Pain wasn’t a feeling. It was a fucking fact.

I woke up face-first in broken glass.

Cold bit into my cheek—tiny shards pressing into soft flesh, sharp enough to let me know I was alive, cruel enough to make me wish I wasn’t. Something thicker—a sliver, long and mean—was wedged just beneath my ribs. My skin throbbed around it like my body already wanted to spit it out.

Glass cracked beneath my collarbone as I shifted. A line of fire tore across my palm—clean, angry. Another laced my forearm, raw and wet. The floor tilted beneath me—not figuratively. Literally. Like the whole goddamn room was on a carousel from hell.

I dragged in a breath. Wet. Shaky. My lungs hesitated like they weren’t sure this body still belonged to me.

I pushed up on shaking elbows. Cold marble met my skin like the inside of a morgue drawer. The surface was slick beneath my hands—blood and something else. Something brown. Syrupy. Spilled tea, maybe. Whatever it was, it reeked—sickly sweet, like rotting flowers and chemicals and too much sugar, all boiled into something foul.

I blinked hard, trying to force the blur into shape.

The room assembled itself in fragments—opulent, excessive, suffocating.

White marble floors. Walls panelled in dark wood, trimmed with enough gold to bribe a bishop. Chandeliers hung like inverted glass coffins, throwing fractured light across velvet curtains that pooled like blood beside windows tall enough to mock the sky. Every inch of it whispered money. Power. Silence.

Every inch screamed: You don’t belong here.

I hated it immediately.

A drop of blood slid down my temple and landed with a polite little plink. Almost embarrassed to interrupt.

What happened?

I searched the dark. Nothing.

No. Not nothing.
No one.
Who the hell am I?

My stomach turned. Cold clenched through my gut.

Think. Think, dammit—

“L-Lady Liliane?”

The voice needled into my spine.

High. Thin. Frightened.

I turned toward it, slow and stiff. My neck creaked like an old door. My eyes burned.

A girl stood frozen near a shattered silver tea tray. Freckles. Pale skin. Hands clenched around her apron like she was praying it might save her. Couldn’t have been more than fifteen. She looked at me the way you look at a dog that might bite—too scared to run, too slow to survive.

Lady Liliane.

The name hit like a taser to the skull.

Liliane Viermont.

Wrong. It didn’t sit right in my head. It didn’t fit. My pulse skipped. My lungs tripped.

Liliane.

Liliane. Liliane. Liliane.

The name coiled down my spine like wire pulled too tight.

I needed something real. Something to ground me.

I made do with my fist.

Crack.

My knuckles slammed into my cheek, just beneath the eye. Pain exploded through the side of my face—blunt, hot, immediate.

The maid gasped. A quick, sharp breath like she thought I’d finally snapped. Like this was the moment I turned from terrifying to lethal.

It worked.

The static cracked.

Dad.
Blood.
My sister’s voice—too small.
The trial.
The sentence.
The chair.
The pod.
The voice.

“You shouldn’t have snooped.”

I gagged on a mouthful of blood and bile. Whatever sweet poison they’d force-fed me was still clinging to the back of my throat like syrup and rot.

I spat. A thick, dark line across white marble. It spread slow—too slow.

Like a warning.

“Fuck.”

The girl squeaked again—sharp and breathy—then added, like it was a line she’d nearly forgotten:

“L-Lady Liliane… are you all right?”

Not concern. Terror. The kind of fear that says she has been whipped for being in the way. The kind that says she’s been punished for less.

I didn’t answer.

My heart was still trying to tear itself out through my ribs. Every inhale scraped down my throat like I’d swallowed razors and called it recovery. I pressed the heel of my palm to my temple, grinding through the static-spike behind my eyes as something deep inside me clicked.

My name is Rein Ashlin.

That thought—that one—felt real. Solid. Like steel driven into sand.

Sentenced. Processed. Injected.

And now dumped into some fragile porcelain body like a broken update forced onto corrupted hardware.

Welcome to your custom-tailored hell, Rein. Population: you.

My gaze locked on the girl still hovering by the wreckage of the tea tray.

Her shoes were soaked with brown liquid. Her hands twisted the fabric of her apron like she wanted to strangle it. Cheeks blotchy, breath shallow, and still not looking at me.

She wouldn’t meet my eyes. Smart girl.

“What happened?” I rasped.

The sound shocked us both.

