“Yaaawn…Huh? Is it morning already?” Anthony rubbed his eyes.

The unfinished book that he was reading last night was still lying on the table. He pulled another all nighter until his eyelids couldn’t hold up, even with his fingers tightly pressed against his forehead.

Reading was one of Anthony’s hobbies. Or rather obsession. He didn’t have any other hobbies actually. If you were to ask his friends, they would say that reading was all Anthony did. If he had any friends, that is.

He’d often skip a meal just so he could read another book. Food was rarely on his priority list. Anthony would get scolded by his parents for not taking care of his body and his health.

That was far from the truth. It’s not that he wasn’t taking care of his body. Anthony simply knew what kind of food and how often he needed to eat in order to sustain his bodily functions. And the minimum amount was more than enough to continue reading the book he held in his hands at the time.

Reasoning with the adults about the food hardly helped. Anthony’s parents were worried about him, and for a good reason.

From the outside, he looked like a frail boy who, even for his age, he was soon to be sixteen, didn’t look the part. If anyone were to wonder, Anthony looked like a thirteen year old at best.

Physical activity wasn’t his thing. Not to mention any kind of sports. Anthony would do the bare minimum during his sports class at school. He saw no benefits of exerting his body excessively, and the results were not worth it. For one, he couldn’t read much when he was physically tired.

Surprisingly, and despite looking frail and tiny, Anthony was rarely getting sick. In fact, almost never. It was all thanks to his knowledge of how to take care of himself. He applied his knowledge he gained from the books to everything he did. Even the boring chores in the house. He would complete them without straining himself too much.

Books were like treasures to him. Anthony didn’t simply read them. He devoured every page with extreme intensity, no matter what type of the book he was reading. Be it literature, history, biology, science, medicine, economics, you name it. He loved reading books.

Anthony’s deep desire to read was sparkled the moment he saw his first children’s book. He could barely talk but was engulfed and mesmerized by it, and couldn’t let it go.

However, as much as Anthony loved reading books, he found one genre, or type, not to his liking. And that was the fantasy books. Imaginary stories filled with magic and mystery, creatures and villains, heroes and princesses were just not worth his time.

Anthony thought those books were stupid. And why did it have to be princess all the time? She wasn’t the only woman who needed help or saving in the story. Many other people needed help too. And the whole magic and inhuman powers the heroes had, those could never be real. That just didn’t make sense to Anthony.

No, our ferocious reader dismissed those type of books as shallow and not worth investing his time into. He’d rather stick to the ‘real’ books, so he could learn something useful. And useful stuff he learned. He knew more than any average adult, with years of experience, could ever hope to know.

People often said to him that knowledge was power. And his parents were very proud of him. Especially because he excelled in every subject in his class at school. But Anthony would just frown or shrug at those type of comments. He knew many adults who had knowledge but were utterly useless at what they did.

Even the teachers at his school were struggling to impress him. Most of them had trouble presenting their subject during classes to make it interesting for Anthony to pay attention. Or for anyone else in the class for that matter.

Speaking of school. You’d think that being frail and tiny would put you on the top of the bullying list at school but that was not so for Anthony.

What he lacked in physical strength he overcame with hits wits. Many bullies, who tried to pick on him, were lacking when it came to word battles. The same repetitive sentences were the best of their vocabularies. Anthony easily outdid them when it came to snappy comments.

That was not to say that the little guy wasn’t bullied physically. Bigger kids would get easily irritated by how well Anthony was able to defend against their overused, boring comments. Then those big kids would go to show off how strong they were. However, the important word here is that Anthony ‘Was’ bullied.

Anthony was bullied in the past but not anymore. Establishing the reputation as the ‘know it all book reading nerd’ became his biggest benefit. During an important test, or an exam, especially.

On the test, or exam day, every single person in his class became Anthony’s best friend. Even more so during the group tests, where knowledge meant more than a free dessert in the cafeteria.

Anthony’s group would always come out on the top no matter how hard the test was. He would become as valuable as water in the desert. However, this didn’t mean he would ‘help’ everyone.

One time, the bullies in the class forced themselves to be in the same group as Anthony was. The same classmates who bullied him a few days before. That’s when Anthony executed his revenge on them.

He did the test alright. But he very eloquently wrote down the worst possible answers to fail the test and end up at the bottom of the class. Because the bullies had no idea what the real answers were, they very enthusiastically went with what Anthony wrote. That was one of the very few instances when he was proud to receive the worst mark in the class.

