Edward stood near the apartment window and stared down at the city.
Morning had fully arrived now, although very little direct sunlight actually reached the street below. The buildings surrounding Melody’s apartment were tall enough to block most of it, leaving the roads trapped beneath long shadows while the upper floors caught the pale orange light. Cars crawled between intersections far below, their horns faint through the glass, and people moved along the sidewalks in little clusters that looked almost unreal from this high up.
For some reason, watching them helped.
The uneasiness that had been sitting in Edward’s chest since he woke up loosened slightly.
The world was still going.
People were still going to work.
Someone was probably already angry about being late.
Somebody else was buying coffee.
Nobody down there knew that Edward Tomik had apparently come back from the dead inside the body of a woman who looked exactly like an anime villainess.
Maybe that was comforting.
He looked down at Melody’s phone again.
October 11, 2026.
Edward stared at the date for a few seconds before his brain finally processed it.
“No.”
He checked again.
October 11.
Ryan’s wedding had been during the summer of 2025.
Edward slowly sat down on the edge of the bed.
“That’s... more than a year.”
The realization hit differently than discovering he had died.
Death had been something he remembered happening. There had been the plane, the screams, the burning wing, the falling sensation, and then nothing.
This was time.
More than a year had happened without him.
Ryan had been married for over a year now.
His parents had spent more than a year believing their son was dead.
People had gone to birthdays, celebrated Christmas, started jobs, quit jobs, moved apartments, gotten married, had children.
And Edward had experienced none of it.
His thumb moved almost automatically to the browser.
He typed his own name first.
Edward Tomik.
There were results, but nothing obvious.
Then he searched for the flight.
He didn’t remember the flight number, but he remembered the airline, the route, and the date close enough that it didn’t take long.
A familiar blue box appeared at the top of the search results.
AI Overview
Edward blinked.
“Google AI. Cool.”
Apparently artificial intelligence was still going strong.
That was weirdly comforting too.
Before he died, Edward had gone to college for computer science, and by the time he graduated, AI had already started flipping the industry upside down. People were arguing about whether programmers were going to lose their jobs, companies were stuffing AI into every product imaginable, and every six months somebody announced that software development was either dead forever or about to become ten times more profitable.
Edward’s own job security hadn’t exactly looked amazing.
He’d still liked AI.
He was a computer nerd. Having a machine summarize something, help debug code, or answer whatever random question entered his head at two in the morning had been incredible even if it might eventually replace half the things he’d gone to college to learn.
Apparently that argument had continued without him too.
Edward scrolled past the AI summary until he saw the article.
His stomach tightened before he even opened it.
The headline mentioned an aircraft accident in western Canada.
The flight had been traveling south from Alaska toward Washington when it went down.
Edward tapped it.
There was a photograph of wreckage scattered across a mountainside.
His breathing slowed.
He knew that plane.
Not because there was enough left to recognize much, but because some part of him simply knew.
He read.
Engine failure.
Emergency declaration.
Loss of control.
Aircraft impacted mountainous terrain.
All passengers and crew killed.
No survivors.
Edward stared at those last two words.
No survivors.
He scrolled farther.
Names.
There was a passenger list.
Edward Tomik was on it.
His own name looked strange.
Not because it was misspelled or because anything about it had changed.
It just looked like somebody else’s name now.
A dead person’s name.
He set the phone down for several seconds before immediately picking it back up.
Facebook.
If more than a year had passed, then there had to be something there.
He downloaded the app, waited impatiently for it to install, then entered his old email address and password.
The password worked.
For half a second his heart jumped.
Then the next screen appeared.
We sent a verification code to your phone.
Edward stared.
“Fuck.”
His old number ended in the same four digits he remembered.
A verification code had just been sent to a phone that probably didn’t exist anymore.
“Damn it. Two-step authentication.”
He tried another method.
Email.
That account wanted verification too.
He tried account recovery, but Facebook wanted one of his recognized devices or access to the old phone number.
Edward dropped backward onto the bed.
“Of course.”
