The car stopped in front of the emergency unit entrance. The glaring white hospital lights greeted them the moment they stepped out.
Elena walked ahead, followed by Lorenzo, who remained silent, carefully reading the situation. The scent of antiseptic and the sound of hurried footsteps filled the corridor. She did not head toward the registration desk. Instead, she walked straight ahead, as if she was already familiar with the place.
A man in a doctor's coat who had just stepped out of one of the rooms halted when he saw her. His face showed surprise, then shifted to confusion. "Elena?" he asked briefly. "What do you need me for?"
His tone was professional, yet it was clear he was closely acquainted with the owner of this body. Elena did not waste time. She pulled Lorenzo's arm slightly forward, pushing him to stand beside her.
"Please conduct a full examination on him," Elena said plainly. "Everything. Including the condition of his head. And tell me how long it will take for him to recover, and when his memories will return."
The doctor frowned. His gaze shifted between Elena and Lorenzo. "Are you sure you're asking me to examine him?"
The question was not without reason. Because all this time, at least based on the faint memories lingering within this body, Elena had never truly cared about Lorenzo's condition. She only brought him to a doctor if the injuries she herself had caused became too visible.
Moreover, she had already decided that she would not follow the old storyline. Relying on the residual memories of this body's original owner, she began to understand something that had once felt strange when she read the manuscript.
Elena De Luca, the antagonist of this novel, had never truly committed a grave mistake. She was harsh, yes. Perhaps selfish. But most of the conflicts that dragged her downfall always began with the subtle manipulations of the female protagonist. Yet in the novel, everything was arranged so neatly that readers only saw one side, Elena, the villain.
Back then, as an editor, she had felt that something was unbalanced. Now, she could feel it firsthand. The owner of this body was not entirely at fault. She was merely trapped in a game of perception.
"If I follow the original storyline," Elena thought, "I will only walk toward the death that has already been written."
"And if I change the course of the story, perhaps that's where the flaw will reveal itself."
Perhaps the plot hole she had been searching for all this time was not in the minor details. Perhaps the flaw lay in the story's very point of view.
Elena then answered her friend's question. "I'm sure," she replied flatly. "So just do it." Her tone sounded indifferent, but her decision was firm.
Lorenzo could only remain silent in the face of all this. For a moment, he had assumed Elena brought him to the hospital for another reason, perhaps to ensure he remained "fit" enough to endure punishment, or merely as a formality to avoid suspicion. But the reality was different.
Elena genuinely asked the doctor to examine him. It was not a half-hearted request, nor empty politeness. The doctor led him into the examination room. Lorenzo followed without much protest, though his mind continued to work. Elena's change was far too sudden, in his opinion.
Meanwhile, Elena turned in the opposite direction. She stepped outside briefly toward the parking area, where the driver was still waiting inside the car.
"The items?" she asked shortly.
The driver immediately handed her a shopping bag containing a medium-sized plain notebook and a black pen.
Elena gave a slight nod. "Thank you."
She went back inside the hospital and sat in the relatively quiet waiting area. The white lights felt cold, plastic chairs lined up neatly. The sound of nurses' footsteps occasionally passed by.
Elena opened the notebook. The first page was still blank and clean, unlike her life, which was now in disarray.
She took a slow breath, then began to write.
Name: Elena De Luca
Role: Main female antagonist.
Image: Cruel, possessive, manipulative.
The tip of her pen paused for a moment. "Is that really true?" she murmured softly, uncertain about Elena.
She continued writing.
Relationship with Leonardo: Engaged due to a family arrangement. Leonardo never truly loved her.
Leonardo's relationship with Tania: Childhood friend. Strong emotional bond. Tania always appears as the injured party.
Elena recalled the key scenes in the novel. The conflict at the party. The misunderstandings that always ended with Elena being blamed. The evidence that somehow always pointed toward her.
On the next page, she drew a simple diagram lines connecting one name to another. Her old habits as an editor and writer surfaced naturally. She always thought more clearly when everything was written down.
The more she wrote, the more one pattern felt suspicious. In every major incident, Tania was always nearby. In every accusation, a witness would appear, always siding with Tania. In every decision Leonardo made, it was always based on a perspective that had already been shaped beforehand.
Elena tapped the tip of her pen against the paper. Then she wrote a sentence in the middle of the page, slightly larger than the others: "Elena is not the main perpetrator. She is a victim framed as the villain."
She stared at the sentence for a long time. In the novel, the narrative had been constructed so neatly that readers were given no room to question Elena's position as the antagonist. But now, after being inside it, after feeling the pressure from her father, Leonardo's attitude, and the way Tania always stood as though she were the most wounded, everything felt far too one-sided. As if this story had indeed been deliberately arranged to bring her down.
"Elena De Luca isn't entirely at fault," she murmured softly. "She was simply never given the chance to defend herself."
Her hand stopped moving. Her thoughts suddenly drifted to the blinding light on the road that night. At that time, the pedestrian signal in front of her had turned green. A soft beeping sound indicated that pedestrians could cross. Several people to her right and left began to move. But she kept walking with her head lowered, her eyes fixed on the tablet screen that cast a pale glow across her face.
On the screen was a scene of a fierce argument between the female antagonist and the long-oppressed protagonist. The dialogue was sharp, the emotions at their peak, the words dripping with venom. It was all perfect, Yet something felt off.
Elena kept walking, reaching the middle of the road. Then, without warning, a blinding white light struck from her right side. Too bright. Too close. An engine roared harshly, unstable, as if the driver had lost control. Tires screeched deafeningly, tearing through the calm night air. Only then did Elena lift her face.
Everything seemed to slow down. The headlights expanded in her vision. Her body went rigid, as if invisible hands were holding her in place. She wanted to step back. To drop the tablet and run. But her legs refused to move.
In that split second, her mind did not think about her life. She did not think about fear. Instead, one utterly irrational thought crossed her mind. "That plot hole. Where is it?"
A violent impact struck her body before she could finish the question. The world spun brutally. She was thrown several meters away, hitting the asphalt with a sickening sound. Pain spread through her body, yet strangely it felt distant, almost as if it did not belong to her.
The tablet slipped from her grasp and fell not far from her body. Its screen cracked at the corner, but it was still on. Still displaying the argument between the antagonist and the suffering heroine.
The last sentence visible before the screen reflected the streetlight's glare, "I will make sure you never disturb Leonardo again!"
Elena lay on the cold asphalt, warm blood beginning to pool beneath her head. The sound of people shouting echoed like distant reverberations down a long corridor. The night sky above her looked blurred.
Yet her mind remained stubborn. Not about death. Not about the pain in her body. But about the story. There was something illogical in that plot. Something hidden between the accident and the memory loss. Something about the antagonist's supposed crimes that felt flawed. And she had never found the crack in it, no matter how many times she reread it.
Where was the mistake?
Had she overlooked a small detail?
Or was the entire foundation flawed?
Her vision grew darker. The streetlights turned into fading dots of light. The sound of sirens began to wail in the distance. Before her eyelids fully closed, before her last trace of consciousness sank into darkness, one final thought circled in her mind, "If only she could step deeper into that story."