pick up her cellphone which was lying on the bedside table since morning as the owner didn't bother to check in on it since the moment she got out of bed. But right now she picked it up in fury bringing back to life the seemingly dead cellphone. As her friend had said in the mail there were tons of messages and missed calls from her and ignoring all the other messages and missed calls she quickly taped to her friends number and called back. Her call went through and the owner at the other end of the call looked at the incoming call on their phone that was ringing continuously and reluctantly got near it. They bend down to touch the phone but instead of picking it up they flinched a bit sensing the fury from the other side and with a guilty feeling mute it, " Sorry love, it's for your own good, just forgive me this once, " They mumbled fearfully under their breath and looked away from the phone not bearing to look further at it. The girl looked at her phone in disbelief and frustratingly raised up her phone trying to vent out her anger on the innocent machine but luckily for the poor thing she held herself back from crashing it on the floor and gently placed her hand back down with a heavy sign. She went over her stuff on the table and considered a way out of the situation she was in. She knew that calling up on her friend again would be useless as she realised that the other was ignoring her call on purpose. She opened her phone looking through the contact list for any help just to remind herself that she had no other friend nor family. The only numbers that were in her phone were her only friend whom she just called and the other was strictly from work. With no way out, she plopped down the couch with her palm on her face, " Ahhh that girl, I swear she's doing this on purpose to irritate me.... " Before she could curse her precious friend further there was a knock on the door, she could see the door from where she was sitting but because she didn't want to entertain anyone at that time she looked at it with an exhausted expression not wanting to open it. But the knocking ensued and she had no choice but to collect herself and go towards the door half shouting, " Coming ". As soon as she opened the door she beheld a man who was more than a head taller than her, the man was wearing a black suit with a case on his hands and like herself he had an irritated frown upon his face. He didn't bother to hide his disinterest even in front of her and spoke right away when she came out, " Dilara? Dilara vespine? ". The girl's eyes twitched as soon as he called her name and she thought, ' nothing good ever happens when these eyes of mine twitch. '