Apparently resurrection could overcome death but not account security.
He lay there for a moment before another thought occurred to him.
Crunchyroll.
That account had never used two-factor authentication.
Edward sat up and downloaded it.
His login worked.
Immediately the home page filled with shows he had never seen. New seasons, sequels, and entire series had apparently started and ended while he was dead. Edward scrolled faster, momentarily distracted by just how much anime a person could miss in a year.
“No way. That got a second season?”
He scrolled farther.
“Season three?”
Then Edward stopped.
There was something considerably more important he should be looking for.
He tapped the search bar and typed The Villainess Will Rewrite Her Ruin.
Nothing came up.
Edward frowned and checked the spelling before trying again.
Still nothing.
“What?”
Maybe Crunchyroll had removed it. That wasn’t exactly uncommon, especially if licensing had changed while he was dead, so Edward searched Melody Rosethorn instead.
Nothing.
He tried Celestine Aurelia.
Still nothing.
Edward sat a little straighter on the bed.
“Okay... that’s weird.”
He closed Crunchyroll and opened Google.
The Villainess Will Rewrite Her Ruin anime.
The results loaded, but none of them were right. There were other villainess anime, articles about otome games, and a dozen series with titles that sounded close enough to fool a search engine, but the anime Edward remembered wasn’t among them.
He put quotation marks around the title.
Still nothing.
That didn’t make sense.
Even some obscure anime that had aired once and been canceled should have left something behind. A MyAnimeList page, an old Reddit thread, screenshots, fan art, pirated episodes, somebody complaining that the manga was better. The internet remembered everything.
Edward searched Lady Melody Rosethorn.
Results appeared this time.
His stomach tightened.
Crownwell University.
A student counseling page.
Some kind of academic award.
A professional profile.
Edward opened one of them and found Melody’s face staring back at him. Not the animated version he remembered, but the woman he had seen in the mirror that morning, crimson hair, green eyes, pale skin and all.
“No freaking way.”
He backed out and searched Celestine Aurelia.
More results appeared.
Real results.
University pages, a few public mentions, and other ordinary pieces of information about a real person.
Edward slowly lowered the phone.
Melody Rosethorn existed.
Celestine Aurelia existed.
The anime they were both characters in apparently did not.
“But I watched it.”
Edward knew he had. He remembered seven full episodes. He remembered Melody, Celestine, Mirelle, Prince Adrian, the ruined chapel, and the stupid conversation he had with himself on the plane about why Melody and Celestine never ended up together. He had started episode eight seconds before the engine exploded.
Those weren’t vague memories he could blame on confusion after waking up. He could picture scenes from the show clearly.
Edward went back into Crunchyroll and checked his watch history.
Shows he remembered watching were still there. Series he had abandoned years ago still had their progress bars. Even anime he barely remembered starting showed up exactly where he expected them to.
The Villainess Will Rewrite Her Ruin was missing.
Not unavailable.
Not grayed out.
Missing.
It was as if he had never watched it at all.
Edward stared at the screen for a long moment.
“So either I’m losing my mind, or something is seriously wrong here.”
Neither option was particularly comforting.
Eventually he noticed the little crown symbols beside most of the newer episodes he had been looking at earlier. Most of them were hidden behind Premium.
Edward frowned and checked the account.
The subscription had expired.
“Right.”
His old bank account was probably gone.
His cards had probably been canceled.
His parents might have closed everything after settling whatever happened to his estate.
Estate.
That was another word he had never expected to apply to himself before turning thirty.
Edward slowly lowered the phone.
For several seconds, he stared at his reflection in the black screen.
Red hair framed a face that wasn’t his.
He stood and walked back toward the mirror.
Melody Rosethorn looked back at him.
Bright green eyes.
Pale skin.
Long crimson hair that Edward had only half successfully brushed after the shower.
She looked alive.
Very alive.
Edward placed both hands against the dresser beneath the mirror.
“What do I do?”
The woman in the reflection moved her mouth when he spoke.