The low mark didn’t matter much for Anthony, because the teacher, being totally confused about how he could fail the test, had him retake it. And he completed it with the highest mark possible.

The same couldn’t have been said about the kids who were in his group. The other kids failed the second test and it had a huge negative impact on their grades. They thought they will get even with Anthony for what he did but in the end stayed away from him. There were more tests coming in the following months, after all.

You could say Anthony’s book-filled life was a paradise for a nerd like him. However, there was one person who would constantly make his peaceful life miserable now and then. Anthony had an archenemy. A person he could never escape from. Not until they lived together in the same house. And that person was his sister.

Miranda was not just another one of those annoying siblings. No, she was more than that. She was his twin sister. That sounded ironic because Miranda was a total opposite of her brother.

Anyone calling them twins couldn’t be further from the truth. If Anthony was quiet, book reading boy, then Miranda was unruly party girl, who would do anything to be in the center of attention.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Miranda’s twin brother didn’t mind her excessive attention demanding pranks. It was far past that stage in his life. She’s been doing it for far too long at this point. Anthony would always be on guard around her, expecting the unexpected. That didn’t stop Miranda from teasing him, though.

“Are books all you care about? You have such a pale skin. You look like a zombie from one of your books,” she’d laugh at her brother.

“I don’t read books about zombies,” his answer would mean nothing to Miranda.

“You’re all alone with your books. You poor thing, you have no friends. You will never find a girlfriend like that. Oops, sorry. I forgot, no girl would ever talk to someone like you. Haha,” she would burst out laughing.

Anthony didn’t mind her usually. Not after so many years of being harassed by his twin sister. But he would get annoyed every time she’d interrupt his reading.

It wasn’t that Anthony hated his sister. Far from it. She wasn’t reading as much as he did but she wasn’t dumb. Miranda did well at school. Better than the average kid in their class. On top of that, she had the looks too. As a girl who was about to reach sixteen, she definitely looked cute.

Unfortunately, Miranda’s urge to be in the center of attention would get her in trouble now and then. During those times, their parents would gasp and ask why couldn’t she be more reserved like her brother. But only during those times. Every other time, Miranda was ‘the best child a parent could’ve ever had’.

Those comments didn’t bother Anthony too much. He didn’t mind. He knew better. Separating emotions from reason was something Anthony was good at.

That’s the kind of life the frail, book loving boy was living. And he would’ve enjoyed his bookish, carefree life for as long as it would’ve let him. However, it all changed on one, fateful day.

“What?! Nooo!” Anthony heard his mom scream downstairs. “What happened? How is she?”

Even upstairs in his room, he could hear how distressed his mom’s voice was. He couldn’t ignore it. He had never heard his mom sound so emotional and full of fear.

“Give me the phone,” Anthony heard his dad’s voice after he opened his room’s door. “This is Miranda’s father. What happened? … WHAT?! What do you mean an accident?”

His mom was sitting on the couch full in tears. Anthony’s dad was on the phone, teeth gritting in fear, not able to blink while listening to whoever was talking on the other side.

“Ok, I understand,” his father finally said in somewhat calmer voice. “Right, which hospital? Ok, I understand. We are on our way.”

Only after he hang up, his father noticed Anthony halfway down on the stairs, with a confused look on his face, looking at both of them.

“What’s going on?” Anthony asked, probably suspecting that something bad happened to his sister.

“Your sister…” his father’s voice trembled. “Miranda got into an accident. She is… she’s in the hospital. We need to go, now.”

A cold shiver ran down Anthony’s spine. He couldn’t explain it. None of the books he read could’ve prepared him for such news. No matter how annoying Miranda was, he never wished anything bad happen to her. And on the day such as this.

Today was their sixteenth birthday. The day every teenager was looking forward to. A huge party thrown just for them. And the party’s host would be at the center of everyone’s attention. The perfect day for Miranda to show off. Unfortunately, she went overboard with it this time.

Anthony and his parents were greeted by the nurse at the hospital’s reception. She quickly ushered them to follow her into a room where they expected to see Miranda. However, they were met by a police officer instead.

The police officer explained what happened. There was a car chase of which Miranda was a part of. Apparently, a few of the boys, who were at Miranda’s birthday party, decided to have a race after they had one too many drinks. If it wasn’t bad enough, Miranda wanted to participate as well, as a passenger in one of the cars. To catch the thrill, so to say.

