Evelyn wasn't exactly sure what had happened, but she vividly remembered drifting off to sleep due to an extremely angry migraine that wouldn't stop tormenting her.
Despite knowing it was mostly her fault for overdosing on caffeine and barely getting three hours of sleep for a couple of weeks, she still couldn't resist hissing at her body's weakness after the pain-relief medicines stopped working. Therefore, despite her agonizing reluctance, she had no choice but to put down her shrine of a phone—especially because the drums in her head had gotten way too loud.
All she could remember next was an extreme heat ripping through her, and then she awoke with a flinch. She blinked dazedly at the odd sight. A floral scent tickled her nose along with something sweet. She sniffed again. Baked goods? Pastries? Yeah, that was the word. Then it suddenly hit her.
She had left the pizza microwaving when she slept. She rolled her eyes at the hilarity of it all. It wasn't really her fault; the heaviness in her head had gotten so bad she felt like even a slight step would throw her down. Yet, the hunger was much worse.
So she increased the microwave to its highest setting to speed up the process because, no matter how desperate she was, cold pizza could never be on her list of considerations. And then... then what happened?
'I fainted,' she thought, feeling amused.
Ah, no wonder she had died so suddenly—she had been right at the site of the explosion.
Evelyn sighed. So what exactly was this? Her last dying sight? A dream? Something else? Her head was placed on what seemed to be a finesse table with an elaborate design, and she was very resistant to raising it.
Her headache was miraculously gone, and along with it every other micro and macro ailment her body had been suffering from, solidifying her belief that this was indeed her last dying sight—or dream.
'Or maybe I'm in a coma.'
She soon shook off that thought. She wasn't all that good with the science of explosions, but she sure as heck knew there was no way to survive that kind of blast—especially with how close she had been to the site of the accident.
Even if she somehow did, emergency services would arrive too late due to the suddenness of the accident.
Oh well! Life had been pretty annoying for a while now. If not for the pizza accident, maybe she would have just done herself in.
After a lot of push and pull with her mind, she finally decided to give her dying sight a chance—at least a glimpse—to see what her mind had cooked up. Maybe, just maybe, she would see her most beloved: her darling parents.
This thought swept away the remaining reluctance within her, and she pulled her head up to see a… blonde girl in a Lolita dress.
What. The. Fuck?
Her confusion must have been too animated, as the young child began laughing. Evelyn ignored her, looking around in panicked shock.
Wait, what the heck was this? She was in some fancy, really fancy, pavilion, and surrounding them was a field of flowers. But there was no black, middle-aged man and light-skinned woman—her parents, that is—sitting on the flowers waiting to welcome her as she had anticipated.
No. Instead, across from her sat a blonde girl who seemed of European descent, dressed in one of the most elaborate Lolita gowns she had seen since her cosplay era.
Sitting on a fancy chair with an even fancier table before her, filled with pastries of all types, beautifully arranged in a way that gave one's eyes a dopamine shot at first sight, she stood up with a start.
Ignoring the girl, Evelyn dashed off into the garden, and the last thing she saw shattered her remaining rationale.
Before her towered the back of a huge Victorian manor, splashed in shades of black and grey—the kind of old-European grandeur obsessively romanticized by the media.
What was this!?
She slumped to the flowers, fully stumped by the incredulity of it all. Sprawling out like a starfish, she caught the sound of hurried footsteps approaching her. A flash of yellow and the lightest shade of blue eyes beamed at her, and then a smooth, milky voice rang out.
"Verity, are you okay?"
Huh.
For an absurd storyline, this dream of hers was really diligent. Her lips parted, but her stomach spoke before she could. Ah, something at least had followed her from her dying body.
The blonde girl giggled. "Verity, come on, let's go eat! Eat as much as you like~."
Evelyn blinked. What an infuriatingly familiar storyline. She even had a different name. Ah, fuck it. Above all things, those pastries looked rather delectable.