My eyes opened and everything was blurry.
At first I thought it was a dream. A bad one. The kind where you fall from a tall building and wake up drenched in sweat, heart hammering, grateful for the ordinary ceiling above you.
But then I saw the ceiling. It was stone. Old stone. The kind you only see in castles from history books or fantasy movies. The walls were rough and cold. Dust floated lazily in a beam of golden sunlight coming through a narrow window.
This was not my room.
This was not my apartment with the leaking tap and the tower of instant noodle cups and the band posters I had stopped caring about years ago.
I sat up fast. My head spun. The bed beneath me was massive, four posts, heavy curtains, silk sheets that felt far too smooth against my skin. I looked down at my hands. They were not my hands. Mine were rougher, darker from years of bad sleep and worse habits. These were pale. Long fingers. Soft palms. The hands of someone who had never done a single hour of real work.
I got up. My legs wobbled like a newborn deer’s. I crossed the room to a tall mirror and what stared back at me stopped my breath completely.
Sharp jaw. Long black hair falling past the shoulders. Cold grey eyes that looked like they had never once smiled and meant it.
I knew this face.
Ethan Blackwood.
The villain from Kingdom of Stars, the novel I had binge read during exam week because I was, and remain, a terrible student. Four hundred Chapters of political scheming and forbidden romance and swordfights, and this man was the one everyone loved to hate. Arrogant. Cruel. Obsessed with power. He dies in Chapter fifty, stabbed through the chest and thrown off a balcony while the protagonist watches. The comment section had been full of laughing emojis.
I had laughed too, back then. That was the joke life was playing on me now.
A voice echoed in my skull. Flat. Robotic. Like a customer service bot from a budget sci fi film.
"System activating. Host detected. Identity confirmed. Ethan Blackwood. Days remaining until execution. Ninety. Primary objective. Survive."
A translucent blue screen bloomed in front of my eyes. Numbers ticking down in the corner. Eighty nine days, twenty three hours, fifty eight minutes, and dropping every second I stood there gawking at it.
I waved a hand through it. Nothing. It was in my head, not in the room.
This was real. Somehow, impossibly, this was real.
Okay. Breathe. Think. You have read this story. You know the plot. The first death flag is the garden party. Ethan attacks Seraphina, the heroine, the protagonist Kael humiliates him in front of everyone, and the countdown to his death begins from there.
So the plan was simple. Avoid the party. Avoid Seraphina. Avoid the protagonist. Lock myself in this room and let ninety days quietly pass me by.
A knock on the door demolished that plan before it had a chance to live.
"Young master? The master has called for you. The guests are arriving. You must come down now."
My stomach dropped. The garden party was supposed to be three days from now. That was what I remembered. That was the timeline.
"Young master, the western province delegation has arrived early. Everyone is assembled."
Early. The story was already slipping out of its own grooves, and I had been awake for less than ten minutes.
I thought about faking sickness. Locking the door. But the servant’s next words killed that idea too.
"The Duke said if you do not come, he will send guards. He said, and I quote, do not embarrass the Blackwood name."
Right. The Duke. In the novel he once killed a man with his bare hands during a political dispute, over dinner, without spilling his wine. Not a man you tested on day one of your new life.
I opened the door and followed the servant down a long stone corridor lined with portraits of dead ancestors, every single one wearing the exact same expression of someone who had ruined a family for sport and enjoyed it.
The garden hit me like a wall of perfume and money. White and pink flowers everywhere. Fountains throwing perfect arcs of water into the light. Marble pillars wrapped in gold vines. Nobles in silk clothes laughing too loudly and drinking wine from glasses that probably cost more than my old rent.
I hated rich people. The way they talked. The way they looked past you instead of at you. And now, apparently, I was the worst of them.
I kept my head down, slid along the edge of the crowd, and found a quiet patch of shade under a tree near the rose bushes. Good. Nobody had noticed me. I could survive an hour here, then vanish back inside and skip dinner entirely.
Then I saw her.
She was near the fountain. Dark hair falling over her shoulders, green eyes that looked lit from somewhere inside, a simple white dress with blue embroidery. Not flashy. Not plain. Exactly right. She was talking to an older woman, nodding, her expression calm in a way that made the air around her feel calmer too.