Wrong. The voice was too low. Too rough. The edge of it grated like broken glass ground down my throat.

The maid jumped like I’d hit her.

“I—I ran into you, my lady. I tripped, I swear, I didn’t mean to—”

Tripped. Sure. And I bet someone gets whipped for that here.

I stared. Just long enough to let it sink in. Long enough to make her sweat.

She shifted on her heels. Her mouth parted like she wanted to explain again—beg again.

I exhaled. Long. Sharp. Drawn out.

“Go and get something to clean this mess up.”

She blinked. Confused. Then even more terrified. “But your wounds, my Lady. We need to clean them.”

I raised an eyebrow—barely.

The kind of motion you practised in a mirror. The kind that made people back down.

“Are you ignoring me?”

She paled. “No, I—I would never. I’m just—”

“I said to clean this up. Now.”

The voice wasn’t mine. It came out cold. Clipped. Drenched in entitlement.

And it scared me.

Not her reaction—mine. How easy it was to step into the part. How natural it felt to command. To snap. To order someone like they were a smudge I wanted scrubbed from the room. 

This isn’t me. Is it? Then why does it feel like muscle memory?

But it worked.

The girl dropped into a bow so fast her forehead nearly hit the floor, then bolted like she’d offended the wrong god. Her footsteps echoed down the corridor—quick, uneven, almost tripping again.

Like she thought I might call her back and punish her for running.

I didn’t stop her.

I had bigger problems.

Getting upright felt like rebooting a corrupted OS with a hammer.

My limbs shook. My legs wobbled like someone had replaced the bones with water and whispered good luck. My shoulders jerked at every shift, each joint coming online with a reluctant twitch—like they’d forgotten what a body was for.

Still—I moved.

I flexed my fingers.

Rolled a shoulder.

Let the body move how it wanted.

And it did.

Too well.

The stance. The posture. The way I shifted my weight—back, not forward. Poised. Calculated. Like I was used to gliding through spaces where appearance was survival, not strength.

This wasn’t just a skin swap.

The simulation had gone deeper. Beneath muscle. Into marrow.

Her instincts threaded through mine like vines through brickwork. Liliane’s spine. Liliane’s hands. Liliane’s poise, baked into the movement of my joints like I’d spent a decade learning how to smile while holding a knife behind my back.

I stumbled out into the corridor, breath shallow, skin still buzzing with the aftershock of memory I couldn’t own.

The air shifted the second I crossed the threshold.

Cooler. Stale. Saturated with lavender and powdered musk—pleasant at first, until it settled into the back of my throat like something embalmed.

Velvet carpet muted my steps. It drank the trail of blood dripping from my elbow like it was hungry for more. The staircase rose ahead—wide and curved, more sculpture than structure. A centrepiece for the rich to descend slowly down, admired.

I reached for the bannister. Mahogany, waxed to a mirror sheen, too smooth to be real. It squeaked under my fingers as I grabbed it. Gold-framed portraits lined the walls. Nobles with too much chin and too little soul. Collars starched to bone-white misery. Their eyes followed me—glassy, unblinking, smug in the way only the long-dead can be.

Opulence, I thought, swallowing the metallic taste rising in my throat. Wrapped in the skin of a horror sim.

And yet…

I knew this place. Too well.

My feet found the stair that creaked. Automatically. No hesitation. My hand brushed the crack in the panel at the top of the landing—the same one I’d never seen before but somehow knew was there.

Left at the corridor.

Third door.

I didn’t think. I just moved.

Opened it without a pause.

Except I shouldn’t have known how. I’d never set foot in this house. Not once. Not ever.

But Liliane had.

And now?

Now her memories were stitched into my nervous system like code into firmware.

The system hadn’t just assigned me a character. It had installed her. Like spyware I couldn’t delete.

I stepped into her bedroom. Into my bedroom.

Soft blue walls gleamed in the candlelight, their silver filigree curling like frost over glass. Paintings of lilies lined the space—too white, too precise. Not a petal out of place. Like someone had painted silence.

A four-poster bed loomed against the wall, veiled in gauze like a body prepared for mourning. At the hearth, twin dragons snarled in frozen mid-lunge, their iron jaws locked around scorched andirons.

Even the air felt artificial. Perfumed with something powdery and faintly floral, clinging to my throat like static.

The stillness wasn’t peace. It was preservation. A museum piece waiting for the exhibit to begin.