Unfortunately, what it seemed to be a fun race, escalated into a car chase after the speeding cars passed the red traffic lights. The chase ended in tragedy. The car Miranda was in flipped over and rolled down the hill after the driver lost control due to too high speed.

As a result, Miranda was badly injured and was in a critical condition. The doctors were trying to do everything they could to keep her alive. Anthony and his parents waited impatiently to hear from the doctors about her condition.

Sadly, the doctor who showed up didn’t bring the good news. He said Miranda might not make it due to massive loss of blood. Even worse, they had no possibility to do a blood transfusion, which might be able to save her. The reason being was because it would take another day for the blood to be transported to them from another hospital.

“Nooo…” Anthony’s mother burst into tears.

The situation seemed hopeless. Dying right after you reached sixteen was too horrific for anyone to grasp. Fortunately for Anthony, he could think rationally when everyone else was at the bottom of their emotions.

“Excuse me sir,” he approached the man in the white coat. “You said that Miranda needs a blood transfusion?”

“Yes. But as unfortunate as it is, we are not able to perform it right now,” was the man’s answer.

“How about you take my blood?” Anthony suggested.

“That’s very sensible of you, young man. But she needs a specific type of blood. Using anyone’s blood won’t help,” the doctor explained.

“I understand. That is why I suggested it. Our blood type is the same. We are twins,” the boy told him.

“What?” the man in the white coat looked him over.

“Yes, they are twins,” Anthony’s dad intervened. “I know they don’t look alike but it is true.”

“Ok then, let us hurry,” the doctor instructed.

“Thank you, Anthony. You are an angel,” his mother hugged him before Anthony rushed off after the doctor.

Anthony knew what a blood transfusion was. It was a simple procedure, in his own mind. He read about it in one of his many books he had. In theory, it wasn’t very risky. The worst that could happen to the person who gives blood, was fainting.

(after some time in one of the surgery rooms)

“Report patient’s status,” the surgery was bustling with noises.

“The girl’s bodily functions are becoming stable,” the voice announced.

“What about the blood donor?” the same doctor asked.

“Not good. His life signs are fading. It seems his loss of blood affected his heart rate. As it stands, we could lose him at any time,” was the answer.

“Damn it,” the doctor cursed. “The blood transfusion was a success. How did this happen?”

Anthony could hear voices but they did not make sense. He was sure he heard someone say that the blood transfusion was a success. But then, how come he couldn’t feel his body?

Slowly, the noises evaporated until it became silent. Then a flash of light engulfed everything around him.

Ugh… why is it so bright? What happened?

“A brave and kind soul,” Anthony heard a man’s voice.

“Huh?” he couldn’t see anyone.

“Your act of courage and sacrifice was noted,” the same voice added. “You saved a child’s life in exchange for your own. I wouldn’t call it a reward… a favor perhaps, but… would you be willing to save another? Or rather, to take a departed soul’s place and make one’s family wholesome again?”

What is he talking about? Wait, did he…

Anthony wasn’t so dense not to grasp the situation. He clearly heard the man say that Anthony sacrificed his life. Something must’ve happened during the blood transfusion and it didn’t end well for him.

At first, he thought he would be sad but instead, Anthony felt at ease. He was convinced his sister was saved, even if it costed him his life.

“Will there be books to read?” Anthony felt like bargaining with whomever was offering him a second chance.

“Plenty. And the types you had never thought existed,” the man’s voice announced.

“Ok, great. I’m in,” he agreed without hesitation.

No later than Anthony uttered his words in agreement, his physical senses returned to him. He could feel his body, his hands and feet. And he could smell the air around him. A pleasant scent, roses mixed with chamomile, and something else was tickling his nose.

Little by little, his hearing returned to him as well. The place was becoming rather noisy. At first, he thought he was back in the hospital, where the doctors performed blood transfusion. But the sounds and voices indicated it was not so.

“My lady, please drink this. It will help you calm down,” a calm woman’s voice said.

There was sobbing and crying heard around where Anthony was lying. He realized something must’ve happened to someone in the room. But he was yet to know what it was.

Wow… - Anthony gasped after he opened his eyes.

He wasn’t in the same hospital as before, that was a fact. If anything, the decorations on the ceiling, and the walls, indicated the room was inside the house of an old age aristocrats. Only fancier and strangely appealing.

★ ---------------------------------------------- ★

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