I don't know what overcame me, but suddenly my body was wracked with intense pain.
The kind of ache that comes from waking too early, every muscle protesting.
I opened my eyes slowly.
Even my eyelids hurt. The curtains fluttered gently, as if the window stood open.
A soft red light filtered into the room—a light that felt utterly unnatural.
Thoughts surged in once more.
"What is this light?"
The moon is white—so what is this glow?
Wait… what color is the moon supposed to be?
I had lost count of how many times these foolish, unbearable questions assaulted my mind.
My headache had eased. Aside from the lingering thoughts and bodily soreness, everything felt almost normal. A strange sense of well-being even settled over me.
Yet a faint terror began to form in my heart—or perhaps in my mind.
What was causing that red light?
I sat up on the edge of the bed and glanced at the clock on the bedside table.
"Two… in the morning!"
Shock rippled through me. I had fallen asleep around noon, when sunlight still filled the room.
"How did I sleep so deeply that I lost all sense of time?"
I drew a deep breath and rose carefully, walking with slow steps toward the desk.
The book on the Montagu family history still lay there.
A joyful smile crossed my lips—at last, something had gone right.
But when I turned to the grand windows, I saw exactly what I had feared.
What I had desperately hoped I wouldn't see.
A blood moon hung in the sky, its crimson hue staining the surrounding clouds a deeper, darker shade.
I froze, staring at it. I started to step back when sudden agony gripped my heart—sharp, overwhelming pain that brought cold sweat to my skin in an instant.
I reached desperately for the desk to steady myself, but the world before me cracked like glass, shattering into a thousand fragments.
The floor beneath my feet remained—the red carpet of the room, the surrounding ceramic tiles—but the walls, the window, the desk, even the sky and moon… vanished.
As if they had never existed.
A figure stood before me.
He… was me.
I knew he was me—yet then who was I?
What were the clothes that figure wore called?
I knew he was me, but then who am I?
Or perhaps… I was only imagining it.
I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again.
The same lavish room. The same blood moon. The same window.
My heart still throbbed with pain. My head ached beyond endurance.
I reached for the desk once more, grasping its edge—only to realize I held nothing. My hand stretched toward a bare concrete wall bearing strange words: "Everything ends up being a lie."
Terror flooded me. My heart seized again. I tried to move, only to find myself back in the opulent room.
I was gripping the corner of the desk. I struggled to stand.
This time, mercifully, I succeeded.
I was terrified. I didn't know what had happened, what was happening, or what would come next.
I only knew I didn't want to lose myself again—to suddenly find myself elsewhere.
Yet there I was, inside the House of Lords, standing and speaking.
Speaking what?
I tried to run, only to face that concrete wall again, the same inscription. Tall concrete pillars rose around me; the ground was strewn with shards of stone, small and large. Everything else was swallowed by darkness.
I clutched my head and dropped to my knees.
Then I was back in the duke's lavish room—looking down at the duke asleep on his own bed.
So who was I?
If I am not the duke, then who am I?
I reached toward the sleeping duke's body—and suddenly I was back in the ruined darkness.
But now…
A massive red eye glared from the wall. The head of someone who had gazed into it lay severed from their body.
I could not see the face. I was no longer in that person's place.
This time, I could not reach out.
The world around me shifted violently. Nausea rose in my throat. I felt ill. My heart pounded so fiercely it seemed to crush my chest, and the headache had grown beyond anything I could bear.
Yet what stood before me now—I didn't know how to react.
Should I even react at all?
I was gazing at the duke across a misty divide. On my side, towering modern buildings loomed. On his, the Palace of Westminster and Big Ben.
What did it mean?
If I am not the duke, then who am I?
I raised my hands to look at them—and suddenly I wore the duke's clothes. Now Parliament and the great clock tower surrounded me.
When I looked ahead…
A boy in a black hoodie. A bloodied neck. Eyes stained red. A smile.
Terror gripped me, but memories blossomed in my mind like sudden flowers.
An abandoned nuclear facility. Forgotten, derelict. I had entered with several companions. We became lost. In the final moment, I saw a red eye.
The next thing I knew, intense pain gripped my neck—and I was inside the duke's body.
I… I had died?
Because of an eye?
I blinked.
Suddenly I was back in the duke's lavish room, collapsed on the floor.
I glanced around. The blood moon shone clearly in the sky.
A fierce wind howled. The curtains whipped violently.
Everything seemed normal.
But to me, everything felt cursed.
I had died. Now I lived in a duke's body.
Why?
For what purpose?
Why must I live in this world?
Whose world was this?
Why was I trapped in the wrong reality?
Why as a duke?
What was I supposed to do?
Why was everything so vague?
Why no path?
Why no future?
Why were there so many whys in my mind? Why was I terrified? Why had both the heart pain and headache vanished together?
I feared reality or illusion, truth or lie, death or rebirth—I no longer knew if I was afraid at all.
I could only think: What now?
Fear no longer mattered—or perhaps it did, and I simply couldn't tell.
Perhaps traces of terror still lingered in my body.
Perhaps… just perhaps… this world wasn't wrong.
I was.
───────────────────────────
About an hour had passed since the memories of my death in that previous life returned.
I sat behind the desk that now, in this world, belonged to a duke.
I had closed the window. Only the blood moon's crimson light illuminated the room.
I stared at the map of Britain spread across the desk.
Slowly, I raised both arms, rested my elbows on the table, interlaced my fingers, and set my chin upon my hands.
───────────────────────────
The room was cloaked in complete darkness. Elias Montagu sat behind his desk—after all, he was the Duke of Manchester.
The blood moon's glow revealed only the faint color of part of his hair; the rest of his body and face sank into shadow.
Outside, the sky gradually clouded over. The room grew darker still.
At last, Elias murmured under his breath,
"If I died in that world… then at least in this one, where I am an intruder… I will try to seize control."
Finally, the entire room plunged into blackness. Thick black clouds had blocked the moon's light.
Lightning flashed across the sky several times, briefly illuminating the room with each strike.
But when the thunder faded, darkness returned, and rain began to fall.
The only sounds in the room were the patter of raindrops against the glass and the quiet crackle of burning wood in the fireplace.