7:00 pm
Freyah stood frozen, heart pounding as memories of the apocalypse surged back, vivid and relentless, as if she had just lived through them yesterday. The chaos. The blood. The world crumbled beneath her feet. The weight of it all pressed against her chest, making it hard to breathe.
She exhaled, tearing her gaze away from the window where shadows danced beyond the cracked glass. Her phone sat lifeless in her trembling hand.
"I'm no longer weak."
The words left her lips as a whisper—half a promise, half a desperate plea.
When she turned around, her breath caught. Golden eyes clashed with her dreary dark ones, sharp and unforgiving, cutting through the dimness of the room like twin blades. The tension between them was palpable, thick enough to slice through.
Outside, sirens wailed—a haunting melody of panic and despair echoing through the dead streets.
But inside this fragile cocoon of flickering shadows and shallow breaths, everything was painfully quiet.
Her two best friends slumbered soundly on the couch. She adjusted their sleeping forms with care, letting the soft rhythm of their breathing ground her.
The prince, however, was far from peaceful.
Sprawled awkwardly on the living room carpet, his wrists bound, his sharp golden eyes glared at her with defiance, as though daring her to come closer. Even in his disheveled state—clothes torn, face smeared with grime—he was breathtaking, the kind of beauty that belonged in paintings, not disasters. His aristocratic features remained perfect despite the fury twisting them.
Freyah stared at him, her thoughts a tangled mess.
This was different. Her identity-checking system had never failed before. But this time? This time, it had dragged a fictional character from the pages of Primrose Lady into her shattered reality.
Why now? Why him?
Her lips pressed into a thin line as she knelt beside him.
"This guy…" she muttered under her breath before gripping his shoulders, heaving his uncooperative body onto the sofa like he was nothing more than a stubborn sack of rice. He squirmed, scowling, but her grip was relentless, forged in battles far worse than this moment.
Once he was secured, she reached for the gag tied around his mouth.
The moment it was pulled free, his voice cut through the silence, sharp and venomous.
"Do you truly believe you can get away with this insolence?"
Freyah blinked, her brows shooting up in disbelief.
Insolence?
Where was the gentle, golden-retriever-like prince the novel described? The man who had loved the heroine with such purity that he sacrificed everything—even his life—for her happiness?
This version of him, this bitter and broken figure, was a stranger.
She remembered the novel's tragic ending all too well. His heart, shattered by unrequited love for Kathleen, had driven him to lead a doomed rebellion against the crown prince. Betrayed. Tortured. Executed. A death as tragic as his love story. But that was a farce.
It was a sacrifice he made to gather everyone who opposed Kathleen, the protagonist of the Primrose Lady. Luring them into a death trap, manipulating them to rebel.
Has the rebel and sacrifice he made twisted him this badly? Or well if you were kidnapped by someone... Then tied you up like this, anyone would be angry...
Her voice was steady when she finally spoke, though her heart raced.
"Insolence?" she echoed, arms crossed as she met his glare head-on. "What more can you do, Your Highness? Your power's gone. You're nothing but a traitor waiting for execution."
The words hit their mark. She saw it—the way his face paled, the way his golden eyes narrowed as though she'd peeled back his defenses, exposing something raw beneath.
"Execution…" he whispered, the venom in his voice fading into something quieter.
A faint calm smile crossed his face.
Ah this was it. His real nature that was described in the novel. A hopeless man in love who didn't have any regrets sacrificing his life to the one he loved.
"Looks like you were yanked out of that moment," she said softly. "How did you get here?"
"You're the one who kidnapped me." His cold expression returned.
"I'm not the one who dragged you here. I'm just as confused as you are."
His gaze hardened again, suspicion flickering. "Then who? And where am I?"
Instead of answering, Freyah grabbed the TV remote and pressed the power button. The screen flickered to life, casting a pale blue glow across the dim room. Images shifted—news broadcasts, moving cars, flashing headlines. The modern world was reflected in vivid detail.
Florence jolted upright, his breath catching. His eyes, so fierce moments ago, widened with genuine confusion.
"What… What sorcery is this?" he demanded, voice strained.
Freyah muted the sound with a flick of her thumb. "Relax. It's just a TV. Not magic," she muttered, waving the remote for emphasis. "And for the record, I didn't 'abduct' you. I regressed. Time rewound. And somehow, you appeared out of nowhere—an unknown variable."
Florence's brow furrowed deeply. "Regressed? You speak of impossible things—"
"Yeah, well, welcome to my life," she interrupted, exasperation seeping into her voice. "And believe me, you're the last complication I need right now."
Silence hung between them. Then his gaze dropped, scanning the unfamiliar room with its strange furnishings, lingering on the window where faint city lights blinked in the distance.
"But how do you know me?" His voice was quieter this time. "And why was I bound?"
Freyah's jaw clenched.
"Because you tried to kill me," she said flatly.
Florence blinked.
"You nearly sliced my neck clean off when you arrived here," she added, her voice colder now.
His gaze flicked to her throat instinctively, searching for evidence. There was nothing. Not a scar, not a bruise. Nothing.
"And yet… there's no wound," he whispered, his voice almost reverent. "What kind of demon are you?"
Freyah shrugged, standing and grabbing her laptop from the desk. "I'm just… human. Kind of. Evolved, maybe."
He flinched at the word.
She grabbed her laptop, flipping the screen open. Then she typed, a digital book appeared, its ornate cover shining under the soft glow of the screen. She turned it toward him.
"This," she said, voice softening, "is where you're from."
Florence's eyes widened. His eyes on the screen, tracing the golden title. Though the letters were foreign, he could read them as if they were written in his native tongue.
"Primrose Lady."
The name fell from his lips like a ghost of a memory, and in that fragile moment, his entire world seemed to fracture.
"You are a character from this novel."