Chapter 1: I Woke Up Inside My Own Novel
SLAP!
Alden’s eyes flew open.
His cheek was burning before he even knew he was awake. He pressed a hand against it and sat up on a bed he didn’t recognize, in a room he’d never seen, with no memory of getting to either one.
"Where am I—"
A hand grabbed his collar and yanked him forward.
"YOU DISGUSTING, DIRTY BASTARD!"
"H-Hey, what—" He grabbed the wrist, just trying to breathe.
Then he heard crying.
He blinked until his vision cleared and turned toward the sound.
There were four people in the room. One of them had her face buried against a young man’s chest while he stroked her hair. Standing next to them, a young woman with rose-colored hair had one hand resting on the crying girl’s back.
His eyes found the young man’s face.
White hair. Blue eyes.
’Wait — that face—’
Nicholas Ashford.
Seventeen years old. Protagonist of Eternal Sword of Destiny — the novel Alden had been writing for almost a year.
And the young woman beside him.
Roselle Evercrest, Nicholas’s fiancée. The female lead.
Alden’s brain just stopped.
’Am I dreaming? Why am I seeing my own chara—’
A translucent panel appeared in front of him.
━━━━━━━━━━
SYSTEM INITIALIZING...
━━━━━━━━━━
[Host Detected]
[Synchronizing...]
[Synchronization Complete.]
[Welcome]
[Status Window Unlocked.]
━━━━━━━━━━
’No way...’
A second panel appeared before he finished reading the first.
━━━━━━━━━━ STATUS ━━━━━━━━━━
[Name: Alden]
[Race: Human]
[Age: 17]
[Title: None]
[Class: Undefined]
[Power Combat: 1.0]
[Rank: F]
[Level: 1 — EXP: 0/100]
[Skill Acquired: Soul Rendering (SSS+ Rank)]
━━━━━━━━━━
’This can’t be real... I’m actually inside my own novel.’
The man holding his collar yanked him forward again.
Daniel. One of Nicholas’s close friends. Someone Alden had written into a handful of early scenes.
"You shameless pervert." The words came through gritted teeth. "Do you understand what you’ve done? Do you even care?"
Across the room, Nicholas hadn’t moved from the crying girl’s side. His hand kept moving in slow, careful circles on her back.
"No need to worry, Sierra," he said softly. "No one’s going to hurt you anymore. You’re safe. Whenever you’re ready, just tell us what happened."
"H-He..." Sierra shivered, gripping Nicholas’s uniform with both hands. "He asked me to go out with him, just like we always do, since we’re engaged. He was acting a little strange today, but I didn’t think much of it because... because he’s my fiancé."
Fresh tears ran down her face.
"B-But then he brought me here, and he suddenly changed. He started touching me where I felt uncomfortable. I told him I didn’t want it. I begged him to stop. But he wouldn’t listen. He forced me onto the bed and he—" She couldn’t finish. The rest dissolved into sobbing against Nicholas’s chest.
’...What the actual hell.’ Alden’s thoughts went flat.
He knew that name.
Sierra.
He’d written her. Minor side character. Built specifically to chase after Nicholas, try to manipulate him away from Roselle, get exposed, fail, and disappear. He hadn’t given her much page time.
Right now she was crying in Nicholas’s arms while everyone in this room looked at Alden.
Nobody was watching her face, which was why nobody else saw it.
The shaking in her shoulders slowed between one sob and the next. Her face, pressed into Nicholas’s chest, went perfectly still for just a moment. And then, the corner of her mouth curved.
Her eyes found Alden directly.
Gone in under a second. She pressed herself back against Nicholas and the performance continued without a crack in it.
Everyone except Alden was looking the wrong way.
’That damn woman.’
Everything clicked into place at once, she had built this before he even opened his eyes. He had none of this body’s memories, no idea what had supposedly happened, no idea how long it had been building. He was completely blind to all of it.
But one smirk told him everything about what he was dealing with.
"Nicholas." He kept his voice level despite Daniel’s grip. "Listen to me. I’ve been framed. She’s the one who—"
BOOM!
Wind hit him like a wall.
He flew across the room and crashed through the bed, furniture exploding sideways, chairs and shelves going with it. He hit the floor hard and stayed there while pain ran from his shoulders down to his ankles.
