Special: The Impenetrable Fortress (Part 4)

(A/N: Trigger Warning! Definitely do not read if you are sensitive to suicide themes. Gore is included too.)

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Cordelia POV

Alex Ward.

My first ever crush.

He was, quite literally, the only person who had treated me decently in this life.

Of course, it's not like Alex had ever treated me especially better than others though...he simply treated everyone equally, nothing more and nothing less.

"You seem happy for a person who just got beaten up," he said as his eyes never looked up from the book he held in his hands.

"...Why are you here?" I asked as I kept my voice steady and calm.

"I was on my way to the library but then got pulled over by a teacher, who dragged me all the way here to watch over you. But by the looks of things, you're doing alright, aren't you," Alex replied with an sigh.

"...No, it definitely hurts a lot," I murmured as I pointed to all the bruises on my body.

Alex had always been a strange kid.

Even if someone had their head chopped off in front of him, I doubt he would even blink in surprise.

"...I doubt someone like Zach Reaves would go as far as to beat you up like that. He might act try to act tough and violent but, in reality, he's just stupid and cowardly," Alex murmured expressionlessly.

Throughout the entire time, he did not turn up his head from his book to look at me once.

"And...? What are you trying to say?" I asked, feigning ignorance.

"What I am trying to say is that...you, Clara Smith, framed Zach Reaves. Right?" Alex said without a single smirk on his face as his eyes darted across the lines of his book.

I clenched my hands into fists and sighed.

"So? What are you going to do about it?" I asked a little threateningly, "It's not like anyone would believe you, even if you said anything."

But Alex neither flinched nor seemed to care.

"Don't get me wrong. I don't plan on telling anybody. Zach deserved it anyway. Do you know, Clara? That you can only blame yourself if you fall into someone else's trap?" Alex asked without expecting an answer.

He was right.

Zach was the one who fell into my trap, so there was no one else he could blame besides himself.

After all, none of this would have happened if he had kept his hands to himself and left me alone.

"You're talking as if though you're an old man," I huffed as I shifted my body into a slightly more comfortable position.

"I am often told that."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"..."

After that, there was a horribly awkward silence.

Honestly, in the past, I used to think I had a crush on this man.

After all, he was smart...

...And he treated me just like he would with anyone else.

And...

He was hot.

But, now, when I look at him, I feel absolutely nothing at all...

It was strange.

Ace had completely replaced Alex Ward's place in my heart and had taken over my thoughts in its entirety.

Now, there was no one else I could ever imagine loving except for him.

I wonder...when did it happen...?

When did my world start to revolve around Ace?

"Ah! Clara! I'm back! The ambulance will be here at any second now...! Zach is being kept at the school office, so you don't have to worry anymore, okay? It'll be alright now..." the teacher from before called out from down the hall.

Within moments, I was already back to my perfect damsel-in-distress act.

Tears rolled down my face and I grasped my chest dramatically as if though I were already on the verge of death.

I didn't care that I was doing all of this in front of Alex, and I doubt that he'd care either.

"Clara, are you okay?!" the teacher cried as she ran into the room and knelt by my side.

But instead of crying out about how much pain I was in, I simply began to hyperventilate as if I couldn't bear to breathe anymore.

"Clara!!!!! Calm down! I promise it'll be okay...!" the teacher said as she shook me.

This teacher...was stupid and naive.

Why would she shake the body of someone, who seemed on the verge of passing out, with bruises all over her body?

Was she not worried that she would hurt me or something?

Or that shaking me would make me dizzy and nauseous?

"Stop it, Mrs. Tawney. You're going to end up killing her at this rate," Alex said tapped the teacher's shoulder.

"Alex!! Oh, Alex!! What do we do?!" the teacher cried.

"..."

Even Alex was so speechless at the naive teacher's stupidity that, for once, he finally blinked away from his book and stared the teacher in the eye.

"You are a teacher and I am only a student. Shouldn't you be trained for things like this? You need to stay calm," Alex said with a small twitch of his brow.

"Y-Yes, you're r-right," the teacher stammered as she stayed by my side, much more stiff this time.

