1.1

I let out a loud breath as I stared at the tulle mosquito net overhead. In the middle of a huge bed surrounded by fancy mosquito netting, I was under the piles of covers with a broken body, I was lost. My bed was so big that I couldn't help feeling tiny.

Every part of my body was individually hurt, and the pain I felt was indescribable. What had happened, had I had a big accident and I didn't know about it?

I tried to remember but failed.

And was there no one I could ask and find out?

The fact that I couldn't hear a sound other than my own breaths proved that I was alone. I opened my mouth, but the sound that came out was so hoarse and weak that it did not even reach my own ears. It must have been because my throat was as dry as a desert. I needed a drink of water, but I doubted I could get up and get it.

The condition of my throat was so bad that I had a coughing fit that seemed to never end. My whole body shook as I coughed. I felt pain as if all my bones were breaking again and again, but maybe they were already broken. I did not know and could not make sense of this state.

When my coughing subsided a little, I sat up and my hand went to my ribs involuntarily. I was trying to be careful, but even this little movement was enough to leave me panting and sweating.

When I opened it and took a small glance outwards, I could finally see the room behind the curtain and I stared into the room for a while with my eyebrows raised. The room and all the furniture in the room were quite alien to me as well as the bed I was in.

It was a room with a predominance of white and pink and furnished with expensive antiques. The whole place was full of colourful, colourful and various toys that small children would love to play with. Various porcelain dolls, each dressed in different clothes and with different facial expressions, were around a small carved white table with porcelain cups arranged as if a little girl had just had a tea party with them. Each of them was seated on chairs suitable for their height and arranged side by side.

Crayons in every colour I could think of were scattered in one corner of the large room. There was an oil painting on the easel waiting to be completed, a vase full of flowers painted on the canvas that looked so beautiful that it was indistinguishable from the real thing. As I looked at it, I remembered the oil paintings I had done when I was little.

There was a pink sofa set in front of a fireplace crackling with burning logs. Expensive-looking brocade curtains stretched to the high ceiling. Carved cabinets with high doors overflowing with clothes, a giant full-length mirror, a white piano with a high seat, a violin with broken strings, ornate dollhouses, bookcases with no doubt fairy tale books on the shelves, and many more.

Everything that a girl could imagine and even everything that a girl could not imagine was gathered in a room, so it would be a bit unfair to call it simply a room. But why was I here?

The more I thought, the more questions I had, but I could never find an answer. If I continued to sit on the bed, this situation would not change. I was going to get out of the bed and then out of the room. I was going to find someone and find out from them what was going on. Then... And then...

'Something's weird,' I said to myself. Warning bells were ringing in my head. It was like I had the last piece of a very easy jigsaw puzzle and I was trying to put it in, but it would never fit because it didn't really belong there.

Maybe it was because it was like waking up from a very long dream. My perceptions were just beginning to open.

I brought my hands in front of my eyes and looked at them carefully, examining myself with the curiosity of a newborn baby and wondering how I had not realised until just now.

Why were my hands so small? Not only were they small, but they looked quite different. They had the delicate skin of a small child and the thin fragile bones.

My hands, which didn't seem to belong to me, began to tremble.

They moved around my face with frightened touches and offered me clues that could be the answer to many things, but my mind was telling me that this could not be real, stubbornly refusing to believe.

I grabbed the covers and threw them over me.

The same disbelief continued when my long nightgown, stripped down to my knees, exposed my short, thin legs and small feet, covered with scratches and scars.

Was this some kind of dream?

I wasn't the heroine of a film where you die and are reborn. There was no logical explanation for me being a child again.

I got out of bed and jumped off the bed.

I jumped! I endured the pain I felt by pressing my teeth tightly.

When I tried to stand up, my muscles and bones betrayed me. I was a stranger to my body, I didn't recognise it and didn't know how to use it.

I continued to crawl on the floor, not caring how much my already hurt knees hurt. The mirror on the other side was calling me towards it and all I needed was to look at it.

'I need to see myself,' I thought to myself, but what I wanted did not materialise. When I approached the mirror, I saw not myself but a stranger. The person sitting on the floor and looking straight ahead was not me, but a small little girl. This little girl, dressed in a snow-white nightgown with lace embroidered skirts, was looking into my eyes as bewildered and shaken as I felt.

I denied the concrete reality as much as I could. I watched the reflection in the mirror repeat my movements, and when I ran my hands through my hair, the reflection imitated me with the same robotic movements.

When I brought my hair forward over my shoulder, I saw that I had silvery hair between my fingers, the same colour as the girl in the reflection. They were the kind of fanciful colour that could have been in a fairy tale.

I moved closer to the mirror, touching its cold surface. I kept looking at the little girl without taking my eyes off her. The surprised expression in her innocent eyes was my direct reflection. I examined her more carefully, from her hair to her eyebrows a few shades darker, her blue-grey jewelled eyes, her beauty... She was like an angel fallen from heaven. Her heart-shaped face, her tiny nose, her lips, though discoloured and dry, were still beautiful and full. Her skin looked as white and delicate as sunlight. Looking at her filled one with the urge to protect her.

She was a cute and beautiful girl.

It was unbelievable, but she was me.

The body was not mine, but the soul inside her belonged to me.

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***