CHAPTER 2
1545 Words
Ophelia
The first thing I noticed wasn't the pain. It was the smell.
It didn't smell like stale beer or the metallic tang of blood from a split lip. It smelled like lilies—expensive, fresh, and overwhelming.
I kept my eyes shut for a second, waiting for the floor to feel cold against my cheek. But I wasn't on the floor.
I was sinking into something soft. It felt like laying on a cloud, or maybe what I imagined a million dollars felt like.
My head didn't throb with that heavy, sickening pulse of a concussion. My ribs didn't scream when I took a breath.
I felt light. I felt like I had been hollowed out and filled with nothing but air.
Wait, where is Leo? I need to find Leo.
I forced my eyelids open, expecting the dim, flickering light of my kitchen. Instead, the brightness nearly blinded me.
The room was vast and white, with floor-to-ceiling windows showing a skyline I recognized but had never seen from this height. This wasn't my apartment in the slums.
I tried to sit up, and my hand brushed against the sheets. They were silk, smooth and cool against my skin.
I looked down at my hands and froze. These weren't my hands.
My fingers were long and slender, the nails manicured to a perfect almond shape with a soft nude polish. There were no scars from kitchen burns, no jagged cuticles from nervous biting.
A glass pitcher sat on the bedside table, filled with ice water that was sweating in the morning sun. I leaned over, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
I caught my reflection in the curve of the glass and stopped breathing. The woman staring back wasn't Reina.
It was her. The woman from the phone.
Ophelia Queency was looking at me from the surface of the pitcher, her eyes wide and panicked. Her skin was porcelain, her hair a waterfall of dark silk even in a hospital bed.
Hell nah. This is a dream. I’m dead, right? This is what happens when you die.
I pinched my arm, expecting to wake up back on the linoleum. It stung.
The door to the suite hissed open, and a small army of people in white coats marched in. They weren't the tired, overworked doctors from the free clinic.
They looked like they belonged on a magazine cover. The man in the lead had a tablet and a smile that looked far too bright for a hospital.
"Ms. Queency, it is absolutely remarkable," he said, checking his screen. "To see you awake and alert so soon is nothing short of a miracle."
I opened my mouth to tell him he had the wrong person. I wanted to ask where my son was, where Vikram was, and why I had this face.
But the words died in my throat. If I told them I wasn't her, where would they send me?
Back to the kitchen? Back to the man who tried to kill me?
"How do you feel?" another doctor asked, leaning in to shine a light in my eyes. "Any dizziness? Memory gaps? Do you know who I am?"
I blinked, trying to keep my voice steady. My voice sounded different—lower, smoother, like honey.
"I... I feel okay," I whispered. I didn't know his name, but I nodded anyway.
"The surgery was a complete success," the lead doctor said, looking relieved. "We managed to remove the entire tumor without any neurological deficit."
Tumor? Wait, what? Ophelia had a brain tumor?
I looked at the doctors, trying to piece it together while my brain felt like it was short-circuiting. The golden girl of the tech world, the woman I envied every single day, was dying in secret.
"The public still has no idea," a woman in a sharp suit said from the corner. She looked like a shark in a blazer.
"The official story is still that you’re on a private retreat in the Maldives," the shark continued. "If word got out that the CEO of Queency Media was under the knife, the stock would have plummeted."
I realized then that I wasn't just in a different body. I was in a different world with much higher stakes.
I had to play along. I had to be Ophelia, or I was going to lose this chance at a life without bruises.
"The Maldives," I repeated, testing the weight of the lie on my tongue. "Right."
"You need to rest for another forty-eight hours," the doctor said. "Then we can discuss your discharge and the physical therapy schedule."
They kept talking, throwing out medical terms and recovery timelines, but I wasn't listening anymore. I was looking at the luxury around me and feeling a cold pit of dread in my stomach.
This life wasn't just silk and lilies. It was a lie built on top of another lie.
If these people realized I was just a ghost from X-Corp, they would throw me out on the street in a heartbeat. Or worse.
Where is Leo? If I’m here, where is my baby?
I reached out and grabbed the edge of the silk blanket, my new knuckles turning white. I had to find him, but I couldn't do it as Reina.
The doctors eventually filed out, leaving me alone with the shark-woman in the blazer. She was staring at me with an intensity that made me want to shrink back into the pillows.
"You're being very quiet, Ophelia," she said. Her voice was sharp, like a razor blade.
"Just tired," I said, trying to mimic the cold confidence I’d seen in Ophelia’s interviews. "It was brain surgery, after all."
The woman narrowed her eyes but didn't push it. She tapped something into her phone and turned toward the door.
"Don't get too comfortable," she warned. "The board meeting is in three days, and they expect a video appearance."
She left without another word, the door clicking shut behind her. The silence of the room was heavy and terrifying.
I climbed out of the bed, my legs feeling shaky and weak. I walked toward the massive window and looked down at the city.
I was at the top of the world. Everyone below me looked like ants, scurrying around in their little lives.
I searched the horizon for the direction of my old neighborhood. I wanted to see the smoke from the factories or the grey rooftops of the slums.
But from here, everything looked beautiful. Everything looked clean.
I caught my reflection in the window glass again. The face was so perfect it didn't look real.
There's no way I could pull this off. I don't know the first thing about being a CEO.
I thought about the stain on the kitchen floor. I thought about the chicken nuggets.
I thought about the way Vikram’s hand felt when it hit my jaw. That life was gone, but the fear was still right there, tucked under my ribs.
I wasn't Reina anymore, but I wasn't Ophelia either. I was a ghost in a stolen body, living in a palace made of glass.
I moved over to a vanity table and saw a smartphone lying there. It wasn't cracked.
It was brand new, sleek and gold. I picked it up, and the screen came to life with a facial recognition scan.
It unlocked instantly. My new face was the key to everything.
I scrolled through the messages, my eyes blurring at the names and the numbers. There were hundreds of notifications, all for a woman who wasn't me.
I searched for anything that might tell me about her life. I needed to know her secrets before they swallowed me whole.
The more I read, the more I realized that Ophelia Queency was a woman with a lot of enemies. Her golden life was a battlefield.
Great. I traded a husband who hits for a whole board of directors who want to stab me in the back.
I sat back down on the edge of the bed and put my head in my hands. The lilies were starting to make me feel sick.
I missed the smell of burnt garlic. I missed the way Leo would hug my neck when he was scared.
I had to find a way to get to him. I didn't care about the board meetings or the stocks or the secret surgeries.
But I couldn't just walk out of here. Not yet.
I looked at the gold phone and then back at the reflection in the pitcher. I had to learn how to be a queen if I wanted to survive.
Reina was dead. She died on that kitchen floor.
Now, I had to make sure Ophelia stayed alive. Even if she was just a shell.
I took a deep breath and felt the lack of pain in my chest. It was the weirdest feeling in the world.
Okay. Let’s do this. Don't mess it up, Reina. Or Ophelia. Or whoever you are.
I lay back down and stared at the ceiling, waiting for the next person to come through that door. I was ready to play the part.
The game had started, and I couldn't afford to lose.
- Writer
