LUNA

The city was bustling as people moved up and down going about their own business. The air was dusty due to the overpopulation. Trees and tall buildings stood tall everywhere, decorating the little city.

There was a high school painted blue and white. Today was Saturday, the day when high school graduates would hold their graduation party. The building was decorated with flowers and colorful lights. All the girls wore their best makeup while the boys wore their best clothes to impress the girls.

The air was filled with laughter, and everyone looked happy and ready to go to college.

Tables were arranged in the big hall with beautiful blue chairs around each table.

"Wow we made it!" a girl yelled. She was about eighteen or nineteen. She was the cheerleader of the science class.

"Indeed!" a boy replied close to her. He was the same age as her. He wrapped his hand around her waist, and she could feel his hands around her. They both laughed out loud. Everyone was happy they could finally do what they wanted in college.

In one corner of the room, a girl with pure black hair and light brown eyes sat down, just watching the show. She was holding a glass of juice as she sipped it slowly. It was tasteless to her as everything seemed so boring and lonely. This day was supposed to be for celebration, but it was sad for her. She was wearing a brown dress to her knees' length. Some parts of the dress were torn, and some areas had holes. Her hair was tied up in a bun, and it looked messy. With her dry lips and hollow, lifeless eyes, she looked like she had been working under the sun for hours. Her skin was pale. Everyone was looking good apart from her. People kept glancing at her and gossiping. She tried to cover the parts that were torn on her dress, but it was impossible.

The dress looked like a rag.

"Luna, don't you want to join your friends and celebrate? After all, you are the best student. You topped the whole school," a woman in her fifties spoke. Luna just looked at her.

"Thank you, ma'am. I'm fine here," she said, still trying to cover the torn areas with her hand. The woman noticed this.

"Luna, why don't you tell your parents to give you better clothes? Today is supposed to be for celebration," said the woman. Her short black hair cascaded over her shoulders.

"I don't have any good clothes," she said, and the woman's gray eyes flickered with confusion.

"Come, I'll give you something to change into," she said, pulling Luna by the hand to her office. She brought a dress from one of the corkboards and handed it to Luna.

"Change into this," said the woman, and with that, she left Luna alone in the office.

Luna stared at the long pink dress. The woman was her chemistry teacher and also a Christian, always advising students to wear long dresses. Luna wasn't surprised at the dress. It looked so expensive. She held it and brought it out from the transparent leather. Her memory drifted to when she was little. Her siblings would beat her up like trash. Any nice thing she wanted to wear, her sister would say she loved that one, and her parents would immediately give it to her.

Luna was the youngest with three other siblings. When their parents were out, they would lock her up in the wardrobe all day long without food or make her wash their clothes with her bare hands without letting her use the washing machine.

The past.

Little Luna was around seven years old as she sat in front of the mansion under the apple tree.

She was looking up at the tree with many fruits, planning to steal one. Mr. and Mrs. Winters (her parents) were about to go out. She was waiting for them to pass through the gates so she could climb the tree.

Her siblings didn't allow her to eat with them, and even if little Luna complained to her parents, they would do absolutely nothing about it.

Soon, they waved the children goodbye. The firstborn was sixteen years old, followed by the second who was fourteen years old. The one Luna was next to was eleven years old.

Mr. and Mrs. Winters walked further and saw Luna sitting under the apple tree.

"Luna, we are going out for a while. We will be back at night. Don't cause any trouble," her mother said. And her father just looked at her.

"Did you hear what your mother is saying?" he asked, and little Luna nodded reluctantly.

"Don't do anything stupid," said Mr. Winters, and with that, he and Mrs. Winters went into the car and drove off. They didn't care about the little girl. Their family, all of them, had blonde hair, and Luna was the only one with black hair that was long and almost touched the ground. They thought she was a curse and maltreated her.

When she was born, her mother even talked about selling her or abandoning her on the streets. And that was how her siblings treated her as well. She also happened to be bullied in school by people, calling her poor and the rest.

Little Luna looked up the tree as the green apples stared back at her. She looked around and saw that her siblings had gone inside to play games and watch movies. With that, she climbed the tree like a monkey.

Reaching up, she plucked five apples and fixed them in her dress. She was wearing a long black gown that was thick and heavy. No one would notice the apples in there. She crawled down the tree slowly.

She was a smart kid; thanks to the suffering, she had learned how to be smart. Before even the housekeeper could notice anything, she was sitting back where she had been sitting.

"Hey! What are you still doing there?" the firstborn, Mark, said to Luna as he walked up to her, giving her a solid slap. Pulling her by her hand, he took her into the mansion.

"Let me go, please let me go," she begged. He tied up her hands and legs with ropes and took her to her room, putting her into the wardrobe, and locked her up.

"Where is Luna?" the housekeeper asked Mark, who had just slammed Luna's door.

"I put her to sleep," he lied.

"She is already sleeping? So fast," said the woman in her late forties.

"Let her rest and don't disturb her," said Mark to the housekeeper.

"Yes," she said, and with that, she walked away. She had always noticed that little Luna was always in her room.

Luna, inside the wardrobe, tried to break free. She managed to loosen the ropes that were tied around her. Tears welled up.

"Please, please, someone let me out," little Luna cried. But no one came.

Any time she was locked up, she always hoped her siblings would come back for her, but sadly, none did. She was next to her sister, while the rest were boys, making two girls and two boys.

