I hated this life.
Every morning I opened my eyes and tasted the same stale breath of dirt and despair. The same hay-stuffed pillow that scratched my face. The same cold rush of dread in my chest, knowing that I was about to relive another day of drudgery, pain, and humiliation.
There were no breaks. No moments of peace. Just a relentless cycle of survival, and I—Akira Tsukihara, former author, former dreamer, former someone—had become Aira, a nameless peasant in a nameless village in the corner of the world I had built.
And yet… through all of it… there was one reason I still got out of bed in the morning.
One reason I hadn't broken completely.
My mother. Mira.
She wasn't the glamorous, wise matriarch from a fairytale.
No. Mira was a tired, sun-weathered woman with lines etched deep into her face. Her hands were rough, scarred, and perpetually stained from dirt, ash, and the blood of animals she had to butcher with her own hands.
But when she touched me?
Her palms were warm.
Her fingertips were careful.
Her voice—low, worn thin by years of hardship—never once wavered when she called me her daughter.
And gods, that broke me more than anything else.
Mira was the first to rise in our home. Long before the rooster crowed or the frost melted from the windows, she was already up—stoking the fire, kneading the bread, mending holes in clothes that should have been thrown away years ago.
She carried this family on her back.
My siblings worshipped her. My father leaned on her. Even Toren, gruff and distant, obeyed her unspoken commands like a soldier obeying his general.
And through it all, she never yelled. Never complained. Not once did I hear her curse the gods or question why life had dealt her such a merciless hand.
She simply… endured.
No, more than endured.
She loved.
Not the kind of love that was dramatic and sweeping like I used to write about in my books. Not the kind that filled ballrooms and sonnets and first kisses under moonlight.
This was quiet love.
Bone-deep love.
The kind that stitched socks while humming lullabies.
The kind that cut bruised apples into the least-rotten slices for the youngest child.
The kind that stayed up late to sew patches on a daughter's only dress, so she wouldn't be embarrassed at the next harvest gathering.
And that love… that beautiful, impossible love…
It wasn't meant for me.
It couldn't be.
Because I wasn't really her daughter.
I was Akira. A failed writer. A woman who had poured her bitterness into a world of suffering and cruelty—who had invented this very village, these miserable peasants, this endless grind of poverty.
And now here I was, being cared for by one of my own creations.
It felt wrong. Like theft.
Every time she held me, I felt like a fraud. Like I was tricking her. Like I was stealing affection meant for someone else.
And yet… I couldn't let it go.
Because I needed her.
I needed Mira like a drowning man needs air.
It happened on a bitter morning in late autumn.
The wind had grown sharp, cutting through the seams of our patched clothes like knives. Frost clung to the wheat fields in sparkling layers, beautiful from afar but deadly to our harvest.
I was working with Elsie, trying to pull up the last of the root vegetables before the ground froze solid. My fingers were numb. My knees soaked through with mud.
I wasn't paying attention.
And then I felt it—a sudden sharp pain, blinding and immediate.
I looked down and saw a jagged piece of rusted metal poking out of the soil. An old tool, maybe. Broken and forgotten. And now buried in my leg.
I screamed.
The blood was warm and fast. Too fast.
Elsie panicked, shouting for help. Toren ran toward us, but before he could even reach me, she was already there.
My mother.
Mira.
She dropped to her knees in the dirt like the mud didn't matter. Like the blood didn't scare her. Her arms wrapped around me and she lifted me up—lifted me, like I weighed nothing, like I was still her little girl.
She whispered to me the whole way back, not even out of breath, like it was second nature.
And when we got home, she cleaned the wound with boiled water and old cloth, grinding herbs with the speed of someone who had done it too many times before.
"Shh, sweet girl," she murmured. "It'll scar, but you'll be alright. Mama's here."
She kissed my forehead.
And I broke.
I didn't cry out loud. Not then. Not while she worked. Not while the others watched.
But later, in the dark, curled on the straw mattress with my siblings snoring beside me, I buried my face in my hands and sobbed.
Because I didn't deserve her.
Because she wasn't real. I had made her. And now she was comforting the woman who had written her pain into existence.
What kind of monster did that?
What kind of author?
The guilt chewed through me like rot.
But there was no one to confess to. No way to explain.
So I did the only thing I could.
I endured.
I woke up the next day, leg burning, pride shattered.
And I worked.
Because if I couldn't give Mira the daughter she had lost… the one whose body I now wore…
Then maybe, just maybe, I could try to become someone worthy of her love.
Not out of redemption.
Not out of grace.
But because she was the one good thing in this broken, brutal world.
