Chapter 1: The End Before the Beginning
Clara Quinn had always known pain. It came in many forms—bruises disguised as discipline, silence served as punishment, and words sharp enough to leave invisible scars. Yet nothing compared to the betrayal she felt in her final moments.
Rain poured relentlessly that night, a cruel echo of the tears streaking down her face. She gripped the steering wheel with shaking hands, heart pounding, mind racing.
"Why?"why me, she whispered, the word barely audible above the roar of the storm. "I gave them everything, everything I have…"
The image of her adoptive sister, Jenna, kissing the man Clara once loved—Ethan—burned behind her eyes like acid. They had laughed behind her back. Used her. Stripped her bare of dignity, dreams, reputation on purpose. Ethan had proposed to her two months ago, claiming he loves her so deeply, only to seal a business deal with Jenna under the table. Like who does does that.
And worst of all? Her so-called parents had long known it.
"You were never really one of us," her adoptive mother had said coldly, when Clara found the signed papers—papers that proved Clara had been adopted under a different name.Made her to understand everything.
"You were a mistake we couldn't return," Jenna had added, eyes gleaming with hatred.
Clara had run then. Driven blindly, her eyes filled with tears,she blurring see through the headlights ahead—until one flash, one deafening crash, and—
Nothing.
Darkness.
So this is how it all ends, she had thought in of her last moment,that strange drifting moment. Alone.I wish I could have a second chance.
But death didn't hold her.
She awoke to see sunlight—not the flickering lights of a hospital ceiling, but the soft, warm glow of morning. She lay in a room she hadn't seen in nearly a decade—peach-colored walls, cracked mirror, faded curtains.
Her old bedroom.
The one she had before turning eighteen.
"What—" Her voice cracked as she sat up, dizzy. Her heart raced as if coming out of her chest. Everything looked… familiar. Too familiar.
She stumbled toward the mirror. The girl staring back wasn't the 28-year-old woman who had clawed her way up in a world that didn't belong to her. This version of Clara had rounder cheeks, clearer skin, and eyes untouched by years of disappointment.
AFTER REBIRTH I BECAME THE HEIRESS OF MY BIOLOGICAL PARENTS
She looked… 18. Maybe even younger.
Panic rose in her chest. She tore open her closet, then her drawers—searching for a calendar, a date, something.
And then she found her old phone.
Dead. She plugged it in and waited. It flickered to life with a startup screen she hadn't seen in nearly a decade.
The year was there.
20XX - Ten years ago.
Clara sank to the floor.
She had died.
And come back to 18 yrs
---
The memories returned like a flood. The missed chances. The lies. The stolen life she chose . The whispered rumors she had once brushed aside.
She had been adopted. There was something off about the way her supposed family treated her. And now, with this second chance, she would no longer accept their version of the truth.
A sharp knock startled her.
"Clara, breakfast!" her adoptive mother called. The voice was sharper than sweet. It always like this.
Clara stared at the door for a long moment.
Then, something in her shifted. A fire. A sense of clarity she never had the first time.
She would not play the same part in this twisted script. She's going to be her own self.She was not the weak, desperate girl anymore. This time, she knew the truth and will make her own decision.
She had been taken from her real family.
And now that she had been given this chance… sh
e was going to take her life back.
Not just her name.
Her birthright.