The End that gave me a new chance:
I was cold. The kind of cold that seeps into your bones and settles there, making a home in your marrow. In the streets, through many sleepless nights, I shivered against stone walls that held no warmth, only the day's stored chill releasing into the darkness.
I couldn't find a job, no shelter—a runaway from being sold as a slave.
Two days ago, I finally found work at an old lady's flower shop. She was kind, her wrinkled hands gentle as she showed me how to trim the stems, the sweet perfume of roses and lilies almost making me forget the gnawing in my stomach. But they found me. I didn't want to cause her trouble, so I ended up running away again.
Hunger gnawed at my insides, a hollow ache that twisted into knots. Anger burned in my chest like a hot coal. Why? What did I do to deserve this?
Distant voices echoed through the narrow alley: "There she is! Catch her!"
"That thief Count Rovaan's daughter. That slave!"
They'd found me again, just like always.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I'd run too many times, hidden in too many alleys. Every path I took ended the same way—with them behind me, shouting my name like a curse. There was nowhere left to go.
Then I heard his voice.
"Whoever brings her in can have 500 gold pieces. Catch her."
His cold voice—sharp as a blade's edge, cutting through the night air. It's him. The one who was supposed to marry me before my father's crimes came to light. Before I became property. Before everything fell apart.
I just wanted to live in peace. Instead, God gave me a life no one would wish for, not even for their enemies.
I am the villainess of the story I wrote myself. Back in my old world, I only wrote the romance between the main leads, Sara and the Crown Prince, and the love triangle it caused. A simple story. A predictable one. But I never knew that transmigrating into it would create conflicts I never intended, consequences I never imagined.
When I first opened my eyes in this world five years ago, I was seventeen—inhabiting the body of the villainess at the height of her crimes. The original owner had already ruined lives, destroyed reputations, schemed against the heroine. And I inherited all of it. Every sin. Every enemy. Every piece of hatred directed at a girl whose body I wore but whose actions I never committed.
Count Rovaan—my father in this world—was exposed for embezzlement and treason two years ago. The family fell. I fell with it. From a Count's daughter to a slave in the span of just three years.
And he—my former fiancé, Duke Kael Arvendir—bought me. Not out of mercy. Out of revenge.
Now he will definitely kill me after I tried to run away. He did it with other slaves before. I saw it with my own eyes—the light leaving them, their final gasps rattling in their throats, his cold expression never changing.
I didn't run this time. The exhaustion wasn't just physical—it was soul-deep, the kind that comes from fighting and fighting until there's nothing left. My legs trembled, muscles screaming. My lungs burned with each ragged breath, the cold air like shards of glass. This was the fourth time I'd been caught and chased.
I never settled for more than two days anywhere. They always found me sooner. He would never let me go. Never more than two days of peace.
Then what's the point? I might as well accept my fate.
I stood there, hands dropped at my sides, looking at the sky while they closed in. It was dark, a moonless expanse dotted with indifferent stars. Just like my life—it was now going to end like this. This wasn't giving up. It was running out of fight. Surrender—the only mercy left.
I always knew, from the start. Five years of my life here. I was going to end up dead at his hands.
"I thought at least now you would understand the pain of others and become a good person. But instead of atonement, you're running away? Then go... far away where I don't have to see you. So I can finally forget you."
That was the last thing I heard from him. His words hung in the air, bitter and confusing. What did that even mean? What pain? What atonement? I didn't do any of those things the original villainess did!
But he would never believe me. Just like before.
*Zinnnggg—*
A metallic sound, sharp and final. A sword being drawn? My life flashed before my eyes—fragments of memories like shattered glass. Two lives. Two worlds. Both ending in misery.
I was falling. The world tilted sideways. Cobblestones rushed up to meet me. No... My head...
Warm liquid, sticky and copper-tasting, flooded my mouth. I couldn't feel my body. Couldn't speak. The ringing... from that sound, that sudden impact—an explosion of white-hot agony in my skull, then spreading, dulling, fading into numbness...
*Beeeeeeeeppp...*
A long, monotonous drone. Then... nothing. Darkness. Silence. The absence of cold, of pain, of everything.
***
My eyes burst open.
Soft. The surface beneath me was soft—impossibly, luxuriously soft. Silk sheets whispered against my skin, cool and smooth. The scent of lavender filled my lungs.
Was that... a nightmare?
But the copper taste still lingered on my tongue. The phantom pain still echoed in my skull.
A sudden chill ran through me—not the bone-deep cold of the streets, but something else. Fear. Confusion. Recognition.
My heart hammered against my ribs, each beat a thunderous drum.
I lifted my hands, staring at them in the dim light. Clean. Small. Unmarred by the cuts and calluses from running, from sleeping on rough stone, from five years of hell. My fingers trembled as I touched my face. Smooth skin. Full cheeks. No hollow hunger. No bruises.
A strangled sound escaped my throat—half sob, half disbelieving laugh.
This can't be real.
I pushed myself up, the silk sheets sliding off my body. The room swam before my eyes. I blinked, trying to focus.
This room...
The window curtains hung slightly open, a gap no wider than my palm. Early morning light slipped through—pale gold and hesitant, painting everything in soft hues. Dust motes danced lazily in the beam, suspended in still air.
I knew this room. The ornate wardrobe with carved roses stood against the far wall. The vanity with its brass-framed mirror sat to the left of the bed. The pale blue wallpaper with delicate silver filigree. The plush carpet in deep burgundy.
But something was off. The furniture looked newer. The carpet showed no worn paths. Even the air smelled different—fresher, cleaner, without years of accumulated mustiness.
My breath caught.
