"Aw, are you going to cry again?"
Their laughter echoed across the hallway—sharp, cold, and poisonous. It reverberated through my skull like the chime of a cracked bell, each note louder than the last. I clutched the frayed straps of my bag with trembling fingers, my head down, my breath shallow.
I didn't need to see their faces. I already knew what they looked like. I had memorized the sound of their voices, the tilt of their mocking tones, the way they circled like predators who had found an easy meal.
"Haha! How disgusting… blind girl!"
I winced.
That one always hit differently. It never got old for them. And no matter how many times I tried to tune it out, it always sliced through whatever mental walls I tried to build.
They didn't understand. Or maybe they didn't care to.
My eyes—my cursed, otherworldly eyes—had never granted me sight. But they did give them something to target. Sky blue with a streak of violet right through the center like a tear in the heavens. A strange mix that drew attention. Ironic, really. Eyes that caught so much interest, yet were completely useless.
"They say people like her are born unlucky. Probably cursed or something."
"Her parents didn't even want her. That's why they dumped her at the orphanage."
"They just abandoned her."
I froze. That… wasn't true.
My fists clenched. My heart pounded. I turned slowly, lips quivering.
"No... they never abandoned me!" My voice cracked, brittle and raw. "They'll come back. They promised they would. They love me—they love me just as much as I love them!"
Even as I said it, I felt the lie unravel in my throat. I could taste the bitter truth behind it. That hollow ache of being left behind. Of waiting years, only for silence to answer.
They laughed louder. My words were nothing to them. Just another pathetic monologue from the freak girl.
I couldn't take it anymore.
I ran.
My legs moved on instinct, not caring where they carried me. Just—away. Away from their voices, their laughter, their truths.
The stairs felt endless beneath my feet, the cold concrete biting through my thin shoes. My breath burned in my lungs as I pushed open the heavy metal door leading to the rooftop.
The night air hit me like a slap.
It was quiet up there. Too quiet. Only the hum of the city below reminded me that the world was still spinning. Neon signs blinked in the distance, windows glowed with life I didn't feel part of. I stood there, shaking, the wind tangling through my hair like invisible fingers trying to hold me back.
My feet carried me to the edge.
The railing was cold beneath my fingertips.
It was peaceful up here. Detached. Like the world no longer had a grip on me.
That's when I felt it—the flutter.
Soft. Delicate. Barely there.
A butterfly landed beside me on the railing. Its wings were a haunting shade of blue edged in Purple, like a tiny omen written in color. It didn't fly away. Just sat there, watching. Waiting.
Like it understood.
I reached out. It climbed onto my finger.
Weightless.
No answer. Of course not. But the silence was kinder than their words.
And then, the voice in my mind whispered—Why not just fall?Why not end it all?
Would anyone care?
Would anyone even notice?
"Was it comforting me?" I muttered, tears clinging to my lashes. "Or… was it grieving too?"
My grip on the railing loosened.
"Since when… did I feel this empty?"
Ah… right.
Since forever.
Even when my parents disappeared, I kept waiting. Kept believing. But slowly, their absence faded into normalcy, and the pain became background noise—like static from a broken TV I'd never bother fixing.
"Father…" My voice trembled. "can you hear my cries at night? Can you hear my silent screams for help? Can you feel the rivers of tears streaming down my cheeks?"
"Maybe I've truly gone mad already. "
"Even so… from the depths of my heart—I hope you suffer as I do. I hate you."
And with that final, fractured thought, I stepped forward. The wind rushed past me in a roar. The butterfly fluttered away. I didn't remember the moment I hit the ground. Only the feeling of weightlessness, of freedom, of surrender. And then—
I didn't remember the moment I hit the ground.
All I could recall was the sensation of weightlessness—of freedom. It felt like everything I had ever known was slipping away, leaving me with nothing but the void. The wind had roared in my ears, my heart had thundered in my chest, and then—nothing. An empty silence, a complete void where pain and thought no longer existed.
And then—
Suddenly, I was snapped out of my thoughts and dragged back into reality.
I was lying on my back, my tiny hands clutched to the soft fabric beneath me. The warmth of the sheets, the familiar scent of lavender, and the faint sound of voices in the distance pulled me from the numbness of my own mind.
