There had only ever been one true love, the rest were fantasies. Simply novels.
"Now, returning to my story, for a more dramatic initiation, we could subject her to failure and humiliation before she unites with the male lead. What do you think?" Marie-Rose extended her discussion within the writers' circle.
"What precisely are you envisioning?"
"The usual, enduring a toxic relationship. You're aware of my aversion to toxic relationships. That's why I crafted that heartwarming love story. I aim to champion healthy relationships," she shared her sentiments, her thoughts inadvertently drifting into her own life, though she couldn't make that public.
Ovide offered an alternative perspective, "What about a storyline where she had a boyfriend who passed away and discovers love again after battling depression?"
"No, that's not an option. Some classmates passed away at a young age. I don't think I want to delve into such a challenging subject. Even though people might enjoy fantasizing about the alternate life a departed loved one could have had," she firmly stated.
"How about exploring a divorce?" Henry suggested.
"Even better, what if she approaches a man who rejects her?" Ovide exclaimed, convinced he had found the ideal solution.
"Been there, done that, in my previous novel. In truth, I have drawn inspiration from the experiences of some people close to me, I don't think the result matched my intentions."
The moment she revealed her previous plot, her spy assumed its inspiration was a given. "How dare she inflict pain on the sweet Mimosa. I will make Marie-Rose endure what the good-hearted and humble Mimosa went through," he mumbled, convinced that the writer had drawn inspiration from Mimosa's life.
"Mimosa deserved being with that boy; after all, she had prayed for a boyfriend and had done so much good! She was genuinely a kind person. I will avenge her," he exclaimed, his idea resonating loudly in a fit of rage, accompanied by a surge of knowledge from the depths of his twisted mind. Spittle dripped from his mouth as foam formed around it in a manifestation of his intense anger.
"So that Marie-Rose understands what it feels like!" the obsessed individual justified, attributing his twisted rationale to a false wisdom he had borrowed from the witches' coven. In his mind, he believed he was delivering a clever retort.
However, in reality, he was nothing more than a second-rate joker who lacked the finesse of genuine humor, resorting only to humiliation.
His disdain for Marie-Rose's embrace of the hip-hop lifestyle fueled his arrogance, convincing himself that he could generate impressive punchlines to counter-attack her.
"Even better, let's craft a scenario where they are forced to part ways against their will, only to reunite later, still not having recovered from their love. Perhaps both, if we can intricately intertwine the storylines," the idea proposed at this stage of the brainstorming session seemed to gain popularity, evident from the reactions of the other writers.
The stalker seethed with fury.
'I must demonstrate that she's nothing but a fool. Nobody is waiting for anyone. I need to inflict suffering upon her to make her realize that everyone has found a replacement, and nobody waits for the so-called love of their life, as depicted in her novel.'
'Does she truly believe that someone returns younger than they left, as portrayed in her nonsensical novel?' he referred to one of her sci-fi novels where the male lead finds the fountain of youth, while the female main character is an immortal.
'All of a sudden, it struck me. We need to create another YouTube video to dissect what's factual in these novels and what's not,' he realized.
'Gullible people will swallow everything written in the novels as truth. This self-proclaimed sage guru insisted that she had grounded her novels in reality, but she's as lucid as if high on meth. It's like the delusions of someone under the influence of hallucinogens,' he remarked, alluding to the concept of "awakening" that he had overheard her discussing with a fellow member of her coven.
'These foolish writers and influencers! They're leading humanity to perdition. Utter morons!' he marveled at how people could believe in such things.
"How about having her choose between two guys..." Matthieu proposed, raising the stakes much to the annoyance of the others. Despite initial resistance, they eventually agreed to include this scenario.
As Marie-Rose set her mind to weave all the ideas into a cohesive story, Matthieu volunteered to assist. In the midst of their collaborative effort, they recalled their earlier agreement. Matthieu declared, "I'll take on the perspective of the male lead. Is everyone on board with that?" he queried the gathering. According to their initial plan, they had committed to embodying their characters, speaking for them and always referring to them in the first person.
