“...Leonhardt and Sophie held hands and together they watched the sun setting in the faraway horizon. Tranquil was something they had been yearning for after the chaotic battle. It seemed that it would last longer than before. THE END.”

Almost reflexively, her gaze averted to the top right corner of her smartphone. 5:29am. 

‘No way!’ she muttered to herself in disbelief. 

There was a meeting scheduled tomorrow morning and she would be the first presenter. If she didn’t get enough sleep, there would be hideous bags under her eyes that would put any concealers to shame for their inability to cover them.

She had picked up the novel a few days ago, and for some reason decided to continue reading them that night—the night where she needed the most sleep for an important presentation. Very clever of her. Despite knowing being depressed about it wouldn’t make anything better, she couldn’t help but to let out a stressed sigh. 

Her fluffy lilac-coloured blanket she bought online years ago had fallen off the bed as she had kicked them while she read and shifted around on the bed. She reached out her hand for them, resting her cheek on the edge of the bed.

Click.

Her hand ceased moving; her fingers remained stretched out, inches away from the blanket. She swore she heard a faint click. Like the kind of click she would hear whenever she opened the… front door.

Heart pounding and eyes wide, she sat up and darted her eyes over the room nervously, as if waiting for someone to spring up and surprise her with a creepy clown attire. She lived alone in a medium-cost apartment, so it couldn’t have been her relatives or friends—if anyone wasn’t insane enough to barge into one’s house at five in the morning. But for a moment, there was a complete silence; no footsteps, no whatever.

Her paranoia soon left her anxiety-filled mind and she brushed it off with a vehement shake of her head, convincing herself that it was her neighbour. She turned on the bed, legs touching the floor and bent to pick up her blanket. 

Then, a pair of legs came into view.

She froze, chest still touching her knees. This can’t be… 

She wanted to scream at the sight of the intruder, but her brain seemed to give up functioning altogether.

‘Get up.’

A man’s voice. Two words of command. 

She gulped and slowly straightened her back. Naturally, her eyes travelled to the man standing before her. Clad in an all-black outfit, the intruder also wore a black face mask. His forehead was wet with sweat and some strands of hair were stuck against it.

He was a total stranger, so it couldn’t have been a case of revenge. His feet were bare and bruised; it appeared as if he had walked a long distance on a tarred road with no shoes on. There were black stains trailing from his feet on the floor of her bedroom.

The man took three large strides and soon his abdomen was only an inch away from her stiffened, frightened face. She closed her eyes tight and clamped her mouth shut, dreading what may come. 

‘I-If you want to do anything to me… just kill me afterwards.’

Somehow, she had stuttered those words out of fear, with a shaky breath. She thought she wouldn’t be able to live with the shame and humiliation if anything happened to her, so she was already preparing for the worst. Her knuckles had turned pale white as she gripped her bedsheet tightly.

The man looked startled at her words, but soon regained his composure and reached into his jacket’s inside pocket. 

When there was no noise or reaction from the intruder, her eyelids fluttered open and they went wide as she finally saw the dagger in his hand. A dagger? Who would be using a dagger in this century?

The man frowned and grabbed the collar of her pyjamas. She initially had been calm, but her survival instincts suddenly kicked in. She tried to dash away, kicking her legs like she was being drowned in the water. At first, the man was taken aback at her abrupt flounder, but he quickly grabbed her ankle. She fell to the floor, elbows-first, with a loud thud. 

It hurt like hell but she was desperate to escape. Her vocal cords burned as she screamed her lungs out and her fingernails bent and broke as she miserably scratched the tiled floor to no avail. The man somehow flipped her over so she would lay on her back and he sat on her torso before positioning his knees to lock her forearms, stopping her from struggling.

By then, she was a crying mess. Her eyes were red with terror, and her face was soaked with salty tears. She bit her lower lip in an attempt to suppress her growing trepidation. A devastated yell echoed in her aching head. I don’t want to die…!

‘N-No, please!’ she rasped. ‘I have money! Just take what you need and leave me!’

