1 Chapter 0 - Wake up

"Why are you pretending to be weak? Get up!"

The sound of someone yelling rings in my ears and causes a sharp pain in the back of my head. Realising I am laying down, I sit up slowly and open my eyes. What lay before me is something that I would have never imagined. Only a while earlier I remember laying in my bed, in my room. How then have I found myself laying on the grass in am unrecognisable place, surrounded by people I do not know? I stare in confusion at the man who continues to yell at me. As much as I am afraid of the hostility I was suddenly subject to, I could feel myself becoming increasingly irritated. In the midst of all of this confusion, did I need to allow myself to be verbally abused? I have never been good with people yelling at me, courtesy to my less than perfect childhood. On a normal day I might've cried but I cannot afford to do that in this uncertain situation. To show weakness in such uncertainty? Preposterous. That's like asking to have a target on your back. I wanted to remain silent until he got tired and gave up, but without my knowledge my anger got the better of me.

"Why is it any of your concern whether I choose to get up or stay seated?"

"Are you talking back to me? Where did you get the audacity?!"

"I don't know why you're continuing to act like this when you're only making a fool of yourself."

"What did you just call me? A fool?" He seems to be taken aback but is just as quick to stand his ground. 

"Sorry, did you maybe not understand? You can bark all you want, I have better things to attend to."

I could hear the onlookers surprised reactions, some gasping, some joining hands against me and others struggling to stifle the giggle making its way to their lips. Before I could provoke the stranger further, I feel myself being lifted from the ground and carried to a carriage by a relatively tall man. My anxiety began to kick in as the unease of not being in control finally set in, and I began to feel nauseous. But I could not bring myself to say anything to the man, in fear of angering him, lest he hurt me. I could feel my body instinctively tensing beneath his touch, afraid that moving even a single muscle might cause him to snap at me. But at the same time, my mind is running a mile a minute, trying to understand this situation and regain control of it. My body and my mind were as different as night and day, but I suppose I have mastered the art of observing in silence. I'm rambling but my mind will not halt, constantly jumping from one train of thought to another. I cannot rest it until I find composure again though I don't see that happening any time soon. The man suddenly turns to me. 

"Why did you start acting like that? It wasn't very like you." His tone was in all ways demeaning. 

It wasn't very like me? Does he somehow know me or perhaps is he confusing me for someone else? I remain silent, hoping that an answer is not necessary. He clicks his tongue.

"When we get back home, I'm going to tell father about everything before he hears it from outsiders."

I felt unsettled for the nth time today. Father? The familiar way of saying it, as if we share a father... This man who looks nothing like me, being my brother? I struggle to contain my laughter. How do I, in any way, resemble him? Perhaps this is all just a dream, I briefly thought. I've been known to have a habit of vivid dreams. That is the only way to explain how I can lay in bed one minute, and wake up in a faraway land surrounded by strangers the next. Even the existence of this carriage reaffirms the concept of this all being a dream. Why else would we be here, rather than travelling through a more feasible manner? Why else would I be wearing this silly heavy dress that makes me so uncomfortable and sweaty? Why else does everything around me seem foreign to me? I've made up my mind. This has to be a dream, perhaps a lucid one, so maybe I can finally afford to relax my restless thoughts until I wake up. Maybe I'll even laugh about how strange it was when I wake up.

I decide sit in silence and stare out of the window until we reach our destination. At a sudden bump in the road I feel myself land uncomfortably back down on the seat. That's when it dawns on me. How am I feeling pain, or any sensation? How could I feel my head hurting from that man yelling at me, or a bruise forming from my uncomfortable land on the seat? Urgency overtakes me once again, and the mind that I had tried so hard to put to ease, begins going into overdrive once again. Panic is all I know. Keeping my eyes peeled for any sign of where we are, road names, postcodes, landmarks, chain shops... Nothing. There is nothing I could use to contact authorities and notify them of my location. The dread seeps deeper into my skin as I feel increasingly trapped the longer that we travel. Eventually I am shaken out of my thoughts by the sound of the door opening. As I step out and follow the man into a large house - perhaps a mansion would be more fitting- I am immediately guided to "my room" because apparently I need a wash as it's unsightly how dirty my clothes.

Despite my constant refusals, I am made to have a bath with the help of "maids". Had this been some sort of romance novel, I would have assumed that I was a wealthy aristocrat, but at the moment I felt so trapped. My mind was fixated on the idea that the maids must have been sent to watch over me, so that I do not escape or try to harm myself while alone. It was stifling. The feeling of their unwanted hands on me made my stomach turn. Not because they did anything wrong but because it was not what I wanted. I did not ask for this help, so having been forced to strip before strangers and having them wash me was less than ideal. I did my best to hurry with the bath and managed to convince them to allow me to dress myself, even if it was in their presence. 

Once everything was finished I received news that the man I came with -known as young master- has ordered me to rest in my room and repent. Repent for what? I almost caught myself asking. Instead I simply nooded and decided that now was as good a time as any to try and figure out what exactly is happening and how I can escape. As it stands I cannot do anything, I might as well save some energy in case I need to run away. What better way to escape than to appear harmless, right?

I lay in silence after sending everyone out, rethinking all of the events of the day. The way I should've been in bed sometime during the afternoon, but instead opened my eyes to what seemed like a tea party in a garden during midday. How everyone was dressed as though they travelled here from the mid 1800s. How I'd somehow been taken in as a tall person's sister. I felt like life was throwing me around at this point to see how much I could handle. Yhere would be no way to make sense of anything. How would I escape when I don't know where I am? How would I communicate with anyone when I don't have a phone on hand? I could sense myself spiralling into a feeling of pure desperation. That was when I sat up and saw someone else staring back in the mirror. "That- that isn't me", I instinctively said out loud to myself.

That was the last thing I thought before my mind was attacked with a piercing migraine threatening to tear through my eyeballs. Images began to flash before my eyes and I felt overwhelmed. The visual stimuli, too much for me to consume, as if I was watching a speed run of a life flashing before me. Only then did I realise what this is. Me with this long, straight red hair, this skin tone that is too pale, this gaze too harsh, this entire face too small. Me who is too thin and too tall, too soft and too harsh, too gaudy and too elegant; this isn't me at all. It was instead the perfect depiction of the villainess, Persephone Gabris. I snort at how unimaginable this situation is. I had been living in another dimension as a villainess in an otome game, who serves as a stepping stone for her step brother - a capture target. Wasn't the joke for truck-kun to come and take people away? How had I slipped through dimensions when I had only fallen asleep?

I'm not sure whether it was because I figured something out, or because what I finally found out had driven me over the edge and reminded me that I cannot do anything at present, but I burst into laughter. More than anything, I am perhaps laughing at how terrible fate has been to me. To live such a shitty life, only to escape and be forced into another shitty role where death is constantly around the corner. I laugh until there is nothing left but tears.

That night I sobbed as though I had reverted back to my childhood. I cried until my tears ran dry and then I cried some more, until I went to sleep with the sound of my weeps singing me a lullaby, and the tears down my face kissing me goodnight. Maybe I can wake up where reality is different for once, where I am no longer struggling to stand with my bloodied knees scraping the floor, begging for a better tomorrow. Maybe, just maybe, it'll be third time lucky.