1 Chapter 1 — Just Awoken.

"..."

It's still dark. It must be early morning so the sun hasn't risen yet... But... I know this feeling.

Right now, I'm experiencing the frequent sleep paralysis that miraculously hasn't happened since two days ago.

'Great'.

Even though I'm feeling quite desperate after waking up since the last thing I remember is the big flash of light and smell of gasoline from my destroyed car after a truck knocked it off the road...

... Thinking about it... that flash of light must have been the explosion of my car after the accident...

Just perfect. From what I can remember, it's not possible that I'm alive. It would have been more than a miracle.

'So... what is this...?'

Glancing through the place, I got accustomed to the dark and thanks to the little light that came from between a curtain, I could barely see little outlines of furniture here and there. From what I could tell... it wasn't a hospital room.

'I still can't move... this is taking longer than usual...'

I closed my eyes since it was the only part of my body I could move and concentrated on freeing myself from the paralysis. I tried my usual tricks and after a few minutes, I became able to move my body a bit. As always, I felt heavy but that's just normal after freeing myself.

I didn't get up, though.

I stayed lying in the bed and started to feel the bed I was lying on. It was a big bed and very comfortable. My feet weren't on the low edge of the bed, in fact, there were at least twenty centimetres from my feet to the lower edge of the bed.

'This must be a king bed...' — Since I'm tall, usually my feet should be grazing or leaning out of the edge of the bed.

I smiled... or at least I wanted to. But, I noticed my face didn't move an inch to show my smile.

I was still feeling dazed, so I slowly brought my left hand to my face. I tried to frown once I touched it, but the face failed to react.

'This...' — I kept touching, looking for familiar features in my face... but I could tell this was not my original face.

The feel of the skin, the form of the lips, the bone structure of my jaw, the temple of my nose, the long and abundant eyelashes, everything was different...

'This is not my face.'

I broke from my dazed state and sprung up. Sitting on the bed, I brought my other hand to my face.

'I can tell this is not my face. Even if they had to reconstruct it with the surgery, I doubt it would be possible to change it in such an extreme way.'

"Huuuh..." I sighed through my almost closed lips with difficulty.

It was still too dark, so I decided to stay in bed until a little more light came through the gap between the curtain.

'... This is definitely not normal...'

I breathed a long breath and decided to sleep some more.

'What else can I do?' — I laughed inside. — '...I can tell this is not a dream too...'

Even in this situation, I wasn't freaking out. I myself am amazed. Once again, I agreed with my mother. Nothing really fazed me. I am indeed weird, mom. I always told you that I also didn't know what I'm thinking...

'Did I die?...'

If it's like that... did I reincarnate? Like... really?

'Just like in the manhwas and novels I liked to read... hahaha... that would be crazy...'

If it's really like that... Haa... I feel bad. My mom and my brothers will be sad... my family...

'... Sigh...it's fine. I gave them my love as much as I could and I made them laugh lots. So once they cry it all out, they will remember my crazy and funny self and laugh once again...'

Damn...

Let's stop and sleep.

I fell asleep faster than usual. And once I woke up again, I could tell what were the outlines in the dark.

The furniture was quite... it was like a collection of vintage furniture. They were the real deal. It was obvious that they were expensive and the room gave off an air of elegance... I thought of it similar to the one royalty enjoys.

'Hmm~... this is going just like the novels I always read... heh.'

I'm amused.

'Well... this looks promising.'

Again, I wanted to smile. But I did it only on the inside since my face doesn't cooperate.

'...Somehow, it's annoying.' I thought while pinching one of my cheeks.

Not long after, I decided to get up. I was wearing a white... dress? Gown? I don't know. Should be a pyjama. While looking at it someone knocked on the door. As I was intending to answer, no word rolled out from my mouth. My lips almost didn't part.

Seconds later the voice of a woman came from behind the door.

"Miss, I am coming in."

A woman dressed like a maid entered the room. She looked young, she was about twenty, maybe. She had dark brown hair, and a gentle face, she appeared to be a nice girl.

However, My body didn't move, it was frozen. All I was capable of, was blink.

She came inside and started moving around. She took a dress from a near closet, and started taking other clothes that, of what I could tell, were like underwear...

"Miss Marianne, today the Duke wishes to have lunch with all members of the family. I will now help you prepare for the occasion."

My body stiffened on its own after listening her words.

'...the hell?'.

This body is not synchronized with my will at all... why would I react like this from such news?

"..."

'Duke...' — I see.

I nodded my head lightly. And the maid started to do her work.

While she tended to me, I spotted a mirror in a corner of the room.

'Good!' — Once she's done dressing me, I will have to look at the result, therefore, I will finally see how my face looks!

Meanwhile, I noticed that I was taller than the maid as she came closer.

'I guess I'm still tall.'

After dressing me with those difficult to wear clothes, she led me to a fancy chair and started putting makeup on my unknown face.

'... Sigh... When will this end..? I'm already tired...'