Little Luna screamed until her throat was dry, but none came. She was now hungry and pulled out her apple and ate it. She sat inside the dark wardrobe.

Present.

Tears rolled down her lifeless cheeks. She thought her siblings were playing games with her, but she had to accept reality. She wiped the tears and quickly put on the dress that covered her knees to the ground, covering her ugly shoes. She left the office back to the ball, only to see that almost everyone was gone.

"What took you so long?" she heard behind her and immediately spun around to see the chemistry teacher.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," she apologized with her head down.

"It's fine. You should go home now. You can keep the dress," said the woman as she walked past Luna.

Luna left the ball and went outside the school. She thought of going back to the school forest to take a look at the beautiful trees. Students just hung around. Luna was only fifteen, and she was the youngest of all the graduating students. She walked past a lot of them doing nasty things and went to the school's incomplete building. She stood almost near the edge of a cliff, looking at the beautiful trees.

No one could ever see her here.

"Peaceful," she muttered to herself. She was a lover of novels, and all her classmates hated her for that, always using her free time reading books. Her current book she was reading was about a villainess, and the main character had the same name as her. Someone who killed babies and humans. She was addicted to reading, and she normally came here to this cliff to read.

She was also writing novels, but no one knew this.

Her parents didn't pay too much attention to her, so she was working at a bar without anyone finding out.

She sat down, pulling out her phone, and read the scene where the male lead killed Luna.

Luna turned off her phone as her blood boiled with fury. She checked her phone, but it still showed an unknown author. Her blood boiled more.

She had read this novel more than twenty times, hoping the plot would change or the author's name would appear, but still nothing.

The novel was about a villainess named Luna. She killed creatures of different kinds and swore to kill every being on the surface of the earth.

She was destined to die in the hands of Ezekiel, the male lead, and just like that, the story unfolded, and the male lead killed her in the end.

Each time Luna thought about this, she felt like breaking her phone.

"Who do we have here?" she heard behind her. She quickly stood up and saw four boys. These boys were among the people who normally bullied her. She didn't want any problems today of all days, so she turned to leave, only to be stopped by one of them with a hard punch.

She felt the impact in her brain. Her whole body felt so weak and hot, as if she could pass out at any time.

"Why don't we teach her a lesson?"

"Yes, let's do that," they said. The four of them were smoking, and one bent down, holding her in place. Luna tried to struggle, but it was impossible. They placed the burning cigarettes on her skin by her neck. The burning pain was unbearable. It burned her deeply. What was worse was they were burning her in three different places on her neck.

They removed the cigarettes and stared down at her.

"I wonder who gave birth to this trash," said one of the boys. He was about twenty years old.

They all laughed. Luna lay down, and she could barely move with dry, cracked, bleeding lips. Tears rolled down the corner of her dim brown eyes.

"Hahaha, let's throw her to the forest," one of them said.

"She won't survive."

"It's a good thing then. Why should she live? Who knows, she'll come to college and be the top student as well."

"Yeah, you're right," and with that, they lifted Luna, who had no strength to move, and threw her into the bush. She landed on the hard ground with heavy impact. The building was really tall, and there was no way she could survive that. Blood rolled out of her head as she lay down lifeless. The boys laughed and left.

*******

When she woke up, cold liquid was trickling over her body. Blinking her eyes open, she realized she was in a bathtub. Her eyes widened.

But it wasn't the bathtub that caught her attention, it was its breathtaking beauty.

This place was definitely not her home. She wasn't allowed to use things this luxurious.

Glancing up, she gasped. At the door stood a breathtaking figure, a man with black hair and enchanting gray eyes that could leave anyone spellbound.

"Did someone this beautiful actually exist?" she thought.

As if his face wasn't enough to make her toes curl, his abs were... Damn! she thought, taking a closer look. Broad chest, slim waist, broad shoulders, and... Hell no! Was he standing naked? She quickly averted her gaze and looked down at herself. Am I also naked?

Her lips parted, but she bit back a scream, her heart racing as she saw her bare body.

When she looked up again, his face was inches from hers. His piercing gray eyes made it impossible for her to look away.

And then, she screamed.

"Ahhh!"

He stepped back, slightly taken aback by her sudden reaction.

"Scared already?" he mumbled. "Aren't you the one who wanted this? Can't handle it?" His tone was mocking as he chuckled slowly.

"W-who are you?" she mustered the courage to ask.

His gray eyes flickered with surprise. "Who am I? Did you lose your memory or something? I'm Ezekiel Elliott," he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

She must be crazy, he thought as he walked boldly out of the bathroom.

She immediately stood up, grabbing the nearest towel, and rushed to the mirror. What she saw made her gasp in wonder: brown eyes, long, tamed black hair, and slender, flawless skin.

"This is not me!" It was her, yes, but she had always lived a life of suffering. There was no way she could have cared for her body and skin to look this beautiful.

Suddenly, she remembered the novel. "No, no, no! It can't be!" She touched her cheeks, her fingers brushing over the softness of her skin.

"Didn't he say he's Ezekiel? Wait... what? Did my soul transfer into Luna's body?"

"Boss, he's gone," Emma said from outside the bathroom.

"Boss? Wait, isn't that what they called Luna in the book? Am I really her now?"

"Ahhh!" she screamed, running her fingers harshly through her hair.