And I would not let it break her.
Even if it killed me.
The days passed.
And every one of them felt like a curse.
The air was always cold. Or too hot. Or filled with smoke. Or screaming. Or silence so deep that it made me wonder if I'd gone deaf. There was never rest, never peace. Only survival. Only toil. And the more I looked around—really looked—the more the cracks in this world split open around me.
I knew this place. I had written this place. Or thought I had.
Seraphis—my fantasy world. My magnum opus. My sacred setting where love stories and epic betrayals played out in golden palaces and ancient libraries. But those were the dreams of Akira Tsukihara—the failed author who never asked what life was like outside the castle gates.
Now I knew.
Now I understood.
Because now, I was living it—not as a hero or a mage or a noble's daughter, but as one of the peasants I used to skip over in exposition.
Nameless. Forgotten. Replaceable.
I had fallen into the gutters of my own creation. And what I found there wasn't just misery—it was a whole world built on death and suffering.
The wars never stopped.
I used to think war was romantic. You know, the way books and movies made it look—trumpets blaring, banners waving, brave knights riding into battle with their swords gleaming beneath the sun.
But the reality?
The reality was the sickening stench of burned homes and decaying bodies. It was mothers screaming over the lifeless corpses of children. It was soldiers—filthy, half-starved, wild-eyed men with too many scars—trampling over fields, stealing livestock, taking what they wanted.
Even people.
Especially women.
There were no laws for us. No one to protect the poor. The nobility treated villages like ours as resources, not communities. If your home was in the way of their campaign? Burn it. If your daughter was pretty? Take her. If your crops were ripe? Seize them, and leave the rest to starve.
It was the strong devouring the weak. Again and again. And I was one of the weak.
And the disease… gods, the disease.
No matter how horrible war was, it had nothing—nothing—on the black-hearted horror of plague.
I remember writing about the Black Death like it was a piece of dramatic backdrop. Something to heighten tension. Something poetic.
But when I heard about it now—when I saw it now—I didn't think of poetry.
I thought of the man who died screaming in the next village over, his body covered in black boils that burst when touched. I thought of the girl my age who lost all her hair and teeth in three days. I thought of the baby who coughed up blood until her lungs collapsed.
And the smell.
Gods. The smell.
Death had a scent in this world. Sickly-sweet and metallic, tinged with rot. I'd smell it even when nothing was around. In the trees. In the fields. In my dreams.
And the worst part?
Magic didn't help.
I don't know why. Maybe the diseases were too old, too deeply entwined with the natural order. Maybe the gods had abandoned this place. But no matter how many prayers were whispered, or how many healing charms were offered, it didn't matter.
Wounds could be closed.
Bones could be mended.
But fever? Infection? Plague?
Nothing.
Not even the most gifted healer could stop it.
The "doctors" were a joke.
I met one. Once.
A traveling bone-man who called himself a "chirurgeon." He looked more like a scavenger than a scholar. His tools were stained with rust and dried blood. He carried a sack of leeches and used a filthy knife to "let the bad humors out."
He told us the best way to cure a fever was to cut a hole behind the ear and drain the "evil spirits."
I watched him kill a boy that way.
No one punished him. No one even questioned him. Because he was the only doctor they had.
And the priests?
Ha.
The priests were worse.
They claimed disease was a test. A punishment for sin. A curse passed down from the wicked. They said the Black Death was born from heresy and lust and pride.
They told the poor to pray harder. To give offerings. To confess their sins.
I watched people waste their last coin on indulgences—scrolls and relics sold by holy men promising forgiveness and health.
It was all a lie.
The Church didn't save the sick.
The Church buried them.
They buried them in mass graves. No coffins. No rites. Just dirt and lime. Sometimes not even that. Sometimes, they burned the bodies in piles outside the village and said it was mercy.
I couldn't sleep at night.
Because I knew the truth now.
Not just as a girl.
Not just as a character.
But as a creator.
This world—my world—wasn't just harsh. It was hell. A slow, grinding, systemic hell.
And I had written it that way because I thought it made the stakes more "realistic." Because I thought it gave my story grit. Texture. Depth.
But I had never felt it before.
I had never lived it.
Now every breath I took in this filthy, cruel world was a reminder:
I had built a cage.
I had thrown people in it.
And now?
Now I was one of them.
The Church said it was the voice of God.
The priests said their words were holy.
But I knew better.
