“My surroundings... there was nothing but darkness. I wondered if I had passed away. I couldn't feel my body.”

~

When I opened my eyes, I stared at the grand white ceiling before slowly sitting up.

A dull headache throbbed behind my eyes as I pressed a palm to my forehead.

I had a strange dream, just endless darkness.

The room I woke in felt unfamiliar... and yet somehow…so familiar.

Lukewarm sunlight filtered softly through the curtains. It warmed my skin.

“What is this feeling?” I murmured to myself.

I turned to look out the window beside my bed.

A sprawling city stretched before me, its towering buildings swallowed by nature.

My breath caught.

A knock on the door snapped me out of it.

“Miss, please get ready for school.”

I blinked at the door, unsure of how to respond.

“…Alright,” I said at last, my voice slightly hoarse.

The footsteps faded. Slowly, I turned away from the window.

The room, though pristine, felt like a museum—quiet, untouched.

My fingers grazed the silk sheets, the polished drawer handles, the delicate lace curtains. I knew this place. I didn’t know this place. Both were true somehow.

Was this my house?

I didn’t remember falling asleep here.

The uniform laid out for me looked expensive, too neat.

As I buttoned the top, my eyes caught a small golden pin on the collar, an unfamiliar symbol shaped like a rune.

“Huh…”

I ran my fingers over it.

Was this part of my school’s uniform?

My thoughts twisted again. I stared at the mirror.

“What if…”

“The real owner of this body died in her sleep and my soul just… slipped in?”

“That sounds stupid,” I muttered, but I still half-meant it.

The mirror didn’t smile back.

~

Downstairs, the scent of eggs, coffee, and toasted bread greeted me. So normal it almost made me flinch.

The dining room was spacious and cold, like a hotel.

At the long end of the table sat two men: one in a sharply pressed military uniform, the other in a suit already flipping through data from his watch screen. Neither of them looked surprised to see me.

I paused at the door.

“Good morning,” I said, quietly.

“Morning,” my brother replied. A simple nod from our father followed.

“Your school starts today,” Father said. “There’s a car waiting.”

“Try not to be late,” added my brother, not looking up.

“Of course.”

We didn’t talk much beyond that.

We never really did.

For some reason I just know who they are.

I sat down. Cut my eggs. Ate quietly.

They didn’t know I had woken up feeling like someone else.

They didn’t know that the moment I stared into the mirror this morning, I had to convince myself the reflection was really me.

But something about the ease of this silence… made me feel even more disconnected. Like I was stepping into a life someone else left behind.

Half an hour later, I stepped into the waiting black car.

The chauffeur greeted me like normal.

The ride to school was smooth, almost eerily so. Outside the windows, sleek buildings stood entwined with hanging gardens and light-powered rails.

We passed statues made from polished glass and wind panels, and green-tinted towers with floating balconies—like a fantasy city pulled straight from my dreams.

Or were my dreams pulled from this city?

The academy gates rose high before me. Gleaming metal and glass, laced with ivy.

Dozens of students arrived in luxury vehicles, dressed in the same uniform, though I noticed something strange.

Each student had a pin like mine… but not all were the same.

Each had different symbols and some are the same. Most had silver and white. A few had green like a four leaf clover.

I looked down again at mine, puzzled.

“What does this even mean…?”

Inside, the academy looked more like a museum or a government complex. White marble floors. Ceiling gardens. Floating screens displaying the latest achievements of student groups.

As she passed by groups of students, conversations halted. Eyes followed her, yet no one dared to meet her gaze. A path cleared wherever she walked, a quiet, invisible barrier of reverence or fear.

“Strange,” she murmured. “Feels like royalty walking through peasants.”

I glanced around at the hallway signs, then checked the time on my ID screen.

Still early. Enough time before homeroom.

I opened the school’s map from the display panel and traced my finger across the building layout.

Library… here.

It wasn’t curiosity alone. It was need.

Something felt wrong, offbeat. Not just the dream.

The scar I couldn’t remember getting. The strange pin. The deja vu every time I stepped into a room.

I wanted to know what this school was.

What kind of city this really was.

And maybe, just maybe…

What kind of life I had apparently lived before waking up here.

[End of chapter 1]

When I stepped into the classroom, it was too quiet for a room filled with people.

Rows of desks were already taken, each student seated with perfect posture, some reading holographic textbooks, others chatting softly in polished tones.

I took a seat by the window, second row from the back.

Eyes followed me. They didn’t speak, but I felt their calculations. Like they were checking a database in their head.

“Who's that girl?”

“Oh, she's new.”

“Must be Fehu.”

That last word caught my attention, even though I had no clue what it meant.

Just then, someone slid into the seat beside me like she’d been doing it for years.

“Yo. You look like you just woke up in a new world.”

A girl, confident stride and messy blonde hair. She looked like a gangster, but not the type to start fights more like the one who’d break them up and then light a cigarette in the ruins, dropped into the seat beside Hera.

“I’m Paloma Leventis. You?” the girl asked, tilting her head. Her accent was warm, a little lazy.

“Hera,” I replied slowly. “Hera Albrecht.”

“Ahh,” she nodded. “Albrecht. That explains the gold.”

She gestured to my pin.

