It wasn't a dream.

Cale looked around the room as he sat still on the bed. It was evening now and candles had been lit around the room. In the corner was a fireplace that he'd previously missed, burning with flames that cast both light and eerie shadows from it.

He needed to pee.

Cale pushed himself out of bed, stumbling slightly due to the different height from what he was expecting and walked quietly to the door. He twisted the look and wondered who had the key to be able to light all those candles but didn't think more on it presently. He had other more pressing concerns. The hallway was dark with only a few candles on the walls to give light and he ignored the unsettling feeling it gave him. Apparently, the people who lived where he was didn't use electricity.

He closed the door behind him as he left and started to walk down the hallway.

The first door he tried was locked. So was the second and the third. The fourth was another bedroom, if a smaller one with a very Spartan decorating. The fifth finally led to a bathroom that he could use. A small candle was lit on the sink and he used it to light the others so he could see what he was doing.

Once he was finished with his business, he turned back to the sink to wash his hands. He just hoped there was running water and to his gratefulness, there was, if only cold. Cale was stunned to realize that the cold water didn't bother him. In fact, despite the fact that the floor was freezing against his bare feet, he'd stopped noticing it after the first few steps.

But it was nothing against the shock he received when he finally looked in the mirror.

It wasn't his face.

It was not his face.

Cale was a green-eyed twenty-year-old with brown hair and freckles. His skin was generally darker and looked permanently tanned.

That wasn't the face looking back at him.

This face was fair-skinned with no blemishes, a pair of large almond-shaped grey eyes and hair that went passed his shoulder blades trapped in a braid with a color he couldn't quite make out in the weak light, though it was unmistakably paler than his own. The nose was small and straight with a pair of full lips beneath it. The entire thing gave off a feminine air he wasn't used to as the face, even in the pale light, would be described as pretty rather than handsome. It was delicate looking in all the wrong ways for a male.

Even plastic surgery couldn't do that in just three months.

And there was no way he ever would have agreed with it.

Something was seriously wrong.

He started heaving for breaths in his panic. What the hell was going on here?! How the hell had he ended up in what was most likely someone else's body?! Things like that didn't happen! It belonged in books and mangas and movies, not... not in real life! What the hell was he supposed to do in a situation like this?!

Scream and cry for help? They'd think he was insane!

Cale's hands (it wasn't his hands) held tighter to the sink until his knuckles were white with the strain of it. He desperately held in a scream. His eyes were wide open in fear and his lips were trembling as he bit them to keep from saying anything. Dear God, what was he supposed to do now?! Sure, everyone had probably at some point fantasied of waking up in their favorite story but, but how the hell did that actually happen?! And weren't you supposed to keep your actual body?! This wasn't anything like it!

He wanted to scream and hit something and yell his anger to the heavens.

But there was no way he could actually do that.

He breathed in deeply as he finally started to calm down. He needed to compartmentalize. He needed to deal with one problem at a time. Figure out where he was, how he got there, whose body he was in and how to keep anyone else from finding out. Doubtlessly, he'd be locked up if it came out that this wasn't his body. Or locked away in a mental asylum, for that matter.

There was no way he could deal with that on top of this.

Cale slowly let go of the sink and blew out the extra candles he'd lit. He opened the bathroom door and started making his way back to the room he had woken up in. On the way, he bumped into the maid that had delivered his food.

The maid's eyes grew wide in surprise. "Young Master! You're up! Is your headache better now?"

Cale was still too stunned by his newest knowledge to speak, so he only nodded in response. The maid didn't seem to take that too bad because she continued with, "Would you like your dinner now? You've missed it, but we still have some left if you're hungry."

"Ah... yes, thank you. In my room, please." Cale uttered quietly to the maid, his gaze looking over her shoulder as he tried to recognize anything. Nothing he could see rang any bells.

He had no idea where he was.

"Of course, Young Master. I am glad you're feeling better now." The maid bowed and walked around him, presumably to the kitchen.

Cale watched her go around the corner before he continued his way to what he assumed was his room. If it wasn't, he hoped that the maid would correct him without making a big deal out of it. He was way too freaked out to bother with it.

The room was as he left it, lit up by candles along the walls and on the furniture with a lit fireplace in a corner. The warmth permeated the air and though it was summer, he supposed it must be very late at night indeed, if it was so cold the floor was freezing anyway. Cale took to looking over the bookcase as he waited for his food. The books were written in a language he didn't recognize with symbols and pictures scattered throughout it. He wondered what they were about.

He took one off of the shelf and held the leather-bound book in his hands. It was relatively thick, probably around five hundred or so pages and it had that old book smell that he enjoyed so much. It told of history and age and it was always amazing to him, how long books could last.

He opened the book, looking from page to page and staring at the strange alphabet.

Dizziness hit him with the weight of a train. He stumbled and leaned on the desk to keep from falling over as he stared at the text and letters. They weren't rearranging themselves, that would be a little too out there, but they suddenly made sense. Suddenly, as he read and stared at them, he could understand what it said. They weren't just pretty pictures anymore, but rather letters that made up actual words that he could read, if slowly.

It was amazing and unsettling and strange.

Like nothing he'd ever experienced before.

The knocking on the door dragged him out of his stupor and he remembered that he'd automatically locked it when he entered earlier. He laid the book down on the desk next to a lit candle and unlocked the door before he opened it. The maid was the same one as earlier and she was once again carrying a tray of food, with what this time looked like rice and something more in the weak light. Hopefully, it tasted as good as it looked.

"Thank you," he said to her.

She nodded and glanced into his room as she let go of the tray into his hands. When she saw the open book on the desk, an exasperated look crossed her face. "Are you reading again? You know you are not supposed to read in the late night with candles, it isn't good for your eyes. You're going to need glasses one of these days if you keep this up."

Cale stared at her, startled that she would go on like it was some big burden with a glint of mirth in her dark eyes. And it reminded him of the fact that he did need glasses, but hadn't since he'd woken up here. "Ah, I suppose you're right. The book is just very... fascinating. I couldn't put it down."

"I understand, Young Master, but you know that Madam is very worried about your health." the maid stated.

He nodded and smiled politely at her as he closed the door when she left. He leaned back on it with the tray still in his hands. When she said madam, did she mean this body's mother? For that matter, what did the body's mother even look like? Hell, what was the body's name? What if someone was speaking to him and he didn't realize because they were using a different name? That would kind of be a dead giveaway that something was wrong.

He groaned at the many different worries drowning his mind and carried the tray over to the desk, where he put it down next to the still open book. He stared down at the food for a couple of minutes before he gave in. The last meal hadn't killed him, so chances were this one wasn't going to either. Hopefully.

Probably.

Well, chances were that if he 'died' he would simply wake up in his own body. And that thought gave rise to unsettling suspicions, like was the soul that belonged to this body in his own body? Were they experiencing the same terror and fear that he was? Were they going to ruin his life?!

Damnit. He wasn't cut out for things like this.

This entire scenario was way too dramatic for his likings.

He ate the food on the tray, drank the thankfully cold milk and was grateful that the food fit his tastes. He appeared to be in another era if the lack of technology was any indication and there was no saying what the current popular dishes were. Moreover, some popular ones of the past contained things that were akin to poison and were really not good to eat often.

He needed information. Desperately. About everything.

And he meant everything.

Cale pushed the tray now empty of food out of the way and dragged the book closer together with the candle. It was a good a place to start as any.