I saw the truth behind their gilded crosses and hollow prayers. They weren't shepherds. They weren't saints. They were leeches in robes—bloated men who lived off the suffering of others. Every sermon, every scripture, every dripping candle was just another mask hiding their greed and rot. They preached humility while they stuffed their faces with roasted meat and honey-glazed fruit. They demanded obedience while wrapping themselves in velvet robes stitched with gold thread.
And still—still—the people believed them.
Because what choice did they have?
We had nothing else. No justice. No law. No mercy. The Church was the law. The Church was mercy. And if they decided that you were a sinner?
You burned.
The worst of it—the part that made my skin crawl and my stomach churn—was how they targeted women.
God, they hated women.
No, not just hated. Feared. Needed to control. They built an entire theology on our backs and then blamed us for the weight of it. We were born sinful, they said. Weak. Temptresses. Liars. Serpents in skirts.
Our value was measured in wombs and dowries.
You were your father's burden, then your husband's possession, and finally your son's responsibility—if you were lucky enough to live that long.
And if you didn't fit? If you stepped out of line, even once?
Witch.
That word. That word. It echoed like a death knell.
If you were too educated, you were dangerous.If you were too quiet, you were hiding something.If you spoke your mind, you were possessed.If you healed someone, you used the Devil's power.If you failed to heal someone? You cursed them.
No win. No way out.
And when the Church needed a scapegoat—someone to blame for the latest sickness, drought, or famine—it was always a woman.
Her name was Marta.
Old Marta. Sweet Marta. She lived at the edge of the village in a sagging stone cottage filled with herbs and dried flowers that perfumed the air. Her hands were always stained green, her fingernails cracked from grinding roots and mixing salves. People came to her with broken bones, infected wounds, and sick livestock.
She never turned anyone away.
She saved my little sister once. I remember. A fever had gripped the child for days, and my mother wept by the hearth, rocking her limp body in her arms. The priest said to pray harder. But Marta came, silent and swift, and slipped something bitter between my sister's lips. She cooled her skin with a damp cloth and whispered words that weren't in any holy book.
And my sister lived.
We had loved her. Respected her. Or so I thought.
Because all it took was one whisper to undo it all.
A boy got sick. Just another cough, another fever that wouldn't break.
And someone—some coward—said Marta had visited him. That she'd cursed him. That she'd left behind a charm that "reeked of sulfur."
I knew it was a lie.
But lies spread faster than the truth, and fear... fear fed on itself like a starving beast.
The priests didn't hesitate. They dragged her from her home in the dead of night. I woke to the sound of shouting. Torchlight flickered against the walls. People streamed into the streets—not to help her. Not to stop it.
To watch.
She was screaming. Begging. Her white hair hung in ropes, her face bruised from the fists of men she had once healed. They tied her hands behind her back with iron shackles and paraded her like a trophy.
And the people—the same people who had once thanked her—spat at her.
"She killed him," they said.
"She spoke to spirits," they said.
"She turned my milk sour," they said.
Lies. All of it.
But it didn't matter.
They built the pyre in the village square.
Marta stood bound to the stake as wood and hay were piled at her feet. Her robes were torn, her feet bare. She tried to speak. Tried to plead. But her voice was drowned out by chants—hymns sung by children with eyes full of terror and adults full of bloodlust.
They set the fire.
And I—
Gods, I'll never forget it.
I'll never forget the sound of her screaming. Not crying. Not wailing.
Shrieking.
Her voice turned raw, inhuman, shrill with pain as the fire climbed up her legs. Her skin blistered and peeled like old parchment. Her hair caught like dry kindling. Her eyes found mine for one terrible second—
And I did nothing.
I couldn't move. Couldn't speak.
Because I was afraid.
Then I made a mistake.
I opened my mouth. Just a whisper.
"This is wrong…"
And that's when the slap came.
So sharp. So sudden. It stole the breath from my lungs.
My mother's hand. My mother's face. Eyes red with tears. Voice like shattered glass.
"Do not speak," she said. "Do not cry. Do not question. If you do, you will be next."
She wasn't angry. She was terrified.
And in that moment, I finally understood.
This wasn't just cruelty. This wasn't just injustice. It was systemic. It was ritual. It was a society built on fear and blood and silence. It didn't matter if you were innocent. It didn't matter if you were good. If you stood out, if you rose too high, if you refused to bow—
You burned.
Tears stung my eyes, but I forced them down. Swallowed them like poison.
Because I couldn't cry. I couldn't speak. I couldn't even look sad.
I had no power.
No magic.
No allies.
Just a name no one knew and a mind full of stories that meant nothing here.
I had created this world, but I had made no place for people like me.
Just another peasant. Just another girl.
And in Seraphis, girls like me were kindling.