What The Hell Am I Doing Here?

"Fucking cunt!" A pair of amber eyes opened suddenly. The blurred image of a man greeted Yuri's consciousness. The occasional fluttered movements of the surface rattled her supposed eternal slumber, though she was pretty sure she had a dream or nightmare before jolting up.

"Language, Ivynia!" A deep voice resonated inside the cramped yet flashy –

'Wait, what? Carriage?'

"Ivynia!" A woman's voice followed, but Yuri could not focus her eyes on two subjects. Thinking logically, she immediately concluded that it was one of the CIA's petty schemes to eliminate her.

'Really? A fucking carriage?'

A knot formed in between her brows as she crossed her arms. Yuri's unstable gaze focused on the silhouette of a man sitting before her. "Did the CIA lose the credibility that led them to bankruptcy?"

Her grin slowly loosened as seconds passed, and her vision got more explicit. Right in front of her sat an old couple. Their stature and elegant demeanor did not faze her - it was the clothes they wore. The old geezer before Yuri wore a fucking cravat that reminded her of the men in the paintings at the museum she once visited. The old witch got a narrow-looking dress with sloping shoulders and bell-shaped skirts.

'And damn, are those corsets?'

Smirking, Yuri was about to spew another sarcastic remark when her fucking awesome brain stopped buffering—making her realize what the actual fuck they called her.

"The fuck are you calling Ivynia?" The knot between her brows turned into a full-blown frown. An odd sense of dread and déjà vu crept into her wicked mind.

"How dare you!" The old geezer sneered. His once amber eyes turned red as his face contorted into something that could be described as a monster. A snout replaced the once aristocratic nose. A sand-colored fur covered the old geezer's once blemish-free face. And last, his once perfectly trimmed nails grew some canine's claw. Looming before her threateningly was a beast out for Yuri's neck.

'This is a fucking insane situation, but dude! If I am not dreaming, then I am sure as hell that the old geezer is a fucking werewolf of some sort! Am I inside the casting of Teen Wolf?'

Gone was the frown on her face. Yuri was now grinning like crazy as she admired the beast before while thinking of a hundred ways to use him for the experiment if he was real.

'But well, that shit is too fictional.'

The cosplaying old geezer seemed irked by her nonchalant reaction. The next thing she knew, hot saliva showered down her face. He growled right in front of her, his snarling mouth only an inch away from her astounded face.

'Oh, wow. Happy shower day!'

"Okay, okay. I get it. I'll tone down my cussing. Geez, you don't have to go that far. Aren't you embarrassing yourself? Cosplaying while drooling? But, dude, you are so awesome at portraying your role." Yuri wiped her face off with the use of her bare hands. She had no qualms with his saliva fest, but she hated feeling icky.

His hot breath fanned her face. Her words seemed to enrage him even more. Yuri's attention shifted to the old hag, who just gasped. The old hag's eyes were flashing between red and amber. Yuri was about to open her mouth when the looming cosplaying geezer roared in front of her again.

'Ew!'

"Goddess, what is happening to you, Ivynia?" The old hag yelled with contempt as she gazed at Yuri. "Your Grace, calm down, or you will rip your suit."

'Oh wow, what the hell is wrong with you?' Yuri wanted to ask the evil-looking witch who kept sending Yuri daggers through her wrinkled eyes. The old geezer reverted to his human form with his wife's outburst.

'I get that this is just a fucking realistic dream, but when will I wake up? After all, I already croaked at the apartment, then I had a dream which I forgot, and then I am here in a dream again.'

Resting her chin at the back of her right palm, Yuri shifted her bored-looking face beyond the carriage window.

'Such a vivid dream. But why do I feel I am missing something important? Nah, never mind.'

Yuri muted the nonsense that was spouting from the old couple's mouths. Somehow, she did not know why the oldies mistook her for someone named Ivynia. For the nth time in this dream, Yuri felt nostalgic upon hearing the name 'Ivynia'.

'Do I know her? Was she one of my victims back when I was alive? Nah, I don't care. I'm dead, anyway. If this dream is her revenge on me, then I won't struggle just to survive against her. After all, struggling for something is what the living does. With me being dead, that word remains meaningless.'