This was my room. The room I woke up in five years ago when I first transmigrated into this world.
No. Not just that room.
This was the room from *before*. Before Count Rovaan's fall. Before I became a slave. Before everything went to hell.
"Marie?" I called out, my voice cracking.
The sound that came out was wrong. Too high. Too young.
No one came.
The silence pressed against my ears, thick and expectant. Marie—my maid—should have been here. She always came when the young miss called. At least, she used to. Before the Count's arrest. Before the servants fled. Before there was no one left.
My head swam. What's happening?
I looked down at myself properly for the first time. My hands splayed across the silk sheets. Small hands. A child's hands. Delicate fingers, soft and uncallused. My arms were thin, lacking any muscle definition. The nightgown I wore—white silk with lace trim—hung loose on a frame that seemed impossibly small.
Like that of a child. No, not a child. An early adolescent.
My chest tightened. Disbelief and something like desperate hope crashed through me in equal measure.
This can't be real. People don't just... come back. They don't get second chances. Not in the real world. Not even in a story world.
And yet.
I had to know.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed. The moment my feet touched the carpet, my legs wobbled. I grabbed the bedpost to steady myself. Everything felt wrong—the proportions, the weight, the way my center of gravity had shifted. This body was smaller, lighter, weaker than what I'd grown accustomed to.
The furniture loomed larger than I remembered. The bed seemed enormous behind me. Had it always been this big? Or had I simply been this small?
My heart thundered in my chest as I stumbled toward the mirror.
Each step was uncertain, like learning to walk all over again. My bare feet sank into plush carpet—such a stark contrast to the cold, hard stones I'd grown accustomed to over five years of running and hiding.
The brass-framed mirror gleamed in the morning light, ornate and expensive. A luxury I'd forgotten existed.
I stood before it, trembling.
What stared back at me stole the breath from my lungs.
A young girl. Twelve, maybe thirteen at most.
Beautiful in the way children are beautiful—with full, rosy cheeks that held the roundness of youth. Eyes the color of a summer sky—bright, clear blue, unclouded by pain or fear or years of suffering. And hair... hair as red as blood. Crimson red, cascading over small shoulders in thick, glossy waves that caught the light like liquid rubies.
This face. I knew this face.
But not like this. Not this young. Not with these round, innocent features unmarked by hardship. No hollowness beneath the cheekbones. No dark circles shadowing those blue eyes. No thin, chapped lips. No sallow, malnourished complexion.
This was the face of a well-fed noble's daughter. Pampered. Protected. Privileged.
This was the original villainess. Before she committed her crimes. Before she destroyed lives. Before she became the monster everyone feared and hated.
When I first opened my eyes in this world, this body had been seventeen. The villainess had already done terrible things by then—ruined the heroine Sara's reputation, orchestrated accidents that nearly killed her, manipulated the Crown Prince, destroyed innocent families to consolidate power.
I inherited the consequences of all of it. Five years of hell followed. Five years of watching everything crumble. Five years of being blamed for sins I didn't commit, suffering for crimes this body's original owner had perpetrated.
And it ended with my death at twenty-two, alone in a cold alley, with my former fiancé's words ringing in my ears.
But now...
I pressed trembling fingers against the cool glass, watching the reflection mirror my movements exactly. The surface was cold, sending a shiver up my arm.
Now... I'm back. But when? How far back?
The question hung in my mind, dizzying and disorienting. The numbers wouldn't align properly—my thoughts felt fractured, scattered like puzzle pieces I couldn't fit together.
This is the beginning. The very beginning of the story I wrote.
No. No, that's impossible.
My knees buckled. I grabbed the edge of the vanity to keep from collapsing, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps. The room spun around me, the golden morning light blurring into streaks.
I died. I *felt* it. The cold spreading through my limbs. The darkness swallowing me whole. The ringing in my ears fading to nothing. The taste of copper—still lingering even now. The final, empty silence.
I died!
My chest heaved. Panic clawed up my throat, hot and suffocating. The air felt too thick to breathe. The whiplash of emotions crashed over me—from numb acceptance, from surrender being the only mercy left, to suddenly being thrust back into a body, a life, a chance I never asked for.
"This is just another nightmare," I whispered to the reflection, my voice hoarse and trembling. "I'll wake up. I'll wake up on those cold streets again, or in some dark alley, or—"
But the girl in the mirror looked so solid. So real. Her lips moved exactly with mine. Her eyes—my eyes—were wide with shock, glassy with unshed tears that caught the light like tiny prisms.
I pinched my arm. Hard.
The sharp sting made me wince. A red mark bloomed on pale skin.
Pain. Real, immediate pain.
The dead don't feel pain.
A choked sound escaped my throat—something between a laugh and a sob. My hands flew to my face, touching the smooth skin, the warm cheeks, the wetness of tears now streaming down freely.
Real. All of it was real.
My legs finally gave out.
I sank to the floor, my back sliding against the vanity until I sat with knees drawn up, the wood hard and unyielding against my spine. I wrapped my arms around myself, staring at nothing, my vision blurred with tears I couldn't stop.
Back. I'm back.
But I don't know when. I don't know how far. I don't know if this is before the original villainess commits her worst crimes, or if some have already happened.
How? Why? What kind of miracle or curse was this?
My mind spun, trying to grasp it, trying to understand. But understanding felt impossible. Logic didn't apply here. This shouldn't exist. Couldn't exist.
And yet here I was.
Alive.
Breathing.
Given a second chance I never asked for, never expected, never thought possible.
All I could do was sit there on the plush carpet, trembling, as morning sunlight continued to stream through the window—warm on my skin, gentle and indifferent to the impossibility of it all.
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