My chest tightened before my brain caught up.
Seraphina. The first heroine. The one Ethan corners in the garden and tries to force a kiss on. The one who slaps him. The one whose humiliation of him in front of Kael starts the countdown to his execution for real.
I needed to leave immediately. I started backing toward the rose bushes, eyes still locked on the fountain, three more steps and I would be clear.
"Ethan Blackwood. There you are. Come here."
The Duke’s voice rolled across the garden like thunder. Every head turned. Including mine, whether I wanted it to or not.
He stood at the center of a cluster of nobles, one hand raised, gesturing the way a man gestures when he has never once been ignored in his life. I walked toward him like a puppet whose strings had just been yanked, every step feeling a mile long even though the grass was soft underfoot.
"Ethan. Come meet Lady Seraphina from the western province. Her family matters. Be polite."
I reached the fountain. She was right there, close enough to see a small freckle beneath her left eye, close enough to catch a light floral trace of her perfume.
She curtsied. "Lord Ethan. I have heard a great deal about you."
I opened my mouth, ready to say something forgettable. Nice to meet you. Welcome to the estate. Anything human.
The system screen flared red before I got the chance.
"Warning. Inner thought broadcast activated. All heroines within range can now hear your inner voice. Broadcast range, fifty meters."
I froze. My brain did not process the warning so much as detonate under it.
"Oh no. No no no. This is bad, this is so bad, she is even prettier up close, how is that even possible, focus Ethan, FOCUS, this is literally the girl who gets you killed, say something normal, something boring, do not stare at her lips, why are you staring at her lips, stop it, RUN, just turn around and run, people will think you have lost your mind but at least you will be alive to lose it."
I clamped my mouth shut. Too late. Way too late.
Seraphina’s calm expression cracked wide open. Her eyes went round. Her lips parted. Confusion, then shock, then, unmistakably, the beginning of a smile she was fighting hard not to show.
"What... was that?" she whispered, barely audible.
My heart stopped completely. She had heard it. All of it.
I glanced around in panic. The Duke was mid conversation with another noble, oblivious. The rest of the garden chattered on, unaware. Only Seraphina was staring at me, green eyes wide, curious, and just the smallest bit amused.
The system pinged again. "Warning. First heroine has detected inner voice. Fate deviation confirmed. Original timeline no longer guaranteed."
I forced my face into a smile that felt like it had been carved out of wood. "Nice to meet you too, Lady Seraphina."
Inside my skull the screaming had not stopped for one second. "What do I do, what do I do, she heard everything, she knows I think she’s beautiful, she knows I’m terrified, she knows I’m a fraud wearing another man’s face, I’m going to die before Chapter fifty in this stupid garden with these stupid flowers and this idiotic smile stuck on my face."
Her mouth twitched, fighting a laugh that was clearly winning. She stepped closer instead of further away, close enough now that I could count the small gold flecks scattered through her green irises.
"Lord Ethan, are you feeling well? You look a little pale," she said, voice sweet, eyes dancing with mischief.
"Oh great, now she’s enjoying this. Beautiful and cruel, that is exactly the combination that ends men in every story ever written. Someone send a meteor. A demon invasion. Anything. Literally anything to get me out of this conversation."
She bit her lower lip, visibly holding back laughter now.
The system updated, unhelpfully, right on cue. "New objective added. Survive the garden party without altering the heroine’s opinion of you. Current status, FAILING. Heroine opinion shifted from neutral to intrigued."
I wanted to lie down in the flower bed and stay there.
She leaned in, lips almost brushing my ear, and whispered, "I can hear you. Everything. Every thought. Every scream." 😳
Ice ran down my spine.
She pulled back with a grin that was equal parts warm and dangerous. "Do not worry. Your secret is safe with me. For now."
She curtsied once more, turned, and walked off, her dress whispering against the grass. Halfway across the garden she glanced back over her shoulder and winked.
I stood there, completely rebuilt from the inside out, staring at the empty space where she had just been.
The Duke clapped a heavy hand on my shoulder. "Good boy. That went well. She likes you."
I could not answer. Could not move. Could barely remember how breathing worked.
Inside my head, only one thought remained standing amid the wreckage.
I am so dead.