I blinked rapidly, disoriented. A little too much for my still-underdeveloped senses. My small body lay on a plush, overdecorated crib that looked far too expensive for someone like me. The faint shimmer of golden curtains reflected a soft, almost blinding light as it spilled into the room. And then, I lost my balance.
I tumbled backward and fell softly onto the thick, comfortable sheet of the crib, my tiny body sinking into the softness.
Ah, right.
I was a baby.
A literal, helpless, tiny infant.
The realization hit me like a slap to the face.
I couldn't speak. I couldn't move properly. My limbs were too weak to hold me up, too weak to even lift my head. All I could do was squirm helplessly, my body useless, crying for attention as it was governed entirely by instinct. My tears soaked into the soft fabric beneath me as the reality of my situation sank in.
I was unable to control anything.
My body trembled as I involuntarily peed and pooped in my own diapers. The indignity of it all gnawed at me. How could I be reduced to this? A helpless infant with no control over my body? I wanted to scream, but all that came out were garbled cries, a desperate attempt to be heard in a world where I no longer had a voice.
This was so stupid.
I almost forgot my situation. After dying in my previous life… I ended up being reborn a few days after jumping of the building.
The irony of it didn't escape me.
I should have known. The moment I made that decision, the moment I had let go of everything in my previous life, I should have expected some kind of consequence. But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that it would be like this. Reborn, yes, but into a life where I had no control, no agency, and no way to escape the cruel reality that awaited me.
I should stop thinking about the past. It was pointless now, wasn't it? I was alive again, even though I had chosen to take my own life in that cold, bleak world.
Even God seemed to think I deserved another chance, a second life, despite the way I had cast mine aside. What a cruel twist of fate.
How ironic.
I didn't ask for this.
And yet, here I am.
Alive. Again.
And not just in any world.
No.
This world felt eerily familiar. The way the air smelled, like incense and fresh flowers, heavy with the scent of something ancient and timeless. The distant echo of servants scurrying through the halls, their soft footsteps a gentle reminder of the palace's formality. The weight of gold and velvet in the room seemed almost suffocating.
This was the world of the novel I read before I died.
I thought it was a dream. I told myself it was a fantasy, a world that existed only in the pages of a book. But no, this wasn't a dream. It was real.
Alderic Del Castillo.
The emperor. The villain.
His name had echoed through my memories since the moment I regained consciousness. A name filled with power, terror, and infamy. His character had been that of a cold, ruthless tyrant—a man who ruled with an iron fist, a monster who had slaughtered anyone who dared oppose him. He was the villain of the novel I had once devoured in my past life, the one whose actions had shaped the course of the story.
And yet, yesterday...he was stood before me, looked down at me with eyes that carried a weight I couldn't comprehend. He might be already thinking how to get rid of me.
"Princess, are you feeling bored?" a soft, careful voice asked.
I blinked. The word "princess" lingered in the air, echoing around the room as if it were a foreign language.
Princess?
I was sure… sure that in all my memories of the book, there had been no mention of Alderic having a daughter. None.
I had devoured that book. Every word. Every page. There was no daughter. There was no princess.
So why was I here?
Why was I—the nonexistent princess?
My tiny hands clenched into fists, confusion clouding my mind. I was certain this was some kind of mistake. This wasn't how the story had gone. But here I was, reborn into the very world I had read about—and I wasn't just some bystander. I wasn't just an extra character, a nameless face in the background.
I was the princess.
The daughter of the villain.
I tried to wrap my mind around it. How could I be his daughter? How could I have ended up in this palace, in this life? A life that felt like it was built on the wreckage of a past I had left behind.
But the answer was as simple as it was terrifying.
I was here. I was alive. And I had to survive.
The heavy weight of it all settled onto my tiny chest, a burden too large for someone of my size. I wasn't just a lost child, reborn into a world of chaos—I was the product of fate, thrown into the lap of a tyrant. A princess, yes, but a princess with no future to hold onto.
I wasn't sure what this life would be. I wasn't sure if I could even live through it. But what I was sure of was this: I wasn't going to be the helpless girl who had jumped off a building. Not again. I couldn't afford to be.
I had been given a second chance.
And somehow, someway, I would make this life my own.