Please god, heavens, whoever’s above, save me

That was until that very night.

The scene of the drunken Laton sneaking in her room and jumping on her was played.

She wasn’t prepared. Normal days inside the castle were always like this and on such a normal day the original Ira had faced such an ordeal and now Mirae was being given the same fate.

Just like the original character, she fought hard using both teeth and nails and then she escaped from Laton only to be cornered yet again in a dark corridor. At that time she saw a glimpse of Arnon hiding nearby and her heart stopped. Everything was following what she’d written. A horrifying feeling came upon her and she struggled fiercely. What if she lost her virtue to this uncouth man and then committed suicide following her novel’s plot. Would she die here? Would she go back to her room, to find herself at her desk? She wasn’t about to leave the matter of her life and death to uncertainty.

“I am the creator of this world. I can’t succumb to my own novel’s plot. I will never.”, she somehow tripped Laton and escaped

She hid herself inside the kitchen, in a wooden box used to store coal. She was terrified. Her whole body had turned cold and rigid. She wrapped her hands around her body, closed her eyes and had her ears on super alert. She stayed tense and nervous the whole night. Her eyes were red from not catching a wink the whole night. Her face, her neck, her feet and her night dress, everything was smeared with the black color from the coal. Her hair was disheveled and her eyes were lined red.

“Am I going to die? Please god, heavens, whoever’s above, save me. I should breathe quietly lest Laton hears me. I am so sorry Ira. You had to go through this. I never thought this would become real, only if I knew….”, her thoughts go all over the place as she feels terrified of the worst that could have happened

The first person to encounter her was her grandmother who’d rushed to the kitchen upon not finding her in her room. Along the way she’d heard servants talking about how they’d find a woman’s body from the old abandoned water well behind the castle. Saying that she’d likely committed suicide after being molested. Shisha’s sweat covered forehead and anxious expression could be seen in the surrounding people’s eyes as she rushed towards the kitchen only to find Mirae inside the charcoal storing box. She’d only thought of opening the box as she’d seen tons of charcoal fallen on the floor and a little shaking from the box.

Shisha hugged Mirae as she thanked the heavens that she was safe and sound. She asked Mirae what had happened to her, how had she ended up there and if she’d known that a female corpse was found in the well. Mirae’s pupils dilate as she jolts back to reality.

“For now, my child, let’s go to my room. Tell me everything once we get rid of that filth on you.”

Mirae nods and before anyone could see her current state they quickly head back to the room. The corridors were silent as all of them had gone towards the well now that the body had been taken out of the well and the face was that of a newly appointed servant.

After washing up, Ira tells her grandmother everything. Unlike how she’d portrayed her original character of Ira which had made her hide Laton’s abuse and had led to her suicide, Mirae directly tells her grandmother what she’d gone through.

A servant’s death wasn’t much of a concern and it was quickly resolved after giving some gold to the deceased family and the castle returned to its routine.

The two grandmother and granddaughter duo’s minds were filled with their own worries.

Mirae thought she’d changed the plot. But everything was still being played as she’d written. When she heard that the girl that had died shared the same name as hers, she became even more sure of the power her original novel lines held.

That night she wrote what had happened till this point in time in her novel, it was just the introducing phase of Arnon’s situation. When she wrote about what happened the day before and scribbled Laton’s name she felt infuriated. Even if she’d saved herself, someone else had become the victim which left a sour taste in her mouth.

The life here was not real even if it felt so, she’d written the world herself. But she knew better than to delude herself. Everything felt real and was real to her as long as she remained here.

Now she didn’t feel that good about being inside her novel, witnessing first-hand the characters she’d made, not even about being 7 years younger than her original self. As she wrote Laton’s name and was lost in thought, her anger had let her write some words in her notebook which she didn’t realize that night but another day.