"Achoo!!!"
I sneeze out because of the thick smell. Opening my eyes which seem to have gotten better than a few seconds ago. I can see a thin fog of smoke and I turn my head to see where it's coming from.
There's an incense burner hanging just a little above my head and it's emitting a strong unpleasant stench of wild grass.
A pair of shoes caught my attention, calling my attention to my surroundings. This is definitely not my house.
"Have I been kidnapped by a cult?"
"Why are they all dressed like this? Is it a trend to dress Victorian because of the trending show?"
All these thoughts are running through my head as the eyes of everyone in the room are on me. The silence is so loud you can hear pin drop.
"What is happening here?"
After uttering this sentence, everything freezes. Everyone is frozen, even the smoke coming from the incense burning is frozen. I stand up from the space I'm sitting in and look down to realize it's a coffin. I jump out of it immediately trying to get my thoughts together.
"What's happening? I was clearly in my living room some seconds ago!"
I run towards the door I spot at the end of the room. As I open the door, I'm met by a lady. Not to exaggerate or anything, but even in this unbelievable moment, I can say she's the most beautiful person I've ever seen.
The lady is dressed in a gorgeous Victorian black dress with a white lotus embroidered on it and black leather shoes with a bow. I catch a glance at my shoes, then I look at my dress to realize we are wearing the same thing.
The subtle smile on her face suddenly disappears and her face is filled with tears as she suddenly hugs me.
"Help me!"
"Please Help me!!!"
I gasp as I feel a sharp pain in my heart, I push her away and clasp onto my chest. I fall to the ground feeling myself lose consciousness. The last thing I see is the beautiful lady crying and muttering something.
"I'm sorry"
~~~~~
MAPLE MEADOW, AUTUMN 1732
COUNT SULLIVAN'S MANSION
"My lady..."
"My lady!"
"My LADY!!!"
I jump at the voice screaming in my ears. A girl that looks about 19 is staring at me furiously as she removes the cover from my body.
"What's this? Is this some type of weird dream loop? Where am I now?" I say to myself in quite a loud voice.
The lady smirks and pulls me up from the bed.
"You must really want to stay home today for you to be spilling nonsense as soon as you wake up."
"The countess will snap if you are a minute late so you had better drop the act and let's get ready."
The girl drags me out of the room and into a long hallway. There are big beautiful paintings hanging on the wall, including one of the lady I saw earlier. I stop in my tracks when I catch a glimpse of myself in a huge mirror hung among the pictures. I let go of the girl's and to cover my mouth from releasing the huge "WTF".
I am clearly me but the mirror is showing someone else's reflection.
"Is this one of those dreams when you're watching everything that happens from one of the character's POV" I whisper slowly to myself.
"Lady Vivian, we really need to get ready. You slept for half the time you were supposed to get ready." Not giving me a chance to reply, the girl from earlier drags me into a door in one of the hallways.
She starts filling up the bathtub with water and using her hand to check the temperature.
"I've seen people online talk about this type of thing. When they are self-aware they are dreaming and if they say this is a dream, everything gets distorted and scary."
"Should I give it a try?"
I slowly walk towards the girl filling the bathtub while holding my nightgown up to knee length so I can run fast if things get spooky.
I slowly tap her arm to get her attention and clear my throat.
"Do you also know that this is a dream?
She pauses and gives me a "TF you saying" look.
"I know this is a dream and you're not real."
I say slowly turning my feet to the bathroom entrance.
The reaction I get is quite unexpected. She pulls me back and starts getting me undressed. Despite struggling with her, I find myself inside this big bathtub being scrubbed.
After fighting for my life in the bath (Which I won't lie, I enjoyed a little.), I'm finally getting dressed.
We enter another room which is apparently my dressing room, the clothes are...
"I must be a middle-class person in this dream since the clothes are quite...Humble."
I say picking out a nice white and blue dress. It's quite nice compared to the remaining dresses here.
"If I'm rich enough to live in this large house, why can't I afford good clothes? Or does this Lady Vivian just have a bad fashion sense?"
I ask the girl dressing me up.
"Stop acting like you don't know what's going on my lady. You've been acting strange since earlier."
She says eyeing me suspiciously. I keep shut and continued getting dressed.
"I know I'm going to wake up soon but, what's your name?"
The girl sighs at my words and tightened the ribbon of my clothes at the back, making me grunt a little.
"In case you got a memory loss overnight, my name is Ruby, your handmaiden since you were a child and You're Lady Vivian Diane Sullivan, the 2nd daughter of Count Jude Sullivan."
"We're done just in time so let's go to greet the countess!"
Ruby sounds frustrated as she left me to gather some other things in my room.
"Judging by her tone with me, she must be my friend rather than a handmaiden. How will she react to knowing that I'm in fact not her friend?"
I walk towards the door with Ruby leading the way and my thoughts and I following behind. After walking down the hallway from earlier and turning right to another long hallway, we finally get to a large hall with stairs leading down.
I make my way down the stairs and walk to the front of the mirror with a beautiful vase in front of it.
"Now that I'm paying attention, she looks younger than she did earlier and even younger than Ruby."
I touch Vivian's face which I must say is very smooth compared to my real face which is not that bad but a little bit pimple ridden.
"The owner of the house is really weird. Why are there so many mirrors in every hallway?"
I use my hand to smoothen Vivian's long dark hair that's been packed in a bun. My real brown hair is no competition to hers.
The more I stare at Vivian's face, the more familiar she looks.
"I'm sure I've seen her somewhere... This face seems like a face I've seen in an ad before."
I say to myself moving closer to the mirror to zoom in on the face.
"Is there something on your face that you're standing that close to the mirror?"
An unknown voice says from behind me. I look at the person's face in the mirror and my eyes widen. I turn back towards the lady and all I can say is; even if I don't know who Vivian is,
"I know you! AREN'T YOU THE LADY FROM THAT ONE MANHWA!!!"