"Ok, guys, look out below." Roy, my oldest brother grinned as he somersaulted off the boulder and into the lake below.

"I don't know why she's here." Mom's eyes bore into the back of my girlfriend of three years, Heidi, who was already in the water.

"Deal with it Mom. I proposed, she said yes so technically she's a part of the family."

I ran towards the lake not realizing that going into that lake would change my life forever. 

If you want to see how my life changed, keep watching. My story gets a bit crazy. 

You see that's the last memory I ever had. This story is based off of everything in this notebook.

That day I swam around under the water and didn't realize how far out I ended up when I surfaced for air. The last thing I hearrd was the engine of a jetski before I was knocked unconscious. 

I woke up a few hours later in a hospital bed.

"Where am I?" I tried to focus my eyes on the objects in the room.

"Thank God! Gregory! Get the doctor!" Dad exclaimed.

Dr. McPhee walked into the room and greeted everyone. While chatting with me, I noticed a concerned look on his face.

"What's the matter, Doc?"

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I grabbed my five year old sister's hand and made a run for it. If we got caught it'd all be over. We couldn't get sent over the border, we just couldn't. The sound of the dogs barking and the voices of the police officers grew louder with every second. 

We darted through the crowd until we came to a large drain. I jumped in first then grabbed my sister and ran. The stench of the drain was nauseating but we couldn't stop. We ran until everything was quiet in the dark. I sat and held Binita on top of me. When Mom had died, I had promised her I'd take care of Binita. At this moment, I knew I needed to come up with a plan to protect my sister.

This is my true story, however, names have been changed to protect the people involved.

"Dev, I'm hungry," Binny looked up at me.

"Don't worry, Binny. I'd get us something to eat."

We walked along a dirt path. I saw lights ahead and I prayed that they were friends and not foes. 

A few minutes later, Binny and I stumbled into a refugee village. There were tents and boarded structures close to each other. I asked around for some food but no one was willing to offer anything until I came to Arjuna's and Aanya's boarded structure. 

Aanya opened the door and welcomed us into their two-room home. She quickly made us some sandwiches with something to drink. After we thanked her, Binny and I gobbled them down; we had gone two days without eating.

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“I got out just in time! Half of the farm is on fire! I need to rescue the animals!”

“OH NO! Grandma! Please don’t go back in there! It’s not safe!”

“My donkey! I have to go, Liana. Bye!”

My grandma hung up suddenly and I was scared out of my mind. Somehow, her farm had caught on fire and I was starting to think that it was all my fault even though I lived about ten miles away. You see.. something happened when I went to my grandma’s farm a few weeks ago and terrible things have been happening since. Stick around and I’ll tell you how it all happened.

So about six months ago I was totally bored with my family. I lived with my mom and dad (who were both accountants), Brad my big brother and Gina my little sister. One evening we were all having dinner and I tried to express myself.

“This is a really boring family. How did I end up being born into this family of losers?”

“Liana! That’s no way to talk to me and your mother.”

“Why don’t you accept my constructive criticism and just become a little more... exciting? I mean, who has two accountants for parents? Why couldn’t one of you be a movie star or something? I am so embarrassed when I have to talk about you guys in class.”

“Liana, I'm sick of your foolishness. I’m sending you to your grandma’s house for two weeks as a punishment.”

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Recently, it’d felt like people were following me. I always felt a presence around me whenever I left the house but when I turned to search for and catch a culprit, there was always no one. I always close my room curtains nowadays because whenever I open them, I can feel eyes watching me. 

I never saw anyone but I could always feel them. 

I should’ve told my parents and perhaps I should’ve been scared to go out but I believed that nothing bad could ever happen to anyone in our small safe town. I was wrong. 

Hello, I’m Alandra. I had what you’d probably call a perfect life; a good family, good house and happy life. At least that’s what I thought, until I experienced an accident that turned my whole life upside down, an accident that made me discover that my parents weren’t actually who I thought they were. 

This story is about how I discovered that my so-called perfect life was a total fake.

“It’s a perfect 20 paaartaaaaay!” Puta screamed and danced while we set up decorations for my birthday party. Puta and I had known each other since childhood, we practically grew up together as neighbors and we never stopped being friends no matter what happened.

“Uhm, but Alandra. Don’t you think that the guest list is a little bit too long? Maybe you should stop promoting already, do you want to host a party or a festival? Your friends from high school and college are coming, your parents have invited people from their company. I’m worried, can we really take care of this crowd?”

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Lights were flickering in my house like it was a club. And what was that that I was hearing? Could it be music?

I stopped walking and ran straight home only to meet half of the school in my house! Drinking, dancing and partying! 

What!!??

My crush, Andy, the popular girls; Chloe and her friends who always picked on me and all the cool and popular high school kids I wanted to be like were partying in my living room. 

And was that my mom serving drinks?

“Mom?”

“SURPRISE!!!” Everyone screamed once they noticed my presence. 

It was not my birthday so I knew that this was a prank and my mother had fallen smack in the middle of it. 

What did this mean? Could Chloe and her friends be punishing me for not submitting their homeworks on time? I was struggling to breathe at this point while everyone stared at me, confused. I started breathing rapidly and deeply then people began blurring.

Oh my God. I was hyperventilating. If this was happening to me then it meant that it wouldn’t be long before…

The blurry high schoolers suddenly disappeared and everything went dark.

“Oh honey. Are you okay? I’m so sorry”.

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Hi, my name is Roxy and you might be wondering why I’m lying on the floor of the biggest hotel in Texas, the Clarion Hotel. I’m not unconscious, but I want them to believe I am. Before I tell you why, like and subscribe for more dramatic stories.