Roselle lowered her hand.
"You have the nerve to lie." Her voice hadn’t changed. "After everything. Still trying to put it on her."
Alden pushed himself to one knee. Coughed once.
’It’s all useless... They’ll not listen to me anymore, they’ve already decided. Whatever Sierra told them before I got here, it’s done. Nothing I say reaches them.’
He looked at Sierra. her face was buried against Nicholas. Shoulders trembling. Hands gripping the shirt.
’You planned this perfectly.’
"Rose." Nicholas looked over Sierra’s head. "Take her back. She needs someone with her right now."
"Of course." Roselle guided Sierra toward the door, arm around her.
Sierra turned to leave.
Her face crossed Alden’s line of sight for exactly one second.
Her eyes were dry, not red or swollen, the eyes of someone who hadn’t actually been crying.
The corner of her lips lifted once, and then she looked forward and kept walking and the door closed behind both of them.
The warmth in Nicholas’s expression left with them.
He turned to Alden.
"Alright. You’re coming with me—"
Alden was off the floor and through the door before the sentence finished.
"He’s running—"
"Don’t worry." Daniel was already at the far end of the corridor, leaning against the frame, watching Alden come at him. "He won’t get past me."
’Can’t let them catch me. The moment they hand me to the Academy, it’s over. I won’t even get to speak before it’s decided.’
He twisted at the last second, going for the gap beside Daniel’s shoulder instead of straight at him.
Daniel’s hand shot out. Fingers closed on his shoulder.
’Damn it.. I’m Done for—’
Then something happened.
[First Act Activated.]
[Soul Rendering: Soul Extraction]
He hadn’t done anything. For half a second, his eyes burned crimson.
Daniel’s hand froze.
The corridor disappeared. Everything in Daniel’s vision went black, and inside that black a pair of enormous crimson eyes opened and stared directly at him.
Those eyes and the pressure that went straight through everything and hit somewhere that had nothing to do with his body.
’W-What... is this...?’ He couldn’t understand what he was seeing.
His instincts screamed one word.
Run!
His knees buckled. His hand released. His body refused every instruction his brain tried to send.
Then the corridor came back. The eyes were gone.
[FIRST SOUL RECORDED.]
[Species: Human.]
[Requirement Met!]
[Unlocking the Slot...]
’Yes!’ Alden didn’t care or even look at the screen, he just left the room when he got the chance.
Daniel’s hands were shaking so badly he had to press them flat against the frame to stay upright.
Nicholas came up behind him. "What happened?" He looked at the empty corridor. "Why did you let him go?"
Daniel didn’t answer.
"...Are you okay?"
______
Outside, Alden ran.
Students across the academy grounds stopped what they were doing to watch him sprint past.
’Running is the only option right now.’
’Once Nicholas makes his report, the whole Academy comes. They’ll have me in front of a council before I say a single word.’
The forest at the academy’s edge came into view.
’I have to disappear first. Figure out what character I’ve ended up in. Figure out how to clear my name. But right now, surviving comes first.’
One more thing sat at the back of his mind.
He hadn’t finished the novel.
He’d been mid-Chapter when whatever had brought him here dropped him in.
He was inside a story he never completed.
He hit the treeline without slowing. Trees closed around him. The noise of the campus dropped away behind him and he ran deeper and deeper until there was nothing but forest and his own breathing.
The crimson in his eyes had faded, though he hadn’t noticed when it appeared or when it vanished. He didn’t know yet what it was.
Just then, a notification showed up and this time he noticed it
[Ding!]
[Slot Unlocked!]
[FIRST SOUL RECORDED]
[First Act: Soul Extraction]
’Soul Extraction? What is that?’
The pain hit before the thought finished.
From the back of his neck. Spreading outward fast, flooding through every nerve, his vision going soft and sideways.
"N-No—!"
He stumbled forward and caught himself on one knee, hand against the dirt. His breathing had gone ragged. His fingers were shaking.
’Not here, not now. If they start searching I need to be deeper... somewhere they won’t find me—’
He tried to stand.
His vision spun hard.
"Damn it—"
His arms gave out and he pitched forward. The forest floor came up to meet him.
The last thing he saw was the dirt an inch from his face.
After a few seconds, a shadow fell over his motionless body.