In a world far away

Toughening up

Lillian's POV-

Ouch! My head hurts, ugh, I shouldn't have clicked that reading option of that novel last night, but how could I? Curiosity is my second skin. Anyhow, it's not like I could sleep well even if I tried to, what, with the uninvited insomnia existing within me. Sleeping for more than 4 hours seems like a paradise to me, no, Lily, stop the drifting thoughts, you don't wanna have a breakdown so early in the day. Let's think about puppies, kittens, pasta, and chocolates, okay, I'm good.

So, thank you fates for not screwing my life to an extent where I'm homeless and starving, I earnestly hope, you'll continue bestowing your generosity on this puny mortal aka me.

Hmmm, let me re-tell the tale of my eventful life to myself once again lest I forget it.

So, it's been 7 years since I've lived in this world. I had a loving family, I was pampered, and cherished, and led a luxurious and ignorant life living in my little bubble until that day when everything went wrong. The world I was born in, is called Gaia named after the Goddess Gaia whom we all (I and people from my world) worshipped, as she's believed to be the cause of all creation in our world. That day, I was asleep and then met a green-haired, blue-eyed, and ethereal-looking lady who introduced herself as the Goddess Gaia, my fifteen-year-old self was in awe, I was blinded by her kind smile, now that I think about it, I think that I might've been in a trance where I'd agree to anything she'd say even without thinking, and that's exactly what happened. She said that I had a huge responsibility to take, and she said a lot many things but my younger self couldn't comprehend all that, all I remember was her saying that all of it was for the greater good and I'd meet my family again, and right when she said that I broke out of the trance with panic, the one thing I can remember vividly is the fear I felt, I screamed, tried to hold on to her, pleaded and sobbed, I was falling while flailing my hands desperately, and then I blacked out. I woke up again, but not in my room, not to my mother's warm voice but to a chilling feeling of cold water being splashed on me. I opened my eyes in panic and saw that I was in an unfamiliar room, it was noisy, and there were people around me wearing weird clothes, my ears were buzzing, I didn't know where I was and if it wasn't bad enough, I saw a girl(I later learned that her highness's name is Anya) approaching me smirking and then voila! she slapped me. I looked around, no one stepped forward, many were looking at the scene as if they were spectators and had nothing to do with what was happening. I wasn't used to it, I remember crying, I wasn't used to being treated callously, my parents and brother sheltered me from every possible thing that could harm me, and because of that, I was extremely sensitive and fragile. But that day, it all changed. After being slapped, I was struck with a headache I'd never had before, I saw memories of a girl, who looked eerily similar to me, the only difference was that she had brown hair and brown eyes and she was an orphan. She was raised by her mother, who died in an accident when she was 10 and her relatives refused to take her in, her grandparents were always estranged and that's how she was sent to an orphanage. The girl was called Lily Wilson, she was a bright and lively child but after her mother's death, she distanced herself from everyone. But irrespective of how morose her life was, Lily was an A-grade student, she managed to continue her education through scholarships and funds her orphanage received. But, her school life wasn't a happy one either, she was a target of bullying, and no one stood up for her because of the fear of being targeted, she tried to fight back, but it was in vain. it was after seeing her memories that I realized that I lived in ignorance if I ever encountered trouble, I always looked for someone to stand up for me, but here, Lily had no one but herself, she tried to stand up, only to be crushed, it was at that moment when I understood that the world was unfair, it didn't matter whether it was living on Earth or living in my original world, but rules and justice didn't apply for the needy. And even if they did, the time taken for the justice to be served was way too long, I don't know why I was given this life in a world far away from mine, and I don't know what has befallen Lily and where she is, but one thing I'm certain is that as long as I live here, I'll make sure that Lily's life will change for better and I fervently hope that wherever she is, she's in peace. And it was from that day on, that I became Lily Wilson leaving behind my identity as Lillian Winchester, the daughter of Marquess and Marchioness Winchester, maybe Lady Gaia sent me here to toughen up a little and become a better and stronger person, but this doesn't mean that I do not resent her every day.