You see, my mom died from a strange illness when I was just thirteen. 

The only thing she left was a tiny apartment in Texas and her ginger cat Moose. 

I had never met my dad. He never loved us, that's why he left. At least that’s what my mom said. So when she died, it was just me and Moose. As tragic as it sounds, we were okay. The landlady, Mrs. Poppins let us stay for free but I had to leave as soon as I turned 18. 

I had no intention of burdening her further so I turned to the restaurant across the street for food. My big brown puppy eyes had worked on Jim the waiter and he would pack some food for me and Moose. Jim was in college and needed the job to pay for tuition fees. He was kind and sweet and I vowed that one day I would repay him. 

Once I turned 16, Jim formally introduced me to the manager and I began cleaning the floors in exchange for food. The manager liked the deal since he didn’t have to pay me. 

Two years passed and my life remained pretty much the same. But one day, everything came crashing down like a pile of cards.

I had taken an afternoon nap on the couch with Moose when my alarm went off.  Half-awake, I sat up and checked the time, it was 6:30.

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“Yes, you’re right. Celebrities behave like that sometimes, it’s totally normal for us. Hey, you there, come here!”

I didn’t turn around. Obviously, Mikaela couldn’t be referring to me like that, right?

“Hello! Brunette over there, I’m talking to you!”

I turned around because I was the only brunette in the makeup room, “Me?”

“Yes, you, duh! We’re just three here, who else would I be referring to? In this room, we have two stars and then you, whoever you are, so who did you think I was referring to?”

“Uhh…”

“Just shut up, okay? And don’t ever take so long to respond to me again, understood?”

“I don’t think you know…”

“Silence!”

My sister looked shocked at first, but now she just looked amused. I guess she really enjoyed seeing me get humiliated like this, what else could I expect from Lily?

“Now, get us a couple cups of coffee and a burger with no bread, cheese or anything fattening in it”.

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“Hahaha what is that?”

“It’s a miniature wedding dress! I’m going to put it on my Barbie!”

“You’re thirteen years old and you still play with Barbie dolls?”

“That doesn’t look like a dress. It looks like tissue paper arranged in a strange way.”

“Now students, this is no way to speak to Evelyn during our sewing class. Your dress is very beautiful dear. In fact, I think it’s magical! Don’t worry about what the others are saying. You are talented!”

She shot the other students a mean look then continued smiling at me but it was unfortunate that she couldn’t come to my rescue after school because at that time, more of my classmates followed me and asked me to show the dress to them so they could laugh.  I was so upset that when I got home, I threw it in the bushes in my garden and marched up to my room.

“What’s wrong darling?”

“NOTHING!” I said and slammed the door in my mom’s face. I regretted that of course because she was upset with me for the rest of the day. It really wasn’t my day.

A few months passed and I stopped being creative at school because I didn’t want to be teased. Things were going smoothly and people started to treat me like I was a normal kid. Then one Saturday I spent the entire day inside watching TV and my dad told me to go outside.

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“And where exactly do you think you’re going? Looking and smelling like that?”

“God, mom! Not again! I’m just heading to school, why won’t you just let me be?”

“Not like that, you’re not! Now go back to your room, take a shower and wash your hair! You smell like a homeless person!”

“I don’t mind”, I shrugged, “Why does it bother you so much? It’s not your body”. 

“Move!”

Not the shower again! God! 

I really hate showering. To be honest, I hate a lot of things; I hate cleaning myself or my room up, dressing up for any occasion, leaving my room, going to school, learning, and every other thing that exists. 

They just don’t make sense to me. 

Unfortunately, being a high school student and teenager living under my parents’ roof, I had no other choice than to do most of the above. But I hated them so much! Argh! 

“Fiona. Aren’t you done yet? I’m sure you wouldn’t want to arrive at your school late, would you?”

My mom said in a melodious voice from my bathroom door. “Mom, if you had simply let me go when I came out previously, I’d be in school already. Please can you leave? I need some privacy.” My mom quickly excused me.

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So there’s ordinary rich, and then there’s rich, rich. Unfortunately, I was just ordinary rich – or I guess you could say fortunately – if you’re poor. Anyway, my mom and dad were corporate lawyers and I lived with them and my older sister Cindy who was more gorgeous than the most attractive model you can think of.

“Aubree, don’t worry. It’s because you’re still growing. You’re only fifteen and I’m seventeen. I’m sure that by the time you reach my age you’ll be a total hottie too!” she’d try to convince me from time to time.

But if you looked at both of us you’d be convinced that one of us was adopted because we looked nothing alike. I was just plain and boring looking. No one ever even gave me a second look. But with Cindy? They’d stop and stare. Some would even want to take pictures with her.

I went to this super expensive school and even though my parents were rich, they still struggled to pay the fees. But my classmates? Remember what I said about ‘ordinary rich’ and ‘rich, rich’? They were loaded – the kids of multimillionaires and billionaires. By the time most of them had their licenses they’d drive to school in the most expensive cars imaginable and sometimes if they got into little accidents they wouldn’t mind. They’d just ask their parents to buy them a new car – even if it was just a scratch.

No one paid much attention to me at that school. I had one friend named Regina and we’d eat lunch together sometimes but I spent most of my time in the library writing stories. I lived in my own little world and I loved bringing it to life on paper. I had notebooks and notebooks filled with stories that I was hoping to publish someday. My parents wanted me to inherit their law firm but I just wanted to be a writer.

The beautiful girls in my class used to tease me about it all the time.

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