“Melody... I don’t know how to do this.”
His throat tightened.
“This is your life. I don’t know your passwords. I don’t know your Social Security number. I don’t know what you’ve learned in college. I don’t know your professors. I don’t know what food you like or who you hate or if there’s somebody you’re supposed to call every Sunday.”
Nothing changed.
Edward stared harder at the reflection as if Melody might suddenly appear behind his eyes.
“Take it back.”
His voice came out quieter.
“If you’re in here somewhere, take it back. Seriously. I’ll go. I’m already dead. That’s fine.”
He swallowed.
“Just... take it back.”
Nothing happened.
The apartment remained perfectly still around him.
Air moved softly through the vents.
A refrigerator compressor hummed somewhere beyond the bedroom.
Traffic murmured through the window.
Edward stared at Melody until his eyes started to hurt.
No answer.
No spirit appeared.
No floating blue screen explained what had happened.
There wasn’t even some mysterious voice welcoming him to his second life.
Just him.
Or her.
Edward wasn’t entirely sure anymore.
A strange heaviness crept into his chest.
He had never been particularly stoic before. Ryan used to make fun of him for getting emotionally invested in movies too easily, and Edward had definitely cried during more anime finales than he would publicly admit.
But this felt different.
Sharper.
Closer to the surface.
He wiped at one eye and frowned at himself.
“Why am I so emotional?”
Then he stopped.
That was actually a disturbing question.
What exactly counted as him anymore?
People liked to imagine the brain as some container where the soul lived, but biologically the brain was everything. Hormones affected mood. Chemistry affected thoughts. Memories were stored in physical tissue. Personality was shaped by networks inside the brain.
Edward had his memories.
At least he thought he did.
But this wasn’t his brain.
It was Melody’s.
So if he felt something differently now, how would he even know whether it came from Edward or from her?
Maybe the instincts belonged to Melody.
Maybe the emotional responses did too.
Maybe there were pieces of her personality buried somewhere underneath his memories that he hadn't even noticed yet.
Edward rubbed his temples.
His head did feel clearer than it used to.
No caffeine headache.
No sluggish fog.
No desperate desire to grab a Mountain Dew immediately after waking up.
He had consumed an absolutely irresponsible amount of Mountain Dew in his old life.
“Maybe you just weren’t addicted to caffeine.”
That explanation was significantly less terrifying.
He chose to believe it for now.
Edward looked around the apartment again.
Whatever had happened, sitting here begging the mirror wasn't going to undo it.
He had been dead for more than a year.
Edward Tomik had been listed among the victims of a plane crash.
There were probably documents proving his death.
Funeral records.
Maybe a grave somewhere.
Even if he somehow walked into a police station and announced who he was, he had absolutely no way to prove it without sounding insane.
Meanwhile Melody Rosethorn existed.
She had identification.
An apartment.
A university enrollment.
A job.
A phone.
A life.
Edward closed his eyes.
Maybe calling it a stolen life wasn’t fair.
He didn't know what happened to Melody.
He didn't know whether some greater being had caused this, whether it was magic, whether he was in another universe, or whether the universe had simply decided to do something completely impossible for no reason.
But he was alive.
Again.
That had to mean something.
Maybe.
Edward opened his eyes.
He couldn't treat a second life like garbage just because he didn't understand why he had received it.
If some god, system, cosmic accident, or incredibly bored supernatural entity had given him another chance, then he could at least try not to waste it.
That didn't mean he suddenly felt comfortable calling himself Melody.
It didn't mean Edward was gone.
It definitely didn't mean he had accepted waking up as a woman.
But Edward Tomik was dead to the world.
For now, Melody Rosethorn was the only person he could actually be.
He walked back to the closet.
The Crownwell uniforms waited exactly where he'd left them.
Edward took one from the hanger and held it against himself.
“Guess we're doing college again.”
He dressed slowly.
The white blouse came first, followed by the pleated black skirt. He had to check twice to make sure he had the thing sitting correctly on his waist. The black blazer fit perfectly, silver piping following the edges while the embroidered Crownwell crest sat over his chest.
