Mary awoke to darkness. It was not the gentle, restful black of sleep but something cold, deep, and suffocating. A void pressed against her chest, heavy and unyielding, until a sharp gasp tore through her lips.
She opened her eyes—or she thought she did. Vision came to her not through the familiar sensation of eyelids lifting but as if the darkness itself peeled away, offering her a view of her surroundings.
A grand hall stretched before her, furnished with glittering chandeliers, polished marble floors, and draped velvet curtains of crimson and gold. Yet all of it appeared muted, desaturated, as though viewed through a veil of shadow.
Mary tried to move her hands, but nothing responded. Panic prickled through her mind until she felt a strange awareness settle over her—a body, but not her own. The realization left her numb.
Focusing her will, she gathered herself. Something shifted, a ripple through the darkness, and then she moved. Her form glided rather than walked, edges blurred and trailing like ink dissolving in water.
Her gaze fell downward, and she saw nothing but a fog of shadow—a form vaguely shaped like a person but devoid of flesh and bone. A memory scraped through her mind, fragile and fraying. A carriage. Rain-slicked cobblestones. The jarring sensation of falling... and then nothing.
"Did I get Reincarnated?" she whispered, her voice thin and distant, as if filtered through layers of silk.
The grand hall was empty, save for her and the ornate mirror mounted along the far wall. Drawn by something she couldn't name, Mary drifted toward it. As she approached, her own reflection stared back—not a woman in her twenties with chestnut hair and weary eyes, but a silhouette of pure shadow.
A door creaked open somewhere beyond the hall. Heavy footsteps approached, each one resonating through her like the beat of a drum.
She pulled herself back, instinct urging her to melt into the darkness. Her form slithered against the wall, blending into the shadows cast by the ornate pillars.
Two figures entered the hall—nobles by the look of their attire. A man and a woman, both with sharp features and expressions tinged with impatience.
"Another servant has gone missing," the man grumbled, his voice like gravel. "If this continues, we'll be left with nothing but those damned constructs."
"Perhaps if you treated them with something other than disdain, they would not flee," the woman replied with a sneer.
Their words slipped past Mary, unimportant. What mattered was the sudden, fierce hunger that curled within her like a smoldering ember.
She needed answers. She needed... something.
And so, she awaits