“This gold pin that looks like an f means Fehu, top of the pyramid. You're rich rich, huh?”

“Mine’s gold too, royalty peeps.”

So that was it.

Before I could ask more, the classroom shifted.

The door opened, and the air changed like someone had cracked a window to a storm.

He walked in.

Black hair. Tall frame. Sharp features. He wore the same uniform but managed to make it look like custom tailoring. His gold pin gleamed against his collar like it belonged to royalty.

Some students sat straighter. Others lowered their eyes.

He didn’t spare a glance at anyone, just walked to the last row and took a seat near the window.

I knew his face.

Not from memory, but something deeper.

The moment our eyes met, just briefly, it felt like my stomach dropped off a ledge.

Like I’d seen him in a dream before.

“That’s Lev Belyaev,” Paloma whispered. “Good looking bastard right?”

I didn’t say anything. But I felt the pin at my collar again, cold and unfamiliar.

Later, during our break, I slipped away.

The library was quiet and massive, three stories tall, with sunbeams pouring through the green-glass dome.

Digital catalogs hovered in the air, awaiting commands.

I typed in "school rankings" and "Fehu".

School Rankings: Determined by wealth, bloodline, political influence, and legacy impact.

Fehu: The top social and academic ranking of students at Sol Invictus Academy. Reserved for the twenty most influential heirs and heiresses from around the globe.

Wearing the Fehu pin grants access to restricted parts of the academy, including executive lounges, private study domes, and first-tier internships.

Gold: Fehu legacy

Silver: Fehu standard.

Cornucopia (silver): Second to the top. Half of the student population belongs to the cornucopia branch.

The Dove and Olive Branch (White): Here belongs the normal students, in between rich and poverty.

4 Clove (Green): Only the scholars wear these pins.

So this wasn’t just some school club ranking. This was a caste system.

My family name had brought me into this top layer… and yet, it still felt like I didn’t belong.

“Who even am I?”

The words slipped out before I could stop them.

I tapped into other records city news logs, old student rosters, alumni databases. Some access was locked.

But I found old images of Fehu students, including ones from years ago.

And that’s when I saw it, my name.

Hera Albrecht. Listed under "Fehu Transfer - Term XXIII".

And next to it:

“Previously enrolled at Aurea International (abroad), repatriated after recovery.”

“So I really did study abroad… then came back after…?”

But that’s where the public record stopped. No accident logs. No news.

Like it had all been cleaned up.

As I leaned back in the library booth, one phrase repeated in my head:

“The real Hera might have died.”

And now I’m wearing her face.

I let out a shaky breath and rested my head against the cool table.

Then I looked down at the golden Fehu pin, reflecting the library’s light.

“Who were you before the darkness?”

[End of Chapter 2]

The library was quieter in the afternoon. Students milled in and out like shadows, murmuring at the catalog stations, their screens glowing faintly under the stained glass dome.

I had no plan—just a thread of curiosity, taut and humming.

Lev Belyaev.

His name echoed in my head from the moment our eyes met this morning. There was something… wrong about the familiarity.

Not just because he was handsome or intimidating.

Not just because he made the classroom air feel heavier.

But because I felt like I had seen him before.

In that darkness.

I sat down at one of the library terminals. My fingers hesitated above the keys. Then I typed in his name.

“Lev Belyaev - Sol Invictus Academy - Fehu Gold”

Dozens of records popped up—student awards, achievements, speaking engagements, charity projects.

One of the youngest recipients of the Helios Medal. Photographed alongside world leaders and at intercontinental climate summits.

Helios Medal, I repeated silently. That was awarded to youth leaders in sustainable technology. No ordinary student could qualify.

No ordinary family could raise someone like that.

He was practically royalty.

But what caught my attention wasn’t the accolades—it was a single attached image file buried deep under old yearbook metadata.

A photo. Blurry. Slightly faded.

Two children, standing side by side in front of a sprawling glass conservatory.

The girl wore a white sundress and had pale hair, with a soft smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

The boy beside her stood taller, a little stiff in a black formal vest. His expression is unreadable, even back then.

My throat dried.

That girl…

That was me.

Before I could stop myself, I clicked the tag.

“Event: Winter Gala - Year XX - Families: Belyaev & Albrecht”

I leaned back slowly, as if distance would help me process.

We knew each other.

Not just in passing. Not just from school.

Our families were close enough to attend formal galas together. So why didn’t I remember?

I stared at the image again. The young me. The young Lev.

Both looking like little aristocrats trapped in a moment too mature for their age.

The screen dimmed slightly. I tapped it back to life, but the silence now felt colder.

My reflection stared back faintly from the black interface.

Same pale hair. Same red eyes. Same face.

But who was I, really?

Before I could fall deeper into thought, I heard a chair shift nearby. I quickly exited the file.

Paloma leaned over the divider.

“Woah, you’ve been here forever,” she said with a grin. “Studying or stalking?”

I blinked. “Neither. Just… digging.”

She waved it off. “Come on, new girl. It’s break. You need sunlight or you’ll start turning transparent.”

I hesitated for a second, then stood.

But my eyes couldn’t help drifting back to the monitor.

Even now, I could still see the ghost of that photo.

That girl with the same face as mine.

Smiling like she had no idea she’d vanish one day.

[End of chapter 3]