Elysium: Desired by the Cold-hearted Princess [GL]
Chapter 93 93: A slap in the face

Electra's POV

Days later...

Seraphina was just about to walk away, but I quickly called out her name to stop her. "Seraphina."

I waited for her to turn around, and as she turned to look at me, there was a confused look on her face, almost like she was trying to figure out what was happening and was just as confused as I was. For a split second, I had some kind of hope that she would recognize me and acknowledge this bizarre twist of fate that was still fucking with my mind.

Maybe she knew that we had somehow switched lives, and we could figure out how to fix this mess together, but then she spoke, and her words immediately crushed any iota of hope I had.

"Who the hell are you?" she demanded, her voice cold and dismissive. "And how do you know my name?"

The harshness in her voice stunned me, and I froze, my grip on her arm slackening. This wasn't her. It couldn't be. She was different, so different that for some reason, I felt nervous.

"Seraphina," I called her name calmly, testing the waters, but she yanked her arm out of my grasp as if my touch burned her.

"Are you deaf, kid?" She snapped, her voice rising. "I just asked you how the hell you know my name. I haven't seen your face around here before, and I suppose you're new here, so how do you already know who I am?"

My heart sank. Was she pretending not to know me? Or worse—had whatever led to this horrible change erased her memories of her real life entirely? Her words, her tone, her entire demeanor felt alien, and it was like looking at a stranger in the body of someone I thought I knew.

I stared at her, searching for any sign that she might recognize me. "You really don't know who I am?" I asked, my voice quieter than I intended.

Her irritated expression deepened, and she folded her arms across her chest. "Why should I? Should I know you?"

The irritation in her tone ignited something inside me—anger, yes, but also disbelief. This was my life she was living, my identity she was wearing as if it were hers, and yet, she was looking at me like I was the intruder. Like I was the crazy one for even speaking to her.

I was about to respond to Seraphina, but the sight of Roxana and Irina walking toward us stopped me dead in my tracks.

My heart leaped for a moment—my friends, my allies, the people who were like family to me. Relief bubbled up inside me, and for a fleeting second, I thought everything was going to be fine.

But then I saw their faces.

They weren't smiling. They weren't laughing or calling out to me like they always did. Instead, their expressions were blank, cold, and unfamiliar, and there was even an edge of irritation in their eyes, directed straight at me. And what broke me even more was how, in the next moment, they turned to Seraphina, their gazes softening, shifting into something resembling respect.

Respect that used to belong to me.

My chest tightened painfully. This wasn't happening. No, it couldn't be. I wasn't Electra Hook—I was still Electra Vale, their friend, their leader, and yet here I was, standing in the shoes of someone who was a nobody while they directed their respect to someone else.

It wasn't until I heard Roxana speak that the reality of the situation hit me even more painfully.

"Who is this?" She asked Seraphina, her voice dismissive as her eyes flicked back to me. "And why are you even talking to her?"

Her words were so casual, so careless, as if I meant absolutely nothing. As if I were just another irrelevant face in the crowd. My fists clenched at my sides as I struggled to keep my composure. It felt like the ground had been pulled out from under me.

Seraphina turned to me then, her expression unreadable for a moment, and for one wild second, I thought she might say something—anything—that would give me some kind of dignity, but no, the disgust that flashed in her eyes wiped away any hope I had.

"She's nobody," she said coldly, her voice dripping with disdain. "Just some random person who stopped me to bother me."

Nobody.

The word echoed in my mind, louder and more painful with every repetition. The sting of her words was almost unbearable, but what hurt even more was the truth behind them. To them, I really was nobody now. I wasn't their leader, their friend, their Electra.

I was a stranger, an inconvenience, a nuisance.

I felt the heat rise in my chest, a mix of anger, humiliation, and desperation that was consuming. I wanted to scream, to remind them of who I was, to shake them until they saw me for who I used to be, but what would be the point?

The life I once had, the power I once held, had been stripped away from me, leaving me stranded in this twisted reality that I had no idea how to get out of.

Roxana's scoff snapped me out of my thoughts, and that was when I noticed that she was now looking directly at me. "Are you new here or what?" she said with a raised eyebrow, her voice dripping with condescension.

I didn't answer. I didn't trust myself to say anything without lashing out, and I wasn't sure I had the courage to mention that I was new here when deep down, I was the farthest thing from being a newbie in Elysium.

"Cat got your tongue?" Roxana pressed, her tone snappy.

My irritation flared, and I didn't bother to hide it. "Have you ever seen me anywhere in this school before?" I retorted, crossing my arms and meeting her gaze.

She shrugged, clearly unimpressed. "No. That's why I'm asking."

"Then there's your answer," I said coolly, the words coming out sharper than I intended. I wasn't in the mood for this. Not from them.

I turned on my heel, desperate to walk away and figure out what the hell was going on. I needed time to think, to gather myself, and to accept that the people I had called my friends—and in some ways, my closest thing to a family—were now strangers who looked at me like I was a nobody.

"Wait," a soft but firm voice called after me. I froze mid-step, my breath catching in my throat.

I turned slowly to see Seraphina looking at me, her brow furrowed in curiosity. Of all the people I expected to speak to me again, it wasn't her.

"What's your name?" she asked. Her voice was calm but insistent, and there was something about the way she looked at me—something almost familiar.

I hesitated for a moment, debating whether to answer her at all. Finally, I turned slightly toward her and said, "Electra."

She tilted her head, scrutinizing me as if she were trying to solve a puzzle. "Electra…?" she prompted, clearly expecting a last name.

I sighed, the frustration boiling over. I almost blurted out Electra Vale, my real name, the name I had been born with, but I bit it back at the last second. They didn't know me, and they wouldn't believe me if I said I was the original, so I had to play along—for now.

I clenched my fists, forcing myself to calm down before reluctantly replying, "Electra Hook."

"Hook?" Seraphina repeated, her skeptical tone grating on my nerves.

She didn't respond immediately. She just studied me, her gaze probing, as though she was searching for something she couldn't quite find. I felt exposed under her scrutiny, almost like she could see through me.

"Would you like to join us for dinner?" she asked suddenly, catching me completely off guard.

I blinked, unsure if I had heard her correctly. "What?"

"It's dinner time," she said, her tone softening slightly. "You should join us."

I glanced at Roxana and the others, expecting them to scoff or roll their eyes at the suggestion, but they didn't. Instead, they just stood there, waiting for my response.

It was surreal. These were people who used to hang on my every word, and now they were treating me like I was some outsider being invited into their circle out of pity.

My instinct was to say no, to walk away and preserve what little dignity I had left, but something stopped me. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was the challenge in Seraphina's eyes, or maybe, deep down, I wanted to see if there was a way to make them remember me—remember who I really was.

"Sure," I said finally, forcing a small, polite smile.

Seraphina nodded and turned to lead the way, and I followed, my mind racing. Roxana and the others trailed behind us, their expressions unreadable, and as we made our way to the dining hall, I couldn't help but feel like I was walking into a battlefield.

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