Brooke's Priority
Chapter 1

The last thing I did was run with all my strength left. The feeling was still so strong that I had trouble breathing. Like having a bad dream.

“Kakak..”.

I heard a very sad voice as if it woke me up from that nightmare. My eyes are hard to open and my body feels heavy. Something suddenly came to my mind.

I'm an only child.

So, who's crying for me? In the police unit I was in, I was never called an older sister. Those annoying seniors agreed to call me big brother.

“That's because you're a black belt martial judo.”

Silly reason. I still feel annoyed with my senior in the crime and violence handling division. Actually, I'm a great, dedicated cop.

“Brooke.”

Ah, that name again.

They called me Brooke. I'm not too sure it was meant for me, maybe for the patient sleeping next to me. But there were many other sad voices around me.

Room with six people?

I really try to open my eyes and think positively. My last memory is when I ran after an attempted murder (the victim is still alive) and ended up being hit by a car. I am not alert to my surroundings. I wish I hadn't lost a part of my body.

May there be nothing to amputate, Lord.

Then, I tried to open my eyes slowly.

I see the ceiling. How strange. Unlike ceilings that are commonly found in hospitals.

I looked to the side.

He was crying for me?

A young woman. Age of about fourteen to fifteen years. Long wavy golden brown hair. Her face…

Oh, my God, she's really pretty.

“Kakak..”.

His crying is getting louder. I admit this girl is a little noisy. And who they are, the boy behind him, two relieved-looking adults, a strange old geezer, people dressed like a waitress in the comics I used to read.

The cosplayer?

Their clothes are all weird. I remember something but my head hurts. It was so painful that all of a sudden it started to turn dark. I fell asleep again.

When my consciousness returned, I heard voices again. I'm totally confused. I wanted to open my eyes but there seemed to be a lot of people around me. I don't recognize their voices. No one speaks like Kim In Ho or talks like Jin Hwa, which sounds an octave below the average person. Where did all my friends go? It's so rude of them not to visit me.

“The antidote for poison, does it not work?”

“Because Miss Brooke is so young, we cannot estimate how effective this treatment is, Mr.”

A conversation that sounds strange to me. They just need to bring a sample of the poison and check it in the lab. The antidote must be there. They also need to report to the police.

Someone then stroked my head gently while continuing to mention Brooke's name. I clearly remember my name was Shin Yoo Ri and I almost died from being hit by a car while doing my heroic act. It already feels so strange and it seems like I have to straighten things out. Luckily, my head didn't hurt like before.

I opened my eyes slowly. And the first thing I saw was the ceiling of the room I saw before. Apparently, I'm not hallucinating.

“Brooke.”

Someone immediately grabbed my hand. The boy I saw last night.

Suddenly I felt everyone sighing in relief and suddenly excitedly crowding around me. I'm kind of surprised.

Ah, my voice is really hard to get out. Come on, Shin Yoo Ri.

“Who are you?”

My question seemed to surprise them. Especially the two adults and the old geezer who were looking at me at this moment. Unlike the boy beside me who immediately grasped my hand until it felt very painful.

“Brooke, I'm Lucas. Your brother's. Lucas Cohenherb.”

Waita minute. Cohen what's he saying?

“Lucas?” askaku with round eyes. “Brooke?”

A moment after hearing my words, the old man came forward and looked at me more closely. Then he immediately signaled for everyone to come out including Lucas. The man called ‘Tuan’ by him, gave the order in a firm tone as if understanding the intention of the old man.

“Master, Miss Brooke seems to have lost her memory.”

“Why can this happen? It should be poison only affects the body physically.”

“Master, I honestly feel like this is all happening because Miss Brooke has been through a great trauma. Only that is most likely to happen at this time, Mr.”

Although I did not fully understand what the old man and his master meant, I felt like they were talking about me. No one else is dying in this room. The woman who was beside the man, then approached and hugged me while crying. I was so sure they were talking about me. It was me they called Brooke.

The old man told Brooke's parents to let me rest and not talk to me because I was pretending to be sleepy. After hearing the sound of the door closing perfectly, I immediately got out of bed with considerable effort.

Very awesome room. The president suit room.

I almost forgot to look for a mirror because I was amazed by the luxurious rooms that looked like President suit rooms for important country guests who made work visits.

Finally, I found a mirror in the bathroom.

“This...., me?”

Short hair over the shoulders is golden brown with light brown eyes. I looked like a fourteen to fifteen year old. I estimated my age to be the same as that of a beautiful, long-haired girl yesterday.

“Wait a minute..”

My heart suddenly beats very fast. Does this make any sense? It's totally illogical. I'm used to making logical reasoning to analyze crimes, but this is not an act of evil. Then, what exactly happened?

“I am the person in the mirror at the moment?”

I took a breath and exhaled it violently. Ruffling my hair even walked around the bathroom.

“I need to be calm.”

There's one thing that bothers me right now. My memories. If it's true that I'm Brooke, as the boy named Lucas said, why do I have memories of working in Korea? On police? Why do I remember the day that that fucking In Ho used me as an excuse to break up from his possessive girlfriend? I really remember being slapped by that crazy woman and I vented my frustration by grabbing In Ho's hair because I still needed him in good health to help with the surveillance of gambling suspects. How could this possibly happen?

“Reincarnation..”

The word then appeared in my mind. Temporary reasons that come to mind for all this to make sense. I reincarnated as Brooke after dying as Shin Yoo Ri. The strangest thing to me right now is why am I reincarnated in a world that looks like I have no existence in the real world? I mean Korea. Everything looked so old-fashioned and the cosplay outfits I saw yesterday explained this strange world.

“Trapped to another world. A world that seems to exist only in fairy tale books.”

I ran towards the window that looked so big to me. I looked outwards. There is a large garden with a fountain as its center. There were people wandering around in servant clothes and people who looked like bodyguards or knights. I took a few steps back from the window. Staggering to the bed and drowning my face in the pillow.

I closed my mouth with both hands.

“What should I do?”

I thought about a lot of things afterwards and fell asleep.

*****