Mark and Henry volunteered to tackle the roles of other minor characters, while Ovide opted for the challenging role of the villain. He chuckled, already contemplating some spicy details to infuse into the novel.
"I have no objections; I'll stick to the other novel, anyway," Andre declared. Although named Andre, he wasn't the individual from the legal department in Marie-Rose's office. "For this one, I'll assume the role of the male lead's best friend." he declared, settling the matter.
"I'll handle the main character," Marie-Rose concluded.
"It's only natural," Matthieu pointed. "Should I perhaps draw inspiration from Alexandre when crafting the male lead?" he inquired, half-convinced. He thought she might want to incorporate her feelings for Alexandre into the background story, though uncertain.
"Well, yes, that could work," she conceded, avoiding involving Jayden. "But it's better to create a more charismatic character based on other outstanding men."
Marie-Rose's stubbornness grated on the stalker. In his view, she never listened, displaying what he considered sheer stupidity.
Determined to prove that Alexandre was not meant for her, he convinced himself that nobody liked her. Not Raul, not Julian, not Jean, not Patrice—it was all in her head. In his distorted perspective, if Alexandre had left her, it was for a younger and more beautiful woman. Fueled by resentment, he decided that this old and ugly hag needed a lesson.
'What does she think? Does she believe she deserves that young man? She's so ugly and deformed; she doesn't deserve a handsome boy like Alexandre.'
'Let me deceive her into leaving her handsome boyfriend Alexandre, and then I'll compel her to accept a man she dislikes. She needs to realize that beauty is not everything. Beauty fades away. What matters is what's inside.' For some reason, he convinced himself that Alexandre was the man in her bed the previous night. His speculation was fueled by the fact that Alexandre, like Jayden, was blonde. 'Her pride deserves to be shattered. Live what you preach, whore!' he muttered, pondering what her view on the characters chosen for her novels. The stalker's sinister plan took shape.
In his warped perspective, these witches, believing themselves superior, deserved suffering. They, in his eyes, had chosen their own path, justifying his entitlement to persecute and humiliate them. Somehow, he convinced himself that such actions were a form of help.
According to his distorted worldview, Marie-Rose needed to grasp that it was too late for women like her. He pointed to a forty-something actor as evidence. In his warped logic, men always had numerous options, younger and more beautiful girls readily available. He concluded that men were only using her for her money, viewing her as an epitome of ugliness.
"How about the other female characters?" someone suddenly inquired.
"Well, Marie-Rose will write all of them. It's better this way; it aligns with the plan," he mentioned the plan, a mysterious strategy known only to the participants. "It serves its purpose."
Before they called it a night, she mockingly declared her intention to write about her life, adding, "I will disclose how my stalker tried to interfere between me and Alexandre," she added jokingly, unaware of the truth lurking in her words.
"But I think the best strategy would be to act exactly like Mimosa does. Let me pretend to be good-hearted and kind, but always express a criticism or a complaint. Let me be an attention whore like her and the like! How about that?" The joke slowly morphed into a resolution in the new year of her attitude.
"In fact, she also pretended to like Alexandre only to characterize him as weird because he didn't give her more attention than to me," she remembered.
"Should the male lead look like Alexandre?" Matthieu asked.
"No, let's break the cliché this time. Let him have the looks of someone I know from my class," Marie-Rose suggested. Eager to illustrate, she quickly grabbed her phone, scrolling through several profiles in search of the person she had in mind, a friend of one of her colleagues in the psycho-pedagogy class.
A meme appeared on her display, just when she finished her search: "Brown eyes are a better choice to fall in love with." What a coincidence!