The dark red ribbon gave him more trouble than everything else combined.
“How do women tie these?”
He tried once.
Wrong.
Again.
Worse.
Edward stared at himself.
“You went to college for computer science. You can figure out a ribbon.”
Five minutes later, he finally managed something that looked intentional.
He brushed Melody's hair again, although there was so much of it that he suspected mastering that particular skill was going to become an ongoing project. When he finished, he stood in front of the mirror.
The person looking back at him was almost unrecognizable from the terrified woman who had walked out of the bathroom.
The uniform changed her.
Melody looked composed.
Professional.
Expensive.
The fitted black blazer and red ribbon worked almost disturbingly well with her crimson hair, and the Crownwell crest made her look like she belonged somewhere important.
Edward stared at her.
“Okay.”
He took a breath.
“For now.”
That mattered.
He wasn't erasing Edward.
He wasn't pretending Melody had always been him.
He was simply admitting that if he wanted to figure out what happened, he couldn't spend forever hiding inside the apartment.
Edward picked up Melody's phone, slipped it into his pocket, and walked toward the front door.
His hand rested on the handle.
Beyond it was a hallway he had never seen, inside a building he didn't know, in a version of New York where fictional characters apparently attended college.
He had no idea what waited outside.
Maybe someone would recognize Melody immediately.
Maybe she had enemies.
Maybe Celestine would walk around the corner.
Maybe Edward would make it exactly ten feet before discovering some completely ordinary piece of Melody's life he had no idea how to handle.
His heart started beating faster.
“Okay, Melody.”
He looked down at himself.
“Let’s try not to ruin your life before lunch.”
Edward opened the door.
Cool hallway air brushed against his face, carrying the faint smells of someone’s coffee and whatever cleaning solution the apartment building used on the carpet. Somewhere nearby an elevator chimed.
For everyone else in the building, it was just another Sunday morning.
For Edward, stepping through that doorway felt like crawling out of a cocoon and discovering the thing that emerged no longer looked anything like the creature that entered.
He hesitated for only a moment before pulling the door shut behind him.
Edward Tomik had died more than a year ago.
The woman walking toward the elevator was Melody Rosethorn.
He still wasn’t sure how he felt about that sentence. Maybe tomorrow it would sound less insane. Maybe a month from now he would actually believe it. For now, though, Edward was dead to everyone who had ever known him, and Melody had a life sitting here completely unattended.
She touched the Crownwell crest on her blazer and let out a slow breath.
“Okay, Melody. I don’t know what happened to you, and I don’t know why I’m here, but I’ll try. For both of us, I’ll try to live this life as well as I can.”
The elevator chimed.
Melody stepped toward it.
BOOM.
The entire hallway jumped beneath her feet.
Melody hit the wall hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs as every light overhead flickered at once. Somewhere down the hall, glass exploded inward with a violent crash. A framed painting tore loose from the wall and shattered beside her while the building groaned around them, deep and metallic, like the skyscraper itself had just been struck by something enormous.
“What the hell?”
Another impact rolled through the building.
This one was farther away.
Bigger.
A woman screamed from inside one of the apartments. Doors began opening up and down the hall while people shouted over one another, asking if it was an earthquake, an explosion, an attack.
Melody grabbed the wall and pushed herself upright.
The hallway windows at the far end had shattered.
Through the broken glass, something was happening to the sky.
Blue-white light spread above Manhattan in branching cracks, like someone had taken a hammer to the atmosphere. The morning clouds twisted inward around a glowing tear suspended impossibly high above the city, and from somewhere inside it came thousands of streaks of light.
Melody stared.
“What in the world?”
One of the lights struck somewhere between the buildings.
The city flashed.
Another explosion followed.
Then a woman’s voice spoke directly inside Melody’s head.
Calm.
Clear.
Close enough that for a second she thought someone was whispering into her ear.
[Melody, would you like to Awaken?]
Melody stopped dead in her tracks.