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Eventually, other teachers and paramedics came into the closet and I was whisked away to the hospital.

...The same hospital I had died at in my past life.

Was this fate?

"There is something we need to tell you, Clara," the doctor said as he sat down by my side.

I stared out of the hospital windows into the outside world.

Cars were driving by underneath the hot afternoon sun and there was not even a single cloud in the sky.

"Luckily, your bruises will go away with time as long as you eat and sleep well."

I was hooked up to an IV drip and was forced to eat bland-tasting hospital food for the past few days.

It was quite uncomfortable.

"But...there was something else that we found that's a little bit concerning."

There was nothing for me to do and I was horribly bored, so I called for a nurse to bring me one of the game consoles that they had in storage.

Of course, the nurse agreed since she had no reason not to.

"Do you know where your parents are? If possible, I'd like to speak with them..."

It had been so many years since I had used a game console that I had forgotten how to turn it on.

After about a good five minutes later, I was able to find the small power button on the back of the console and pushed it.

The old screen flickered on, revealing a menu of various games I could play.

"You see, we found something in your chest while we were giving you a full-body checkup..."

I scrolled down the menu and only stopped when I saw the game titled: "Love, Love in the Super Cool Magic Academy of Incredibly Hot Guys."

There was an image of all of the main characters together.

Everyone was smiling...

...except for the villainess, Cordelia de Boren Cyllia, of course.

"We almost didn't catch it...but there is a tumor right by the lining of your heart..."

I clicked the game open and cheesy Japanese music began to ring around the room.

For a moment, I sat quietly as I tried to configure the settings of the game.

"We believe that you have a disease known as pericardial mesothelioma...it is a malignant primary tumor..."

Soon, I had perfectly optimized my settings and I took in a deep breath as I tried to imagine what it would be like to play the game again.

It was a game that represented my whole life in the other world after all.

"I'm sorry, Clara. But there is nothing we can do..."

I quickly pressed the 'Game Start~☆' button.

At the beginning of the game, there was a short minute of opening scenes that introduced the main character's backstory.

Lily was raised in a poor household, but she always had a positive attitude.

When the commoners finally needed to take their magic aptitude inspection test, Lilly shocked the world with her legendary light magic attribute.

And, soon, she was enrolled into Greenwood Academy as the only commoner of the century (maybe even millennium) to do so.

Later on, she would have dozens of fated encounters with multiple of the country's wealthiest and most influential men.

The only thing that stood in her way was the horrible villainess, Cordelia de Boren Cyllia.

I gave a deep sigh as I began my mission to complete the otome game in its entirety.

"At most...you have a year left to live, Clara. I'm sorry. I will leave you alone to collect your thoughts. Please inform me or the nurses if you need anything," the doctor apologized as he stood up and left.

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Days passed.

Maybe even weeks.

Maybe even months.

I didn't pay attention to the time anymore.

The hospital was my temporary home now and my only goal was to complete the otome game before it was too late.

...before my life in the other world became just a memory.

To be honest, the game was harder to beat than I remembered it to be.

It wasn't because the game was difficult to play in any way though.

But it was because...

Every time I completed a male lead's route...I would be forced to watch the game Cordelia's retribution scenes.

And every time I saw Cordelia be tortured by the people she thought had loved her, I felt a sickening feeling rise up from my chest.

Cordelia and Clara were one and the same.

Both of them did everything they could to be loved.

Both of them were despised no matter what they did.

And...

Both of them were me.

I closed the game once more when I had finished Wolfe's route.

In his route, Cordelia had been slashed to death by Wolfe's own hand.

And, even after she died, Wolfe continued to hack away at her body until there was nothing left but human paste.

I felt so sick that I could cry.

My own image overlapped with the game's Cordelia and I imagined myself in her place.

...the naive game Cordelia, who didn't know she was living in a world full of fake smiles and love until it was too late...

How would I feel if everyone I cherished was only pretending to love me?

How would I feel if everyone I cherished turned against me?

How would I feel...

"Can I come in?" a familiar voice asked from outside my hospital room.