"Yes, the real male lead is the brown-haired one! The ugly boy," the black hat bitterly voiced his thought, oblivious that someone was hearing him, too. 'So he's the one that will be with her female protagonist. He's the one who likes her. How could anyone like such a crooked woman with a pursed face! The ugly piece of shit!' he believed Marie-Rosed considered herself the heroine and she just chose her partner.
'But the boy never liked her!' he thought to have finally discerned the plot.
"Ugly people should be matched with ugly people," he declared in his madness.
Soon after, the boy whose friend she had been searching for posted a picture of a woman. She commented, "How beautiful!" because the woman truly was. However, shortly after she wrote the comment, the picture disappeared, seemingly removed. This prompted her to fall into deep thought.
In his warped assessment, the hacker scrutinized, 'She's too short for Jean, and she's too fat. Have you seen the amount of fat on her belly? Plus, she doesn't have tits. To be beautiful, a girl needs to be around 50 kilos, of which at least 25 should be tits!'
'I wish Marie-Rose's brain would be tits, ah, actually not! Her head is empty; she has no brain. She has no brain to think that a man as beautiful as Jean would set his eyes on her,' he remarked, referring to Jean, the boy from Marie-Rose's psycho-pedagogy class, whose friend's picture she had just shown to the others.
Returning to her character, 'She shouldn't covet him. She shouldn't drool over him. Let her deal with her menopause! Well, she must be on menopause. At 35, she's so old; there's no way she can be fertile at such an advanced age,' he continued his disturbing mental digressions.
'I need to put my dxck in her mouth and show her who's the man. Men only use her and then kick her in the butt,' he contemplated, further revealing the disturbing nature of his thoughts.
'Her vagina is atrophied; why does she even keep writing bars about male organs,' he recalled her commentary on the source of stalker problems.
'She must be sticking her fingers into unholy places right now, thinking about him,' his distorted thoughts continued, revealing the intensity of his delusional fixation.
Little did he know, Marie-Rose was indeed exploring unconventional avenues. Working in online chat was proving to be quite rewarding, especially with some outside peepers rubbing the magic stick like Aladin.
Moreover, she found herself in dire financial straits, making any source of income at the expense of foolish people a blessing in the given circumstances.
Marie-Rose persisted, walking the path like Johnnie Walker. "Cause the day that we stop is the day that we are defeated!" she affirmed.
She moved forward, understanding the importance of not dwelling on what did not happen at the right time.
'Jayden, here I come!' If things were not done when it was their time, they might never happen at all.
With no money left for the bus home after losing her change, Marie-Rose was frustrated by the day's events and eager to get home quickly. She ended up borrowing money from Matthieu for her transit fare.
Boarding the bus, two snickering teenagers who seemed a couple immediately targeted Marie-Rose, mocking her with exaggerated "Beeeep!" censorship sounds.
With their eyes locked on her, there was no doubt she was the target of their mocking reaction.
This might have been a reaction to the music video she posted on her wall, as the good witch that she was, despite the song's evident anti-system message: "The Crystal Ball." (Vlad Dobrescu – Globul de cristal feat. Deliric & Doc)
It was too coincidental all these hassles occurred right after the scandal broke. Daniel's hand was clearly involved in this - a petty attempt at retaliation.
Her observation proved to be wise. As soon as she made the mental note, getting down the bus, she noticed a group of three massive men dressed in green on her heels.
They didn't resemble anything close to a normal person. Lacking the grace of a Homo sapiens or the constitution of a Neanderthal, they weren't even the mixed breed typical of their region. Despite their height, they possessed solid physiques.
These individuals looked like elephants that had mistakenly wandered into the wrong room.
Following her closely, they were spouting the nonsense brewing in their twisted minds, indicating an association with the gov men.
One of the disturbed guys, the one with bulging eyes, inquired, "Where's your harem?" This made Marie-Rose ponder whether he was referring to her association with her friends in the literature circle or if he was alluding to the discussions about the harem in the novel.
Then, another observation emerged: "We seem to have three doctors!"