Back at home, Beatrice fixed a bowl of soup for Sophia, who was lying on the couch with her legs folded. "Aunt, I don't want to do this anymore", Sophia said, almost about to cry. Her head was throbbing painfully, she felt dizzy, and her legs are aching her.
Beatrice came out of the kitchen and dropped the bowl of chicken soup. She sat next to Sophia and placed her head on her lap. "Aww Sophie, I'm really sorry. I should have given an excuse to the mistress about your absence", she said solemnly, caressing her forehead gently.
"No aunt, it's not you at all. I really do not want to do this ballet thing anymore. It's killing me seriously. Would I have to be coming home every Saturday tired and stressed?"
Sophia then sat straight and winced in pain from the headache. "I always tell dad that I don't want to be a modeller, but he always cuts me off, saying that I have to continue the family's legacy, and how mum was a famous model blah blah blah", Sophia said and drank a glass of water.
Beatrice smiled, then took a spoonful of soup and fed it to Sophia, who gladly drank out of it. "Look, Sophie, your dad loves you a lot. You know, he's just doing this because he wants to secure your future. I know he wouldn't bear to see you ten years from now jobless and hopeless" Beatrice said soothingly.
Although what Beatrice said made sense, she still wouldn't accept her father choosing her career path for her. She wanted to become a neurologist for god's sake. How was that not a viable career path?
She thanked Beatrice for the soup and kissed her goodnight before she headed to her room. She took her MacBook and lay on the king-sized bed before opening it. She respected her parents so much, and although her father hasn't displayed any form of affection to her, she still firmly believed he loved her.
But still, she does not want to become a model. She prefers using her brain to work than her body, but unfortunately, her pretty features caused her parents to choose the path of a model, which she hated a lot. Sometimes, she believed her beauty was a curse to her.
She was just about to check her email to see if her science teacher saw the documents she sent when she received a video call from her mom. She answered it and her mom's face showed up on the screen.
"Oh, hi honey! How was the lesson today", her mother said and waved enthusiastically. Sophia thinned her lips and waved back. "Lesson was great mom", she replied back, hesitant to tell her how she was feeling.
"That's great. You look tired though, have you been on your computer all day?" Her mom asked with squinted eyes. Sophia sighed deeply. "Uhm, no. Lesson was just stressful, that's all".
"Alright but sleep early alright. Oh, and guess what? The company we struck a deal with has finally approved it, so we are going to arrive by Wednesday, that's three days off from schedule. Isn't that great?" Her mum said with more enthusiasm, infecting Sophia.
"Yes, mum that is awesome. Can't wait to see you soon", Sophia said beaming, then blowing a kiss towards the screen. "Wait, your dad says hello", her mom quickly said right before Sophia almost disconnected the call.
Surprised, Sophia searched for her dad's in the call, only to see him far away from the bedroom, typing away on his tablet. "Bye dad!", Sophia said loudly. Her dad then turned around, and on seeing Sophia, made a sound of affirmation, before turning back and resuming his previous work.
This action broke Sophia's heart, but she forced a smile and ended the call, before slumping back to the bed. What's his deal with her?
Sophia decided to shrug it off and log on to her email. Her principal has seen it but hasn't replied yet. She was debating on if she should send him a message or not but ultimately chose the latter.
An Audio Message from an Unknown SourceAn Audio Message from an Unknown SourceLooking at the time and realizing she still had two hours till bedtime, she decided to log in into her Meta account. She lazily scrolled the feed and liked some posts intermittently, before stumbling on a piece of article that was related to human brain argumentation. Soon she began reading.
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"Well, let's call it a night", Sophia said and closed her laptop, then prepared to sleep. Just as she was feeling drowsy, her pc dinged, indicating a new message.
Wait, what? She just turned off her laptop, how was it still able to notify her? She curiously opened it, but the laptop was still turned off.
Sophia proceeded to turn it on and booted the computer to activity. After it booted completely, she saw a file of unknown format.
She double-clicked on the file, but her computer asked her what kind of app she wants to open it, and she chose a text editor, but the text editor displayed a bunch of Chinese and number characters. Seeing that the format wasn't a textAn Audio Message from an Unknown SourceAn Audio Message from an Unknown Source file, she proceeded to open it as a video.
Still, it didn't work, then she attempted a picture. Failure. Then lastly, she opened it using her music player. Finally, it worked, although it began to load the audio slowly.
What is this file, and who sent it? The questions were swirling in her mind as she patiently waited for her MacBook to load the audio file. The thing that baffled her was the fact that it was sent even when her laptop was turned off. It might be a hacker, but it doesn't make sense.
Not even an advanced hacker would be able to hack a switched off the computer, so then who was it?
It took her pc more than twenty minutes to load the audio format, and Sophia was beginning to get worried. It was past her bedtime, and she have not been awake longer than this.
Just as she was contemplating on ending the audio file loading and switching off her computer, the loading screen finally vanished.
"If you are.... listening to... this... voice James... I want you to... and ... but please, don't... Sophia!" Then the audio came to an abrupt end.