Of course it was beautiful. 

The best cages always are.

I didn’t choose to move—but my body did.

Feet gliding over the plush carpet like they’d rehearsed it. Like they’d done it a thousand times, even though I’d never set foot in this place until five minutes ago.

The dressing table waited like it had been expecting me. Gilded. Low. Nestled in the corner like a trapdoor in a stage. The mirror’s frame twisted with golden vines—pretty, if you didn’t look close enough to see the thorns.

I sank into the chair. Slow. Suspicious. Half-expecting it to bite.

The silence pressed in. Thick and close. My breath came short and shallow.

And then I looked.

She looked back.

Liliane Viermont.

Her hair was white. Not platinum. Not blonde. White. The kind that looked unreal even smeared with blood. Crimson streaks clung to one side, drying in lines across her cheek like veins painted in reverse.

Red eyes met mine. Too red. Not warm. Not human. Like someone had carved fresh wounds into porcelain and decided to leave them open.

Her mouth was pale. Split at the corner. Her skin chalk-pale and bloodless, glittering faintly where shards of glass still clung to her arms. She looked like a doll that had been hurled down a staircase on purpose.

Not me.

But she moved when I did. 

I raised a hand. She mirrored it. Perfectly. I pressed two fingers to my face—dragged them from cheek to jawline. My hand left a crimson smear across too-white skin.

My heart stuttered.

I ran my hand back through my hair, fingers trembling. Blood streaked through the white strands like ink spilled in snow. A part of me expected it to vanish—like a game bug, like bad code.

It didn’t.

I stared.

This isn’t just a simulation. I've actually become herr.

I reached for the shard still lodged just below my elbow. My fingers shook as I pulled it free, slow and careful. It came loose with a wet sound, like peeling meat off bone. Blood followed—dark and steady. It dripped down onto the dressing table, trailing across polished wood like ink across a contract.

I let it fall.

Then I laughed. Short. Ugly. Cracked halfway through.

Realism: ten out of ten.
Trauma immersion: chef’s fucking kiss.
Of course they picked this one.

Of all the simulations… they gave me this.

I stared into the mirror. Into her. The villainess no one was supposed to root for. The one who dies in every path. The one they built to bleed for the crowd.

“Liliane Viermont,” I said.

The name burned in my mouth.

Like poison disguised as silk.

Like the first word of a curse I hadn’t finished casting.

Yeah. There’s no crawling out of this one.

Not alive.

I knew her story.

Every forked path. Every trap disguised as choice. Every scream scripted to echo louder than the last.

I’d written them.

Liliane was my masterpiece. My villain. The girl made to bleed for drama and ratings. I thought I was clever—twisting the noose just tight enough that no matter how she ran, it would still catch her throat in the end.

Dozens of deaths. All inevitable. All earned.

She wasn’t built to win.

She was built to break.

And now?

Now I was her.

Now I was the criminal. Meant to suffer. Meant to die. All because I was arrogant enough to build the perfect tragedy. And stupid enough to think I wouldn’t end up inside it.

And now, I’d just woken up in the prologue of my own execution.

My fingers curled tight against the edge of the vanity.

They want me to forget. To sink into the role. To become her.

Because if I do—if I let go of Rein Ashlin, even for a second—I lose.

And losing here isn’t just a bad end.

It’s death.

And I can’t afford to die.

Not until I track down the bastard who killed my father. Not until I get my sister back. Not until I take back everything they stole from me.

So I stared into her eyes. Into mine.

And I swore I’d never forget.

Then—

A chime echoed around my head.

Sharp. Piercing. Like someone snapped a violin string in half and jammed the noise directly into my skull.

WELCOME TO THE VILLAIN REHABILITATION PROGRAM
Identity Confirmed: v.0429
Simulation Persona: LILIANE VIERMONT
Simulation Start Time: 180:00:00

I flinched.

“Oh, hell no,” I muttered, eyes sweeping the room for cameras, lenses—anything. “Nope. No, no, fuck off—”

Light slammed into my eyes. Bright. Blinding. Hot enough to sear. I stumbled back, ankle catching the stool, nearly went down. My shoulder slammed into the dresser. Hard.

The white burned away, replaced by electric blue. Letters sharpened, hovering mid-air.

[VILLAIN REHABILITATION PROGRAM INTERFACE: INITIATING SETUP]