I could feel the weight of the silence pressing down on me, thick and oppressive. The room I was in felt foreign, the details almost too sharp, too bright. The scent of fresh flowers drifted through an open window, mingling with the faint, musty smell of old wood and stone. My skin prickled with an uncomfortable awareness—like a dream I couldn't shake, one that was too real to be a dream, but too bizarre to be reality.
Then, the voice came again.
"Welcome, Amanda Scotch. You have been chosen."
I froze, my heart pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. This time, I didn't flinch in confusion. I was already past that. No, now I was just scared.
The voice—calm, unnervingly polite, with an oddly robotic cadence—sounded as though it was coming from inside my head, echoing against my skull in a way that made my eyes widen. I glanced around, desperate to find some source, but there was no speaker, no screen, nothing. Just the familiar furnishings of the strange room I had woken up in. It felt like something out of a medieval fantasy, with tapestries hanging on the walls and a four-poster bed draped in heavy, velvet curtains.
I stumbled backward, knocking into the edge of the table next to the bed. My breath was quick, shallow, as I gripped the edge of the wooden surface, trying to ground myself. This was no dream. Whatever this was, it was real. The realization sent a wave of nausea through me.
"You have been selected for a vital mission," the voice continued, unaffected by my panic. "The world you now inhabit is one of fiction—a story that was once thriving but has since gone abandoned. A webnovel, to be precise. The characters within this world have diverged from their intended paths. It is your task to restore them to their rightful places before the entire world collapses under the weight of these deviations."
I opened my mouth to respond, but no words came out. I didn't even know where to start. A webnovel? This couldn't be real. Was I losing my mind? How had I ended up in the middle of a story? I wasn't some chosen hero from a fantasy book. I was just Amanda—just a waitress with a dead-end job, a broken heart, and too many bills to pay.
I swallowed hard, my throat dry, and tried again.
"What do you mean, 'restore them to their rightful places'? How am I supposed to do that?" I croaked, my voice trembling. It sounded ridiculous even to me. Was I talking to myself? Was this just some sort of hallucination brought on by exhaustion?
But no. The voice answered me, as calm as ever.
"The characters of this world were once part of a thriving narrative. Their lives, their fates, were intertwined by the threads of the story that shaped their actions. However, due to an unforeseen disruption, these characters have strayed from their destinies. They now live in a fractured world—one that is on the verge of collapse. It is your mission to guide them back onto the correct paths. Failure will result in the unraveling of everything."
I was still trying to wrap my mind around everything. The idea of being trapped in a fictional world wasn't just absurd—it was impossible. I was Amanda Scotch, a nobody from a small town, not some heroic figure from a fantasy epic. What could I possibly have to do with fixing some broken world?
But the voice didn't seem to care about my confusion.
"Your first task is to assist Renner Vance, the male protagonist of this world," the voice continued, as though it had all the time in the world. "Renner's heart is lost, and he must return to the female protagonist, Elara. Their love is the central thread of this story. You must help him fall in love with her, as was intended."
Renner? Elara? My stomach churned.
The names were familiar—too familiar. I recognized them instantly. They were from the webnovel I'd been reading before I passed out—before I ended up in this… whatever this was. Renner, the brooding, conflicted prince with a heart torn between duty and love. Elara, the perfect, almost too-good-to-be-true heroine who was destined to be with him.
But… I wasn't Elara. I wasn't even close.
My heart raced in a mixture of dread and disbelief. Was this some kind of twisted joke? How could the world expect me to help these fictional characters get their love life in order?
"You must guide Renner back to Elara," the voice repeated, its tone unwavering. "Their love must be restored to set the course of this world right. If you succeed, the world will stabilize. If you fail, the collapse will continue."
"You're serious," I whispered. My voice was barely a breath, but it still felt too loud in the thick silence. "You're telling me that I'm supposed to… make Renner fall in love with Elara? But—"
"Yes," the voice interrupted. "That is your task. Renner is the key to restoring the plot. You will find him in the castle gardens. Speak with him. Help him realize what is important."
I blinked, too stunned to process what I was hearing. The robotic voice was so calm, so matter-of-fact. There was no room for hesitation or questioning in its words. Just instructions. Straightforward. Simple.
But it wasn't simple. It couldn't be.
"I—what happens if I can't?" I managed to ask, still trying to hold onto some semblance of control in this overwhelming situation.
"Failure is not an option," the voice responded coolly. "If Renner does not return to Elara, the world will fragment. Time will bend, and everything you see will cease to exist. Including you."
I felt my blood run cold.
"Your mission is critical, Amanda. You must succeed."
The weight of the words hung in the air, oppressive and suffocating. My thoughts were racing, a thousand questions flooding my mind at once. How was I supposed to help Renner fall in love with someone else when, from what I remembered of the story, he was already deeply in love with Elara? Why was I even involved? What was I supposed to do, show up and act like I knew what I was doing?
A small, bitter laugh escaped my lips, almost against my will. "You want me to just... fix a broken story. Like it's that easy?"
"It is not easy. But it is necessary."
The voice seemed to lose its calm demeanor for a brief moment, its tone almost… stern. It was like it had been programmed to treat this mission with absolute seriousness, no matter how absurd it sounded to me.
I rubbed my face with both hands, trying to steady myself. "And what if I don't succeed? What happens then?"
"The world collapses," the voice answered, its tone still impassive, but something about it felt colder. "You will cease to exist along with it. The fabric of the universe you now inhabit is fragile. A single wrong turn can unravel everything."
I stared at the empty space around me, where the voice seemed to echo endlessly in my mind. The room was still… but nothing felt still. Everything inside me felt in motion—my mind, my heart, my breath—all swirling around the same question: How did I get here?
How could I be the one to fix this?
I wasn't Elara. I wasn't some destined heroine. I was just Amanda, a waitress with a crappy life. Why had I been chosen? Why was I supposed to fix this?
The voice was silent for a long moment as if giving me time to process. I didn't know if I was grateful for the pause or if I was just terrified of what would come next.
"You must proceed," the voice finally said, its tone gentle, almost as though it was coaxing me into action. "Go to the castle gardens. Renner waits there. Help him find his way."
Castle gardens. Renner. Elara.
I could feel the weight of the task pressing down on me. My first assignment in this twisted version of reality. My hands shook at my sides, my mind still grappling with the fact that I was trapped in a world where I wasn't supposed to belong.
I had no choice.
I had to go.
And I had no idea what I was supposed to do when I got there.