If you plagiarize, I refund the network - Chapter 6

Michael’s eyes widened. He grabbed my arm.

“Did anything… strange… happen before all this?”

I racked my brain, trying to remember. Most of the memories from that time were blurry, overshadowed by the trauma that followed. But one thing stood out.

About a month before the plagiarism scandal, I kept waking up on the floor. I’d go to sleep in bed and wake up sprawled on the carpet. I figured I was just a restless sleeper. I’d mentioned it to Ethan, and he’d dismissed it as nothing.

But it had never happened before, and it stopped after the Olivia incident. I told Michael about it, and then about the disturbed earth at my parents‘ grave.

His eyes went dark. “I think I know what happened.”

“There’s this ritual… where you take soil from the grave of someone’s loved ones, take it home, perform a ceremony for 49 days, and then… drink it. It gives you the ability to briefly possess that person three times a month.”

My past life made more sense now. I was a hardcore skeptic, but after being reborn, I was open to… possibilities. Ethan knew where my parents were buried. He’d been there with me.

My fists clenched. If they wanted to steal my content, I’d give them something to steal. I created a new Instagram account and followed Olivia. Without my ideas, her content had gone stale.

Her latest video, clearly an attempt to appease her dwindling followers, was back to her old, boring style. She claimed it was old footage, but the blooming crepe myrtle trees in the background proved otherwise.

Looking out the window at the rolling hills, inspiration struck. I wrote a script, filmed, and edited a stunning new video.

As soon as I posted it, Olivia, predictably, uploaded her version. But the comments weren’t what she expected.

“Is this background music a joke? Seriously disturbing.”

“This is disgusting. Unfollowing.”

“May your life be as joyful as this creepy music.”