CHAPTER 1: Woke up in another body
“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]