"Yes?" I called out.

The person who walked in completely shocked me.

"Alex...?" I murmured.

I wonder why he's here...

"I came to deliver your homework. You've been absent for so long that all of your missing assignments are piling up."

"...Homework...?"

Alex took a few steps over to me and placed a stack of papers on my lap before taking a seat in the corner of the hospital room.

He opened up a book that he had brought with him and began to read silently to himself.

"...Why...? I'm not going to school anymore," I said as I tossed the papers aside.

"Zack Reaves."

"...Yes??"

"He's been expelled and your parents are using this opportunity to sue his entire family. Zach is probably going to end up in juvenile hall as well."

"..."

Haha...

I wanted to laugh out loud.

I knew for a fact that my parents weren't suing Zach because they were upset by him bullying me.

After all, the real culprit behind all of my injuries was actually my father.

So while Zach was living out his worst nightmare, my parents were making some free cash.

"Do you think my parents will win the trial?" I asked.

"Yeah, it looks like it."

I gave a sigh.

"I don't care. My parents haven't visited me once after I was admitted into the hospital. At this point, I could care less about what they do," I said as I flopped myself onto the hospital bed again.

Alex didn't say another word as he continued to read the book he was holding with perfect focus.

"Be honest with me. Why are you even here?" I asked Alex.

"...The teacher who found you last time was worried. She wanted our entire class to come visit you in case you were lonely. No one volunteered to go though."

"That's not surprising..." I sighed.

"So, as a compromise, Mrs. Tawney sent me instead, since I was there when you were found. The homework was just an excuse," Alex murmured absent-mindedly as he flipped a few pages.

"You could have just refused her though. Tell me the real reason why you're here," I said seriously.

"..."

"...?"

"Fuu..."

He gave a small sigh before he lifted his face from his book, closed it, and placed it away from him before looking up at me.

For the first time ever, Alex had a small smirk on his regularly stoic, expressionless face.

"Who knows..." he murmured as he held one of his arms against the armrest of his chair and rested his head against his fist.

"..."

I blinked a few times, not knowing what to make out from his words.

"I thought I might as well come to visit you while I could. Even someone like me wouldn't leave a dying person alone, you know," he said as the smirk disappeared from his face and was replaced by a small frown.

I wanted to blurt out 'Really?' but I chose not to in the end.

Alex was never the type to care about other people no matter what condition they were in.

After all, he didn't even blink when he saw my bruises.

"I see," was all I could say.

After that, the room was enveloped with an impossibly awkward silence.

In order to take my mind off of it, I opened up the game console and started up the otome game again.

But it was a big mistake since I had forgotten that I was just barely finished watching Cordelia's retribution scene in Wolfe's route.

"AhhhhHHHH!!!"

The sounds of the game Cordelia's screams rung around the room until the scene was finally over.

Then, the awkward silence, which was already plenty awkward enough before, became even more awkward.

"Are you playing a game?" Alex asked.

"Y-Yeah...It's a Japanese otome game..." I stuttered awkwardly.

"..."

"What's wrong?"

"What's the game called?" Alex asked with a strange look in his eye.

"Don't laugh, okay? The name is: Love, Love in the Super Cool Magic Academy of Incredibly Hot Guys," I replied.

"..."

"It's a terrible name, right?"

"...You're right. It's a terrible name," Alex chuckled without any light in his eyes.

"You're acting a little strange."

"Am I?"

"Yeah..."

"Clara, have you ever wanted to do something so bad that you'd kill someone for it?" Alex asked.

I was silent for a while.

What type of question was this?

"...Why?" I asked him.

"..."

"Are you asking me this because I am a supposed murderer?" I said as my expression darkened.

From what I could remember, Alex was the only one who never talked behind my back...but who knows...maybe he thinks I'm a bloodthirsty killer too...

"No, I know you're not a murderer."

"...Really?"

"Yeah," he answered.

"..."

"You just had really bad luck."

"Bad luck is an understatement," I laughed darkly to myself.

