Isekai Fever is a Real Thing

-Natalia

Waking to the sight of Morgan this morning was a profound relief. My partner-in-crime was back, and the hollow ache of her absence finally subsided. Better still was the knowledge that her presence signified a tangible path out of Viktor’s fortress. Escape from this place meant a chance to find our way home—a chance to see my parents again, to see everyone again. The thought was a solitary sunbeam piercing through the oppressive gloom.

When Morgan escorted me to Viktor’s study later that morning, I recognized the gesture for what it was. To a naive observer, it might have appeared to be a display of trust. I, however, saw the truth with perfect clarity: it was a test. In the coming days, I knew Morgan and I would be under intense scrutiny.

Every casual word we exchanged about our school days felt freighted with meaning. As we walked, I could feel unseen eyes tracking our path, hear the ghost of a footfall shadowing our steps, and sense hidden ears straining to capture every syllable. We were, without a doubt, being evaluated.

The guards swung the heavy doors to the study open for us, and I stepped inside. To my surprise, Morgan did not follow. She must have been forbidden from entering. The moment I crossed the threshold, my eyes landed on Viktor. My stomach immediately soured at the sight of a small, self-satisfied smirk playing on his lips. He was pleased, no doubt, that we hadn’t bolted at the first opportunity. A raw urge to wipe that expression from his face surged through me. I’ll show you, I thought. But I held my tongue. Patience, Natalia, I told myself. Patience.

I stood by his desk, waiting for him to produce the familiar, detestable shackle for my ankle, but he made no move to do so. “Well?” I finally prompted, my patience wearing thin. His smirk only widened, and I had to physically restrain myself from slapping it off his infuriating face.

“Well?” he echoed mockingly.

“Aren’t you going to chain me up?”

“I wasn’t aware you took such pleasure in being shackled,” he murmured. He was a complete and utter jerk. An infuriating, insufferable—argh!

“No,” I replied, my voice dripping with ice. He let out a low, grating laugh. Fuming, I stalked across the room to the couch and flung myself onto it, a small act of defiance. It was a novelty; the short length of the chain had always confined me to the chair beside his desk.

After five minutes of listening to the monotonous scratch of his quill on parchment, boredom began to set in. I rolled onto my stomach, my gaze drifting over the spines of the books lining the walls. They appeared to be handwritten volumes, each one bound in leather. Hadn’t they invented the printing press yet?

None of the titles were familiar. As I finally rose to inspect a particularly interesting-looking tome, Viktor spoke.

“You can read?” The astonishment in his tone was unmistakable.

“Can’t everyone?” I retorted, pulling the book from the shelf. His ensuing silence was answer enough. I supposed it made sense, given there seemed to be no formal system of education here.

Mr. Psycho was clearly skeptical. As I settled back on the couch and began to read, his gaze kept flicking toward me, as if he expected me to tire of staring at meaningless squiggles and thus prove him right. Too bad for him, you can’t prove someone right when they’re wrong. I immersed myself in the text, which revealed itself to be a chronicle of this world's history.

Within the first few pages, a staggering revelation struck me. I had not, as I'd suspected, traveled back in time. According to this text, I was in another dimension entirely. The knowledge was terrifyingly enlightening, though I had no idea if it helped or hindered my chances of getting home.

The rest of the day passed in that strange tableau: me, lost in the history of a foreign world, and Jerkface, scratching away at his paperwork. The one small pleasure was that when it was time to leave, he had Morgan escort me back to my room instead of doing it himself. It was a concession I would never grant him the satisfaction of knowing I appreciated.

I woke the next morning feeling feverish and exhausted, a leaden sluggishness weighing down my limbs. When Morgan appeared at my bedside, the last thing I wanted was to move.

The cool back of her hand on my forehead was a relief. “You’re burning up, sickling,” she murmured. I rolled my eyes at the familiar nickname. I would concede that I had a tendency toward illness, but still.

“No, really?” I mumbled, my voice thick and blurry. “Thank you, Captain Obvious.” Why couldn’t she just let me be? All I wanted was to fall back asleep.

“I’m going to tell Markus. I’ll be back with some water.”

For the next two days, I drifted in and out of consciousness. I have a vague impression of Morgan forcing water past my lips. I think I recall the sound of her and someone named Isaak arguing fiercely about putting leeches on me. Then again, I also have a fleeting memory of Santa Claus singing “Yankee Doodle,” so my recollections from that time are hardly reliable.

When the fever finally broke and the world swam back into sharp focus, Morgan was sitting by my bed. Her first words were not of comfort, but of conspiracy. She offered no platitudes, only a quiet, resolute reminder: at the end of the month, our flight to freedom would begin.