Eli couldn't breathe.
The suffocating feeling of water trapped in her lungs was all she could feel. She took a deep breath in panic and felt her throat fill up with more water. This was a familiar feeling.
She was drowning!
She pried her eyes open and confirmed her thoughts. She was at the bottom of a pool. With as much strength as she could muster, she swam upwards. She coughed up a mouth full of water as she surfaced and took a deep breath in feeling slight relief from the burn in her throat, she took a look around her.
The sky was dark and pregnant with rain. Fat raindrops fell on her eyelids obscuring her view. She wiped her face and swam to the edge of the pool pulling herself out of the water. On the floor, she hunched over while she gathered her strength.
Had she not been on her death bed in the hospital? How could she be in a swimming pool?
It was baffling.
She was sure she died. Being at the last stages of stomach cancer she could no longer control her motor functions. She was no longer able to carry out her basic needs herself move much less go for an evening swim.
"What are you waiting for?!" Yelled a female voice over the heavy sound of rain. "Get her up and throw her out before my guests see her" the woman sneered.
Eli looked towards the voice to see an elegantly dressed woman standing by the foyer under the protection of an umbrella held by what looked like...a butler? She wasn't sure.
Four bulky bodyguards stalked towards her with grim faces. Eli felt very lost and also very cold. She wrapped her thin arms around herself and felt the sharpness of her ribs a sign of malnourishment.
She paused.
'Something doesn't feel right' she thought.
Her body felt fleshier than she remembered. She pulled her arms towards her eye and realized she's had the arms of a kid. Since when did she have such a beautiful pair of hands? Her fingers were slim, pale, and much smaller than her long fingers which had long turned to wrinkled skin over bones by her sickness. Her observation was cut short as she was hoisted up by her elbows by two bodyguards.
She was dragged until she was in front of the woman with a loud voice. Eli looked up revealing a pair of glass-like eyes. However, there was a look of confusion in her eyes. She was about to ask where she was when a sudden surge of mind-numbing pain bamboozled her.
Holding her head between her palms, she ground her teeth to keep in the scream that threatened to come out of her mouth. Through the pain, she felt an inflow of memories that were not hers. It came so suddenly, displaying the brief fifteen years of a young girl's life.
Eli had never expected that one of the common melodramatic plots that only appeared in web novels would happen to her. Dying and waking up in someone else's body. Not only that, they shared the same name.
The aftereffects of the shock were still clouding her mind but when Eli opened her eyes once more, they were crystal clear, free of confusion they had once had. It was clear that she had died at the hospital. It was also clear that this kid whose body she occupied had also died by drowning in the pool and somehow she had come to occupy the previous host's body.
She didn't just receive the kid's memories, she also felt the previous host's emotions and pain. She didn't just know how the kid died she relived it too. In a short span, she had experienced two deaths and none of them was a good way to go.
She now understood the events that led to this moment. This kid, Eli Carter, was the bastard child of the woman who stood in front of her- Melina Osborne. Upon gaining a full understanding of current events, she could not help but raise her head to face the woman in front of her.
Melina stared down at the mistake she wished she could erase. Eli was a stain in her life that always haunted her. She sneered recalling how this trash almost ruined her son's birthday by barging in uninvited.
"Release her" Melina ordered and the bodyguards complied.
Eli rubbed at her elbows to sought the ache she felt from being mishandled. She felt slightly better. Focusing again at her newly acquired 'mother' who was decked out in luxury brands exposing her nouveau riche status. She smiled. Melina pinched open her Hermes purse, taking out three hundred dollar bills and throwing them at Eli's feet.
Eli watched in amusement. "What's this 'mother?" She asked.
Melina visibly shuddered by the title, making Eli's smile grow into a full-blown smirk.
"Didn't you come for money!? Take it" Melina spat, pointing at the three bills which rested at her feet, soaking up rainwater. "Take it" she repeated, "And don't come back".
Eli stared up at Melina's scrunched face as if trying to see into her soul. The soul of a mother who could throw her child in a pool and watch her drown. Her gaze, piercing. Her clear hazel eyes bore into Melina. Startled by them Melina unconsciously took two steps back in fright.
" I told you I didn't come for you." Eli casually retorted.
"My grandma is sick, she needs 80,000 dollars for surgery and treatment" Eli stated in a soft voice. Repeating the same words the former host had used before the pool incident.
"How can you be so ungrateful!" Melina yelled.
"Money doesn't grow on trees! Can't you see it's your brother's birthday?!" She continued arms frailing to emphasize her point.
"Who do you think has to foot the bill here huh? My husband and I! Yet, you think I will spare such a large amount of money for some old woman? "
Eli stayed silent.
"Let it be very clear" Melina continued taking threatening steps towards Eli.
"Mom?" A voice interrupted. Melina turned to see her son walking up towards them.
"What is it dear?" She asked in a doting voice. Turning quickly, blocking his view of Eli.
The new entry was none other than Mason Osborne, the birthday boy. He walked towards them in all his glory, in a custom-made three-piece suit. He had inherited most of his Fathers features and was a handsome young man of thirteen.
"Dads looking for you" Mason Osborne answered, looking over his mother's shoulder, trying to take a peek at Eli. He had spotted his mother dragging her out to towards the pool section earlier and had listened in on most of their conversations and even felt slightly worried when she fell into the pool and didn't resurface, but schooled his face to seem unaware before asking-
"Mum, this is?"
"No one" was Melina's immediate response.
"Go in, the wind is strong. I don't want you catching a cold." She said. Cooing him with her arm.
"and let your Father know I'll be right there."
Mason easily picked up on the intense standoff between the two and decided it was best to not ask further. He stole one more look at Eli before walking back in.
Melina watched her son walk back into the hotel with doting eyes. When she turned back to Eli, her eyes were unfeeling. None of her micro-expressions had escaped Eli's trained eyes. She dipped her hand into her purse to produce a single hundred dollar bill before flinging at Eli.
"This is as much as I can give to you," she said, with a raised chin. " From this moment forward, you do not exist to me. Do not think you can blackmail more money out of me, and if I, God help you- catch you anywhere near my family, you will regret it".
"Throw her out" Melina ordered the bodyguards not sparing Eli another glance before strutting back into the venue.
Eli watched in disinterest as Melina walked away. Sensing she was being watched, she fixed her gaze on a window on the fourth floor. There she spotted the figure of their spectator.
Although she couldn't see clearly due to the rain, she was sure it was a man. She curled her lips up and in that split second, an evil glint flashed past her eyes. She mouthed ' curiosity killed the cat' then slowly dragging her index finger over her neck before placing them back in her pockets.