Lost in her thoughts as she gazed upon the vast lush hills beneath the clear blue sky, Yuri could not help but feel amazed at how vivid this dream was. For the first dream she had after dying, all she could remember was the lingering scent of tulips and the endless void of cerulean azure.

The scenery slowly changed. The once lush plains turned into something more—something that could only be seen in a picture book. Tiny brick houses with vast lawns and crooked wooden gates greeted Yuri's line of vision. For someone who grew up at the very heart of New York City, this was like a scene from the countryside that she once longed to see.

Children wearing humbler dresses ran free along the road. Wildflowers swept by the gentle breeze passed her, making her genuinely smile. Simple things like these were a perfect distraction to avoid the wallowing pit in her guts.

The once tiny brick houses turned into large buildings that screamed sensuality and grace. The familiar complex and the repetitive distortion of the classical Renaissance motif reminded Yuri of Kelsie's favorite architectural style—the Baroque style. Unlike the small countryside village they passed by a few hours ago, a variety of carriages occupied the main street of what she could conclude as a city. Women with god-awful petticoats covered by their Victorian-style dresses sauntered at the street side together with their frilly parasols.

'This dream is getting weirder and weirder.'

"Ivynia, do not slouch!"

'And the old hag strikes again.'

But rather than bicker with the strange-looking old hag, Yuri felt drained. So she sighed and refused to respond. It would be a lie if she said it was for no particular reason, but that was not the case. She was torn between wanting to end this weird dream and desiring to pretend as if she was alive.

Sighing loudly, Yuri remained silent. In her silence, the mystifying old couple seemed to respond rather positively.

'Weirdo.'

"I do not know why you are acting like this, but do not sabotage this particular day. Or I swear I will punish you until your legs cannot take the beatings anymore." His smug look and threatening voice were a subject worth killing for the criminal Yorenheim. But for her, it did not matter anymore. Everything felt useless.

"Where the heck am I?" Yuri's upper body was about to leave the carriage's window when she got pulled harshly. She tumbled onto the carpeted floor of the carriage, and the looming shadows of the old geezer and the old hag surrounded her. The deep frown on their wrinkled faces showed their dissatisfaction with who knew what shit.

"Behave yourself, Ivynia. This will be my last warning for you. If you want to survive this day with your head attached to your neck, you must not show that ghastly behavior in front of His Majesty," warned the old hag.

"Here. Wear this to live." The old geezer dropped a pink-colored Boonie hat on her lap. It was a hat worn to cover one's face with a net to protect from insects. She had one Boonie hat when she was still alive, and she used that one during her espionage mission in Vietnam.

The two left her alone inside the carriage after glaring at her like she was some kind of bug. But her thoughts did not linger at the two. Instead, it stuck to what the old geezer said.

With the pink Boonie hat on her head and a thin pink-colored net covering her face, Yuri's hand grasped her neck. "Dying inside an uncanny dream, huh? Let us see about that, old hag," Yuri muttered before stepping out of the carriage.

'Of course, there's a fucking Baroque-styled palace.'

Right before Yuri stood a gigantic white palace. The net obstructing her face did not stop her from seeing the distorted and repetitive style of the Renaissance architectural style. Its classical oval-shaped reception hall and cream-colored faux walls made her gush secretly. She was blushing secretly—not. She was openly ignoring the formal-looking man who welcomed her right after she got out of the flashy carriage.

"Lady Ivynia." The calm yet chilling voice of the old geezer snapped her out, making her shift her gaze to the young man clad in a medieval butler suit. His sharp yet chinky smiling eyes met her curious ones.

"Welcome to the Imperial Palace, Lady Ivynia Ilorde Rosehil of the Rosehil Dukedom. His Majesty Emperor Livius Veza Bezarius awaits your arrival. I am Baron Gesho Rios Kyner of House Kyner, the Imperial head butler." He bowed his head in front of her.

The weird old couple responded with vigor—a contradiction with what Yuri was currently playing.

Slowly, the fucking memories of her first dream resurfaced upon hearing Ivynia's full name.

'Ivynia fucking Ilorde Rosehil! How the hell did I forget you?'