When I was young, around thirteen-years-old, I used to run away from home in the afternoons, when my parents were gone.

I would always come back by sundown on the same route every day but, one day, on my way home, I decided to try to find a new shortcut home.

...I was so stupid.

Although the route I decided to come home on really was much quicker, it involved me walking through a single back alley of the city for around a short minute or so.

Just a short minute...

(A/N: It's uncomfy time~ Skip ahead if you're sensitive to dark stuff!)

I still remember.

It was a little dark since the sun was beginning to set, and tall buildings surrounded me on all sides.

But when I turned the corner...I bumped into someone...

...who was preparing to commit suicide.

They had the noose already tied and ready.

I could do nothing but stare at them in shock.

As they stepped up to the noose by using their small black stool, I was finally able to break out of my trance and I ran toward them as fast as I could.

"STOP! WAIT!" I had screamed.

But it was too late.

...

I did everything I could.

I lifted them up by the legs with my small, frail arms and called out to them hoping for an answer.

But, eventually, my small body gave away and I collapsed onto the ground.

I didn't have a phone to call the police and there was not a single person in sight, since I had decided to walk through the back alley.

"HELP!" I screamed.

But no one came.

The person struggled against the ropes for a while until they finally went limp—their body still swaying like a ragdoll against the wind.

I remember being too scared to move and, eventually, I passed out from shock.

Eventually, both my unconscious body and the corpse were found a few hours later by a random passerby.

This is how rumors that I, Clara Smith, was a horrendous murderer began to spread around everywhere I went.

A cold and dead expression...

The look of that person's corpse as it hung above me haunted me for years after that.

It didn't make it any better that I was constantly reminded about it by my classmates either.

"I'm more than just unlucky, Alex. The god of fate himself must have jacked up my life by accident," I chuckled a little sadly as I recalled how Shai begged me for my forgiveness after he confessed his mistake to me.

"..."

All of this was now far behind me in the past though.

I had to move on.

I had to forget.

"...You think so? It seems to me that he did it on purpose though..." Alex said with a strange gleam in his eye.

"Huh?"

"Is it really possible for a god to mess up a person's life?" he asked.

"Well, probably? It's impossible for someone to be perfect—"

"No. It's impossible for a human to be perfect, Clara. But a god is different. Everything a god does is on purpose," Alex said through gritted teeth.

"Huh? Alex??" I asked.

His eyes were mad with anger.

"I'm going to finally f--king kill him one day. I swear it..."

"Alex...?"

"This and that...does he think I'm just going to sit back and watch...?!"

I paused.

Time seemed to slow down for a moment as a thousand thoughts began to run through my head.

Does Alex...know Shai...somehow...?

"&%#? Cordelia#!^&//{; back—(;{\!$!!!"

"(&^&*$%%%!?[ You*^%$}"

A piercing pain suddenly exploded from the back of my mind and I screamed.

It felt as if though there was a fire burning my brain.

"Come&^?/{} back#!$%&(]"

"(&%//#$miss &$!%much!"

I fell off of the side of my hospital in a panic.

No...

Not yet...!

I still haven't finished the otome game yet!!!

"&%$#Cordelia {(%&$ Please—&^%!;You;{)&%"

"Cordelia&%$#!)"

"Clara...? Hey, Clara?!" Alex said he stood up from his seat quickly.

This was the first time I had ever seen him look so flustered.

Before I knew it, I had already blacked out.

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"Cordelia..."

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A/N: Alright! This finally concludes 'Chapter 86. The Impenetrable Fortress'!! Wow, can you believe that we've been stuck on this chapter for the past month?

Anyways.

Whew. Tell me how you guys felt about this chapter~ Alex seems a bit...uh...suspicious, right?

Also, do you guys have any predictions as to the male leads' reactions when Cordelia comes back? Haha...Well...y'all are going to have to wait to find out next week~ Mwahahaha!!!

Thanks, again, to my readers/voters/commenters! You guys make writing worth it~ And y'all are literally the best people to torture—I mean...tease...that I have ever met!

Stay safe, everyone~

Okie byeee!

Word Count: 3106