Death Changed My Opinion Of You

Chapter One

Luke's eyes fluttered. He stirred, and looked around his surroundings. He was in a large room. There were chairs made of wool dyed a deep velvet, a mahogany table, a few building blocks in the corner. He was laying down in a bed with a canopy, the curtains the same color as the chairs.

He made his way out of bed, and found a mirror on the table. He gazed into it, and what he saw petrified him.

It was himself, but when he was twelve years old.

His heartbeat rapidly accelerated. What happened? Why am I here? How did I travel back into the past?

He heard voices outside of his door. Curious, he made his way over and pressed his ear against the oak.

"...Luke is doing well. He suffered a severe concussion, but other than that, there's nothing to worry about."

Luke recognized that voice. It was his father's. But then, he noticed a calendar nearby. The date filled him with a sense of dread.

It was the very day when his father had died.

Luke opened the door and found his father talking to his mother. Duke Augustine Schuyler was an austere man well in his fifties. He had quite a few streaks of silver hair. Duchess Emmeline Schuyler was a beautiful woman with streaks of platinum in her golden hair.

Luke greeted his parents with a bow. "Greetings, Father. Greetings, Mother." They smiled and bowed back, offering their greetings as well.

"Father, if I may ask. Were you and Mother discussing my injury?" Luke asked with a polite facade, concealing his inner turmoil. I remember how I got injured. I tripped and my face slammed into a rock after chasing a fox which had stolen my fedora.

Duke Augustine gave a smile and nodded. "Indeed we were. How are you feeling?"

Luke rubbed the part of his forehead that had been cracked by the rock. Surprisingly, he felt no pain, only a minor ache when he pressed on it.

"It hurts a bit when I press on it. But other than that, I feel fine."

Augustine and Emmeline smiled, happy Luke was recovering. But Luke still hadn't recovered from his current and most pressing issue: Why was I sent back to this specific day?

Emmeline addressed Luke and told him that since he was mostly better, he could go back to attending his lessons on proper etiquette and manners. Luke thanked them once again, and made his way to his personal classroom.

Luke didn't need to go to classes, as he had already learned all of these from his previous life. But out of respect for his parents, he attended them anyways.

Making his way down the corridor, he was lost in thought. So much so that he didn't see where he was going and bumped into something much bigger than him.

"You need to be more mindful next time, Master Luke." His butler Bernard remarked. Luke nodded and bowed and continued walking.

Arriving at his classroom, which was really just the parlor with a big desk in front of the sofa, he sat down and waited for his teacher to arrive.

But after a few minutes of waiting, Mr. Hence didn't arrive. That's when a knock sounded at his door. Three evenly spaced raps on the wood.

He thought to himself. If I remember correctly, this was the horseman that my father would travel with, and eventually the man who would carry his body out of the Monhelm river.

And sure enough, Duke Augustine opened it to see a tall, pale man with a jet-black beard holding a saddle in each hand.

"Ready for the ride, Duke Augustine?"
The man asked in a deep, gruff voice.
Luke could tell just from it that he was from Brundidge, the land to the south of here.