Her pleas turned to sobs and her breath hitched when the man placed the tip of the dagger at her sternum. It forced her to stop moving or the sharp weapon would graze her chest.

‘Please…’ she begged through snuffles and hiccups.

Then, to her surprise, the man shed tears. He was gripping the handle of the dagger with his two hands like his life depended on it. Beneath the face mask, he gritted his teeth but he couldn’t stop the tears drenching his cheeks.

A sudden wave of fury filled her. Why was he crying? She was the one on the verge of death! But the vexation was immediately replaced with an immense sense of pain. 

The man had plunged the dagger into her chest.

An anguish scream rattled his eardrums, and he closed his eyes as he pushed the dagger further in. Blood spurted out and stained her grey-coloured pyjamas. She convulsed for a long minute before laying still.

His hands, his trousers, and the floor had all been soaked red.

The last thing the dying maiden heard was a mournful sigh and she met her demise.

***

‘Luna! Luna!’

‘AH!’

Her eyes sprang open like a bomb that went off from a timer. Her chest heaved up and down with every quivery breath she took, and it felt tight. She could unerringly recall the excruciating pain from the sharp blade of the dagger that was rammed into her sternum.

Her face was wet with sweat and her gaping mouth was dry. 

‘Luna?’

A voice laced with worry reached her. She turned her head to her right. A man with red hair and golden eyes that seemed to twinkle was staring at her—face taut with concern. 

Can’t be a doctor… she thought. Too much of a punk.

She began assessing her surroundings. The queen bed she was lying on definitely wasn’t a property of a hospital or her bedroom, the translucent greyish blue canopy above her head only confirmed her suspicion that she was in an entirely unfamiliar place. The room seemed to stretch beyond her vision but she was too exhausted to raise her head to see.

So she questioned the only person in the room. ‘Who are you?’ she breathed.

‘Huh?’ A confused noise escaped his lips even before he got the time to properly react. His eyes had widened a little but then his gentle expression returned instantly. He was good at masking his emotions. ‘You don’t remember?’ he asked.

‘Where is this?’

‘You’re in your room, Luna,’ he replied patiently.

‘My room? No…’

Huh? She was suddenly aware of the different voice she was hearing whenever she spoke. And her mind reminded her of another strange word coming out of the man’s mouth.

‘Luna?’ she questioned.

He nodded and reached out to grasp her hand in his warm one. ‘Luna Eir Seraphinus,’ he said.

Something in her mind ticked. It sounded oddly familiar.

‘The Primaeval Magician of Sirius,’ he added.

Yep. I’ve gone crazy, she thought. Magicians? A dubious laugh she blurted out and she touched her forehead with her free hand. What is going on here?

‘His Majesty has been informed of your rousing,’ he said. ‘And it is only a matter of seconds until he summons you to the Great Hall.’

Her head was throbbing in perplexity and it was full of questions, but she could only manage a blink. 

‘I felt your magic slipping away as you recuperated after being treated—’

‘Stop! Stop!’ she interjected urgently with a raised voice. The man did as he was told and waited as she propped herself up. ‘I must have hit my head real hard,’ she said, massaging her temple. ‘What the hell are you talking about? What magic? His Majesty?? Are you insane? Or am I schizophrenic?’

His golden irises shook as he stared at her. It held myriads of expressions but she was able to identify some of them. Grief. Pity. Desperation.

She couldn’t understand. But a certain excerpt emerged from the back of her head. She didn’t know why she had thought of it at all; it didn’t make sense.

“Lucilius Yves Theodore. A bloodthirsty emperor, with dark desires, who never batted an eye to any cruelty. Once stood by his side was a magician, Luna Eir Seraphinus, dubbed as the greatest of the century, born from the Seraphinus. She was then beheaded for the crime of losing her magic through a bandit attack. No one knew how it happened, and the emperor never cared to uncover the truth of the incident. He had fed her head to the hungry, ferocious beasts he kept within his dungeons and hanged the rest of her body in the forest until it rotted and was consumed by wild predators.”

No, it can’t be, she thought. 

After all, fictions are fictions. There was no way it could have happened to her. 

Did I… transmigrate?