 And I've got to do this internal monologuing of my life every day because if I write this down and some nosy human reads it, I'll be sent to an asylum and if I don't think about it, I've a fear of forgetting my previous life. And I'm rightfully afraid because I'm forgetting my mother's warmth, my childhood memories are becoming blurry and that fear of losing those memories and forgetting my family is so dreadful that it hurts, I feel a dull and suffocating pain within me. I'm 22 years old woman, but the one positive thing I've achieved is kicking the puny arses of all those bullies who messed with Lily, one thing this world's got that my world doesn't is social media and technology, it almost took me a year after I transmigrated to formulate a foolproof plan to teach those insecure brats a lesson but I was successful, I teamed up with many other students who they bullied, it took lots and lots of persuasion, puppy eyes, persuasion again, motivational speeches, and designing an immaculate plan to convince them that it was time to fight back, it was time to stand up. That was the second proudest moment I had experienced since I've lived in this world. It was decided that I'd act as bait and I carried out that part perfectly, those idiots fell right into the trap, why wouldn't they, they must've been itching to bully someone because we didn't give them a chance, it was planned that we would walk in groups and stay in groups and ignore their cruel jabs and comments directed to us, it was all quite tiring and required a lot of patience, but it was all worth it, as at that moment Anya, the queen bee and an insecure bitch in my humble opinion walked towards me smirking, and then came the best part, she lost her footing and she stumbled over in all her glory towards me, of course, I being the gentle lady I was, moved aside maintaining my propriety letting her kiss the ground, while not so discretely taking away her phone, and voila! Cue the screams from the banshee and her co, the panic, the hysterics, and the drama filled the air. That moment was enough for me to accept a link from her unlocked phone(I was lucky I agree ). The rest was history, the tech-savvy members of our squad hacked her chat records with her minions on her phone, and all the proof required for proving her and her friends guilty of bullying was taken and released anonymously on social media and the school forum, to add more credibility, we made proper use of the surveillance cameras which almost had no power in that private school, and released the footage of them bullying others on the social media after getting the consent of the victims, who mostly were my squad members. Life would be awesome if it was a happy ending, but nope, what we did was breaking rules too, and all those parents who were the sponsors of the school wanted a scapegoat, someone to vent their anger on, I knew how most of my squad members were struggling to survive, I knew what I'd to do, I took the blame, but considering the positive response on social media, the school couldn't hurt me much, and I was kindly asked to transfer to another school, and I chose to go to a public school this time around. Though I didn't win the fight, I was happy because I stood up, we stood up on our own against bullies and we fought back, which brought me a great sense of accomplishment.

My life went on, and I realized that Lily had an enviable cheat, she had a photographic memory, and I got to use that, that hack helped me a lot in adjusting to this world and keeping up my grades. My proudest moment was when I became the valedictorian of my class at the end of high school, I got into a good university where I majored in Finance, it's a bit hilarious if I think more about it, my fifteen-year-old self would look super offended and concerned about the mental well-being of her future self because my past self would never choose anything that involved efforts and maths. But I knew that coding and computational jobs weren't my cups of tea, and I was greedy for earning more because I wanted to live better, though I didn't think I could live the luxurious life I'd got to live in my world, I'd be happy with having a house I could call mine, a little garden blooming with lilies and filled with grass where I could enjoy my weekends, and for that, I needed a well-paying job and my major degree in Finance offered me just that. It's been 6 months and 14 days since I've been working, though it's exhausting, thinking about my gorgeous house in the future keeps me going. And, another thing that brightens up my day is reading novels and books, it just helps me drift away from my troubles, it's a temporary respite I've always welcomed. Me being a novel otaku started when I've heard a few girls gossiping about a novel they'd read in a website, I was bored out of my mind that day, so I just browsed the website and with that began the beautiful journey of me becoming a myopic and a novel-loving person, I started off with romance novels because they had the most reads and were the most popular but then I came across the genre of transmigration and saying I was terribly shocked, excited and hopeful would be an understatement, I was the living example of transmigration.