She was so in love, but what about him? He never looked her way, sitting with an otherworldly beauty, whom she once called, 'my dear friend'.

She thought if only she tried, again and again. Maybe, one day he would look at her, but she forgot to consider that his heart never belonged to her. His sparkling golden eyes always followed her friend Elizabeth, and the pain inside her chest increased the more she tried.

At last, she tried to stop but failed miserably. Why couldn't she let him go? This question crossed her mind countless times, yet it went unanswered no matter how long she thought about it and that's how the story of Bella Morningstar began.

All her life, she was unable to even find out why she was a pathetic lovestruck side character. Elizabeth her lovely friend was a beauty and she loved her a lot, but when did she start hating her so much that she couldn't even bear her sight? She doesn't remember. It's been so long...

Maybe in their beautiful story, Bella wasn't even a side character. Thoughts of dying early crossed her mind, not once but hundreds of times, but whenever she was hanging on the edge, she stopped because it was painful and she was scared of death.

A bitter laugh was all she could let out from her mouth when she was dragged to the punishment chamber in front of his beautiful golden eyes. The eyes that stared at her coldly until the end.

She thought maybe if he did not, her dad, her mom, her dear brother.... they would help her. After all, the blood flowing in her veins was the same as them. In the end, she finally cried out to her dear friend.

"I am sorry... "

But her heart sank when Elizabeth looked away, with a fearful expression.

Bella knew she was in the wrong because she had tried to kill her, their innocent and beautiful flower, but she wanted to ask her family once. Was her love nothing to them? Or maybe... just maybe did they ever love her for even a second? She wondered this again and again while breathing her last.

Yet, no one ever came. Not even when her soul slipped away from her body, vanishing into the emptiness of the void.

Bella believed she would never open her eyes again, and she desired just that—to forget everything and everyone... perhaps even her own self.

But fate played with her once more.

The resentment and sadness that weighed down her soul kept her from entering the cycle of reincarnation and finding the peace she so desperately sought.

And then, after what felt like an eternity in the darkness surrounding her, a voice so loud pierced her mind, awakening her once more. But the sight she beheld upon opening her eyes was no longer the same.

The first thing that entered her eyes was blood. So much, that it painted everything in a carpet of red.

She froze and watched with horrified eyes until her thundering heart stopped.

How could it not?

The sight was so cruel that even the strongest in her world could not bear to look at it, for more than a few minutes.

However, it was like she was trapped in a cycle because after her heart stopped she woke up again. Not back in her world, but in the same hell again.

Perhaps the previous horror had granted her a bit of resilience, for this time her heart did not stop as she gazed at the sky.

It was black and red, almost similar to her darkest nightmare. The ground beneath her was a fiery red, scorching enough to burn her skin. But luckily, she had a pair of black boots on her feet.

She could feel the fear coursing through her veins when the sound of her trembling body caught the attention of those strange creatures, sitting just a few meters away. Their horned heads snapped up in an instant, and their large black wings fluttered as they ceased their feast on the numerous corpses scattered around. It was a horrifying sight.

When those pitch-black eyes met hers in mid-air, just a single glance was enough to send her into a frenzy.

"Ahhhhh, demons!"

Bella screamed and ran, pushing herself until her legs wobbled from exhaustion. But despite it all, she didn't stop running.

The image of crimson blood trickling down from the demons' jaws was still fresh in her mind as she ran across a dark mountain. The air around her was suffocating, enough to make her retch.

But she endured. Why? Despite not understanding why she relentlessly fought to stay alive, she pushed forward.

Suddenly, she staggered and lost her balance. Her body tumbled down, causing her to cry out in pain. Soon, every patch of skin on her body turned bloody from the searing heat.

Trembling, she couldn't help but let out a wretched sob, knowing that she was facing death once again. With the last bit of strength she had, she dragged her body towards a boulder. But then, her eyes caught sight of a murky red river in front of her.

Amidst the searing pain, the bloody sky, and the burning ground, she thought, the river... it was beautiful.

How strange, she didn't even realize that she wasn't thinking of him anymore.

Bella crawled towards the water as her last breath approached. With dilated eyes, she realized that the face reflected in the river was not hers. Her trembling hand caressed beneath the pale blue eyes, and she gently touched the lock of blue hair cascading around her slender body.

'How?'

She questioned with fright. She remembered her eyes were bright crimson, so why were they blue now? Her black hair, which always swayed around her back, had turned blue. And instead of pale, her skin was tanned.

A laugh escaped Bella's lips as tears streamed down her cheeks. As she recalled her face, she remembered him again, but strangely, her heart was not pounding for him anymore. Was it because she was not in her own body?