After leaving the dining hall, I walked slowly back to my room. My steps felt heavy, as though each one carried the weight of questions I couldn't answer. My father's calm voice, my mother's gentle smile, Catherine's sharp but caring eyes — all of them treated me like I belonged here, like I was truly Adrian Blackthorn.
But I am not.
I am Shiro Shimizu. Or… at least I was.
Now, I wear this new body, live in this strange manor, and hear voices that should not exist.
"Chains bind you, Heir of Thorns…"
That whisper still echoed in my head. I could almost feel invisible chains wrapped around me, cold against my skin.
When I reached my chambers, I closed the door softly behind me. The latch clicked, a sound too sharp in the quiet hall. I stood there for a moment, leaning against the door, breathing slowly.
The room looked the same as when I had woken earlier: a large bed with a velvet canopy, heavy curtains pulled half-shut, and a wooden desk by the window. Shadows filled the corners. The silence was not empty — it carried the small noises of an old house: the creak of wood, the sigh of wind through cracks, the faint rustle of fabric.
I sat on the edge of the bed and touched my face again. The cheekbones felt sharper, the skin paler, the hands thinner. This body was not mine. The voice that slipped past my lips sounded deeper, heavier than the one I had used for twenty-nine years.
If I looked in the mirror now, would it show me… or him?
I whispered into the quiet:
"I should be in Japan. In my room. With the book."
Now I was here.
But the book wasn't.
Exhaustion pulled at me. My thoughts blurred. My eyes burned with the need for rest. Slowly, I stretched out on the bed, though unease kept my heart restless.
Sleep came anyway.
I was no longer in the room.
I stood before a maze. Its stone walls rose high above me, so tall that I could not see the top. A thick fog covered the sky, glowing faintly as if hiding something alive behind it.
The walls were not normal stone. They pulsed faintly, like veins filled with light. Strange words and symbols drifted across them — words I didn't know, languages I couldn't understand. They glowed, then scattered into the air like broken pages from a book.
Some whispered as they passed my ears. Others hissed. A few sang in tones that made my bones ache.
I turned, hoping for a door, an end, something familiar. But there was nothing. Only endless walls, stretching into darkness.
I took one step. The sound echoed too loudly. Another step, then another.
The ground was damp, cold against my shoes. My own breathing was the only sound that followed me.
I walked further.
Every corner led to another. Every turn looked the same. I tried to count my steps, but the walls seemed to shift when I wasn't looking. The words rearranged themselves, forming shapes that changed when I blinked.
This wasn't a maze of stone. It was a maze of curses, of language.
I began to run.
Not because I wanted to, but because I felt that if I stayed still, the walls would swallow me.
The air grew colder.
That was when I saw it — the mist.
At first it looked harmless, like morning fog drifting across a garden. But then I noticed the way it moved. It wasn't drifting. It was crawling. Reaching.
It followed me.
I ran faster, my feet slamming against the damp floor. My chest ached, my breath came ragged. But no matter how many turns I took, the mist crept closer, thick and heavy, like it knew me.
The maze betrayed me.
Every path twisted back on itself. Every corner led to the same place. The walls mocked me with their glowing words.
The mist spread like hands reaching out.
I tried to shout, but my throat felt locked. The air was too thick, choking me.
I stumbled, fell to my knees. My palms hit the wet floor. The glowing words slid down the walls like liquid, spilling onto my arms, burning my skin.
I tried to brush them away. They sank into my flesh instead.
The mist caught me.
Cold. Heavy. Crushing.
It wrapped around me, pulling me down.
And then — nothing.
I woke.
The scream still stuck in my throat. My chest burned as if I had truly been running. Sweat drenched me, clinging to my shirt, chilling my skin.
Moonlight spilled through the window, pale and sharp. The canopy above loomed like a dark weight, its curtains swaying faintly.
I pressed my hands against the bed to steady myself. My heart pounded like a drum. My breath came quick, shallow, shaking.
That wasn't a normal dream.
I had dreamed before — exams, traffic, fears of the past. But this was different. This felt real. Too real. The pain, the cold, the words burning on my skin — they had followed me back.
"What… what's happening to me?" I whispered into the silence.
The room didn't answer.
But something else did.
A shadow on the desk.
At first I thought my eyes deceived me. But no — it was there. A dark shape, square, familiar.
I rose slowly, every step heavier than the last. My legs felt weak, trembling. My throat tightened as I reached the desk.
There, resting in the silver glow of the moon, was a book.
Not just any book.
The book.
The same cracked leather. The same worn edges. The same shifting sigil on its cover, faintly alive.
The same book that had pulled me from Japan into this cursed world.
It should not have been here. It could not have been here.
Yet there it lay, as though it had always belonged.
My hand trembled as I reached for it. I stopped an inch away. My breath caught.
The moonlight slid across the cover, revealing faint symbols etched into the leather. They moved, just slightly, like they were breathing.
My voice shook.
"It followed me."
The silence in the room thickened, pressing against my ears, as though listening.
I pulled my hand back. My chest heaved.
Questions screamed in my mind. Why did it appear? Why me? Why again?
The book gave no answers. Only its heavy, waiting presence.
I stumbled back onto the bed and buried my face in my hands. My whole body shook.
I didn't understand how I had come here. I didn't understand why chains whispered in my dreams, why a maze of words tried to devour me.
But I understood one thing.
The book was the key.
The book would not let me go.
And whatever story it had begun — it was far from finished.