Lost in thought, he barely registered the soft knock.
"Master Theo, your meal is ready."
The maid's voice was quiet—deferential and practiced, the kind of tone reserved for someone important. He didn't answer at first. By the time he murmured, "Come in," the words felt alien on his tongue, as if his throat had only just learned how to form them.
She slipped in, set the tray down with silent grace on the mahogany side table, and vanished just as quickly, closing the heavy oak door behind her with barely a whisper of sound.
His eyes stayed locked on the food: perfect, fragrant, and artfully plated. Thin slices of roasted meat were arranged in a spiral, accompanied by vegetables he couldn't name, glazed in something golden. A crystal glass filled with amber liquid caught the afternoon light. Beneath the perfection, however, a quiet dread settled in his stomach.
*Where did my nervousness go?*
One second, he had been panicking, his heart hammering against his ribs and his palms slick with sweat. The next, he was eerily calm, as if someone had flipped a switch inside his chest and dimmed the alarm bells to silence. It didn't make sense. He didn't feel like himself. Not even close.
Despite being reincarnated into Theo's body, it seemed the original owner still lingered—a ghost in the machine. He needed proof. He needed to believe he wasn't just a parasite wearing a corpse like a suit that didn't quite fit.
He spoke aloud to test the voice. It felt wrong—too smooth, too refined. The accent was aristocratic, each syllable polished like marble.
*Is this what it feels like to live inside a character?*
He was a parasite, controlling Theo's body, wearing his face, speaking with his tongue. And the parasite was him. The thought made him feel sick.
The urge to vomit rose, sharp and acidic, but he swallowed it down. He gripped the edge of the table until his knuckles whitened, forcing himself to breathe in through his nose and out through his mouth.
Slowly, he looked at the food. His stomach growled—a deep, primal sound that echoed in the silence. The hunger wasn't emotional; it was physical. His body, Theo's body, was demanding fuel. He would die if he didn't eat.
He hesitantly picked up the fork and knife. He didn't know how to use them, yet the moment he lifted them, his hands moved with instinct. The motion was fluid and natural, a stark contrast to the junk-food kid he used to be, hunched over a keyboard with greasy fingers.
*Just muscle memory,* he told himself. *Theo's body remembering what Theo's mind has forgotten.*
It helped, a little. He ate like a noble, each bite deliberate and measured. The meat was tender, practically dissolving on his tongue. The vegetables had a subtle sweetness that made his taste buds sing, and the spices danced across his palate with a complexity that made him pause. The drink was crisp and floral, unlike anything he'd tasted in his old life. For a moment, it almost felt good. Almost felt like belonging.
*Almost.*
Then, another knock.
It wasn't timid or polite. It was dominant, elegant, and commanding without making a sound. The knock of someone accustomed to being obeyed.
"Master Theo," a deeper voice said, smooth as silk and sharp as a blade. "May I enter?"
He didn't overthink it. His mouth moved before his mind caught up. "Come in."
The butler entered. He was older, perhaps sixty, with silver threading through his dark hair. His tailored suit was immaculate, not a thread out of place, and his posture was rigid with respect. He bowed slightly, his voice carrying a faint, polished drawl that spoke of old money and older traditions.
"I'm very sorry to disturb your meal, sir," he said, eyes lowered. "But the head of the family has sent you a letter. It arrived by courier this morning."
He placed the envelope on the table with the care of someone handling something precious. It was cream-colored, sealed with wax the color of blood, and the handwriting on the front was sharp, angular, and aggressive.
The butler bowed again and left without another word.
He stared at the envelope. *Adam Blackthorn.* His father.
Adam wasn't just another villain; he was the real antagonist, the one the main character fought in front of the entire court. Safe to say, he was a threat. Adam had presence, power, and a name that was carved into stone, whispered in fear, and written in blood.
In contrast, Theo was just a spoiled bastard. So despicable that even his own family eventually abandoned him. He had died pathetically at the hero's hands, a fate meant to humiliate a bad villain, after joining a cult out of wounded pride like a child throwing a tantrum.
"What a great body to reincarnate into," he sighed, the words tasting like ash.
A thought flickered. *Where am I in the story?*
Not the middle. Not the end. Theo died early, in the first few chapters. A footnote. A punchline. A cautionary tale.
He scanned the room, not for beauty, but for clues. The velvet drapes, the gilded mirror, the scent of beeswax and lavender polish—it was all too perfect, too staged. Like a set designed to impress, not to live in.
Then he saw it. Tucked beside a silver-framed mirror, half-hidden beneath a folded silk handkerchief, was a calendar.
"Aha. Found it."
He reached for it and froze. His fingers hovered over the leather-bound cover, where intricate embossing depicted swirling vines, a crescent moon, and symbols he didn't recognize. He didn't remember designing this. He didn't remember *anything* about it.
He flipped it open, and his breath caught.
The dates were wrong. Not just unfamiliar, but fundamentally *wrong*. The months didn't match, the symbols twisted in ways that made his eyes water, and the numbers seemed to bleed into each other like ink dissolving in rain. It wasn't a calendar. It was a riddle.
"Huh? Why… I don't know how to read this…"
Panic surged. He slammed his fist onto the table, causing the silverware to rattle and the glass to tremble. He swore loudly, the raw sound echoing off the walls, but it wasn't enough. The calendar wasn't just unfamiliar; it was *wrong*. It wasn't the one he had written.
Why? He didn't remember this.
Then, pain spiked behind his eyes—sharp, electric, like lightning tearing through his skull. The ink on the page seemed to writhe, pulling at his vision.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
A figure loomed in the void—distant yet close enough to feel the cold, metallic breath. The eyes were hollow and empty, neither human nor dead, but something beyond. It pointed a bony finger forward, and from somewhere beyond sound, a voice echoed:
> **"REGRET."**
The word carried a weight of ozone and copper, the smell of something burning. Cold stone pressed against his skin, his spine locked, and his breath stopped.
He jolted back, gasping, into the room.
"What…?"
Was that Theo's memory? Or something else?
He slumped into a chair, his hands shaking. The room spun. The scent of lavender turned sour, like rot beneath perfume, and the sunlight through the window felt too bright, too cruel.
He laughed, a sharp, mocking sound. "This is hell. Another hell, I guess."
Reincarnators got golden fingers, special abilities, and plot armor. He got… this.
Then, another thought surfaced. *Wait. Reincarnators do get powers. I'm one. So… there must be a gift for me, right?*
He stared at his hands—pale, elegant, and unfamiliar.
No glowing runes. No whispering voice. No sudden surge of strength or magic.
Just silence.