Rewrite my destiny

Pain.

It was not the sort of pain Grace Callahan could locate, a stab, a throb, a twinge; it was a Thousand Pound Weight of anguish that ripped apart a woman from the soles of her feet to the roots of her scalp. Blood on her tongue gave a taste of iron and she could only breathe with her cheek resting against the cold concrete. This wasn't just pain. This was the crystal-sharp pain of betrayal.

She should have expected it to happen.

Some hours ago the boardroom was full of joyous laughter. Grace and Amanda had been the best of allies in the manner in which they had savored the concept of the merger which revolutionized Callahan Enterprises. For Grace, it was the fruits of years of grueling work, suffering, and aspirations.

But the laughter still ringing in her ears, Amanda's sharp voice interrupted it.

"You have been very reckless and useless Grace, I don't know why I keep you around anymore."

Those words have been a signal of her death, said with such hatred that what used to be a lovely and inviting smile of Amanda frozen and turned into a sinister grin. And Amanda wasn't alone. Beside her, gloating triumphantly and sneering was Grace's fiancé-Grace, whose whispered promises of protection she must have heard from him now seemed to enjoy her abject humiliation.

The crash had been intentional; it had been planned to eliminate every loose end that the existence of Amanda posed. The brakes failed. The car overturned along the edge of the mountain driveway. Behind them, the icy ravine aggressively slid towards her.

For a moment, she stared dreamily up at the roof, thinking that she had not hoped to wake once more. Not like this.

Initially, the warmth was an illusion, an ugly dream the body played on the mind before the final electricity. But when she opened her eyes again, she was neither met with shards of glass nor twisted metal. But now her eyes only saw the ceiling of her childhood room-a room she hadn't been in for ten years.

She recognized the jolt and sat upright. She scanned her surroundings, and the silk sheets slid to the floor. Everything was as it had been ten years ago: the crooked picture of myself younger, at the company launch, and the jade vase on the mantelpiece.

Grace stumbled breathlessly towards the mirror.