The Cover Chapter 1

My cover of my sister’s original song went viral overnight.

After I got my big break, I gave her everything she ever wanted.

Designer clothes, sports cars, a penthouse apartment.

But when a famous actor sneered that she’d never be as good as me, she started to hate me.

The night I was named "Artist of the Year," my sister stormed into my dressing room and drove a razor blade across my throat.

"If you hadn't stolen my song, you'd be nothing!" she screamed. "That award was supposed to be mine!"

After I bled out, she took her own life in despair.

But somehow, we both woke up. Back in our freshman year vocal class.

This time, my sister scrambled to her feet before I could. She was going to sing her song.

"This time," she whispered to me later, "I'm the one who's going to be a star. And you? You're just the footnote in my story."

* * *

After a long, suffocating darkness, a voice cut through the void.

"Seraphina? Are you with us? It's your turn."

My eyes flew open. I was in my freshman year vocal class at the Kingswood Academy of the Arts. Our professor stood on the stage, looking at me expectantly.

The girl sitting next to me nudged my arm, her eyes wide with excitement.

"Sera, snap out of it! Weren't you going to sing 'Echoes of Time'? I heard you practicing in the dorm—it was incredible. I’ve got my phone ready to record and everything."

Her hopeful gaze met mine, and a dizzying mix of shock and joy washed over me. I opened my mouth, but before I could speak, a blur of white shot past me. My sister, Selene, rushed onto the stage, snatching the guitar from our professor's hands, her face flushed with a feverish excitement.

"Professor, my sister's not feeling well," she announced, her voice ringing with false concern. "I'll sing for her today. Besides, 'Echoes of Time' is my song anyway. I can sing it better than she ever could!"

Without waiting for a reply, she began to strum the chords, her voice filling the room with a practiced, emotional melody.

A wave of dizziness hit me. It wasn't a dream. I was reborn.

In my past life, in this very class, I was the one who sang Selene's song, "Echoes of Time."

We both came from a family of musicians, but Selene always insisted she was the one with the real creative genius. We both had music channels online, but neither of us had more than a handful of followers. Selene had posted "Echoes of Time" nearly a year ago, but it had gone nowhere. Impatient and hungry for fame, she quickly abandoned her original work, filling her channel with covers of trending pop songs instead.

What she didn't know—what none of us knew—was that this particular class was being secretly live-streamed.