Darkness.
The kind that seeped into his bones and weighed down his chest. He struggled to breathe, as though invisible hands pressed against his lungs. His last memory was a car horn, the screech of tires, and then—silence.
When light finally returned, it was not the sterile white of a hospital ceiling.
A canopy of velvet hung above him, embroidered with golden threads that shimmered faintly in the morning sun. Heavy curtains framed tall windows, spilling daylight onto a room far too grand, far too foreign.
His head throbbed.
Memories not his own slammed into him—whispers of cruelty, laughter at another's suffering, a blade buried into flesh. He staggered upright, clutching his temples, breath ragged.
"No… no, this isn't me…" he gasped.
And yet, another voice stirred within, younger, colder, venom coiled in silk:
"They will kneel, or they will break."
He froze. That voice wasn't his—but it was inside him, echoing like his own reflection warped in glass.
Dragging himself across the chamber, he found a mirror mounted on the wall. The stranger staring back stole the breath from his lungs.
White hair spilled to his shoulders like strands of snow, stark against the pale light of morning. Eyes—unnatural, piercing—gleamed a deep amethyst, as though lit from within. Features noble, beautiful even, but sharpened by arrogance. A face that carried both allure and danger.
He pressed trembling fingers to the glass. This… isn't me.
Then the floodgates opened. Names. Faces. Screams. The memories of another life poured in, drowning him. He saw banquets ending in humiliation, servants trembling at his shadow, and nobles whispering "monster" when they thought him out of earshot.
Duke's heir. The terror of the Academy. The villain who stood opposite the novel's destined heroes.
Him.
He stumbled back, chest heaving, bile rising. "Why… why here? Of all people…"
A laugh curled in the recess of his mind, cruel and mocking.
"Because I was chosen. You? You're nothing but an intruder. My body. My name. Mine."
He dropped to his knees, clutching his head. The pain was unbearable, like two storms colliding inside a fragile shell. He wanted to scream, to deny it, but the truth settled like chains around his limbs.
He wasn't just himself anymore. He was them both.
Slowly, his breathing steadied. His hands lowered, still trembling, but not collapsing. He forced himself to meet those amethyst eyes again in the mirror.
The reflection smirked faintly, though his own lips did not move. For a fleeting moment, he swore the glass showed not one soul, but two—standing side by side, overlapping, bound together by cruel fate.
His voice, when it came, was low, younger than the one he remembered from Earth, yet steady despite the turmoil:
"…No. I refuse to disappear."
The other presence hissed, a snake denied its prey.
"We'll see."
The tension in his skull lessened, though faint whispers lingered—always there, waiting, watching.
He stood fully this time, testing his balance. The weight of the body was different—broader, stronger, trained in ways his frail Earthly self never had been. A noble's body. A warrior's body. A villain's body.
The chamber around him loomed larger now that he was calm enough to take it in: marble floors veined with gold, a desk littered with quills and sealed letters, bookshelves filled with grimoires bound in leather. This was not a hospital, nor a dream. This was a world he had once only known through the pages of a novel.
And he was its villain.
He swallowed hard, the taste of iron and inevitability thick on his tongue. He knew how this story was supposed to end. He had read it. He had lived it through ink and paper. The villain's path was always the same: cruelty, downfall, and death at the hands of the hero.
Unless…
Unless he could change it.
The thought flickered faintly, a candle in the dark. Fragile. But there.
And for the first time since waking, the stranger in the mirror seemed less like a prison and more like an opportunity.
"…I won't die your death," he whispered to his reflection. His amethyst eyes glimmered, torn between despair and defiance. "This time… it will be different."
But in the back of his mind, the other self laughed quietly.
"Different? Or worse?"
The words lingered as he turned from the mirror, heart pounding in his chest. He didn't know if he would triumph—or if the villain's curse would drag him down in the end.
Only that the game had already begun.