🌷 Chapter Thirty-Five –
She was obviously lying in bed, but when Annette opened her eyes, she found herself walking in the middle of the street.
'Where am I?'
Annette moved her mouth, but no sound came out.
She couldn't even hear her breathing or the wind moving around.
Confused, she grabbed her neck and looked around, when she saw the restaurant she had visited with Theodore during the day.
From the dense buildings to the fountains in the square, everything was like the vibrant scene she saw in the middle of the day when she went out shopping.
But the only difference was that there was no one there and the place was silent.
Annette was walking around downtown Lider City in her nightgown.
'It's a dream.'
This was an impossible silence if he were not inside a dream.
Annette didn't know how she could wake up, so she had no choice but to keep walking into the unknown.
'Is there someone following me?'
Annette turned quickly.
She felt like an unknown person was following her.
She felt that it was something terrifying and dark that did not seem alive to a human.
Annette bit her lip.
This must be a terrifying nightmare.
Overall, at that moment, the image of the pickpocket who had stabbed Theodore during the day clearly came to her mind.
Even though she knew it was just a nightmare, her hands and feet became cold with fear.
Annette quickened her walking pace and quickly set off to look for someone in the empty place.
'Please have someone appear here.
I hope I'm not alone in this terrifying place.'
The words that she could not even utter from her mouth were twisting around her beating heart like a snake, squeezing it suffocatingly.
Annette ran barefoot on the stone floor.
Her feet didn't hurt because it was a dream, and she didn't even start panting, but the mental pain of not knowing how long to run was there and tormenting her.
Annette ran without stopping and managed to enter a side alley before the thing that was chasing her caught her.
At the end of the alley she saw someone standing tall.
'Who's there?'
Annette opened her mouth to call for help, but no sound came out again.
The man standing at the entrance to the alley didn't turn around as if he hadn't noticed Annette's presence yet, so she had no choice but to approach him.
Annette walked towards the man without losing her guard.
The moment she got close enough to the strange man and extended her hand to touch him, the shadow-like thing that had been following Annette all the way behind her disappeared, and at the same time, the man in front of her turned around.
It was a familiar person, so Annette reached out her hand to grab it.
“Theodore...”
Her voice came out for the first time, but as soon as she called his name, she suddenly felt that the environment around her began to disappear and the scene in front of her changed.
Annette knew all about the hard bed, the small hole through the cracked wall, and the suffocating smell of decay that surrounded her.
This was her room at the Elysia Mental Asylum.
She couldn't even scream at the familiar, horrific and terrifying sight.
Her body stiffened like stone.
I felt pain before fear.
It's a dream, and there's no doctor chasing her or giving her disgusted looks, but the fear imprinted in her brain creates phantom pain in her body.
Annette subconsciously covered her mouth.
She felt like the doctor was going to come at any moment and shove poison into her mouth.
Annette suddenly felt nauseous, as if vomit was rushing down her throat.
For Annette, her room at Elysia Sanatorium was a painful place to imagine.
“Do you feel pain?”
Annette heard a strange woman's voice behind her.
The woman was wearing a long abaya that extended to the ground and covered her face.
A terrifying sensation flowed from her, similar to the aura of the person who had been chasing Annette a moment ago.
Annette was so frightened that she did not notice the unknown woman approaching her before she spoke.
"Who are you?"
Annette asked as she barely removed her hand from her mouth.
“After rejecting it so much, here you are, finally, living as if this were your body.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“What do you think?”
“You know I'm not the real Annette Scheringen, right?”
“The real person asked me to watch over you.”
The “real person” asked her to watch her?
Could the evil Annette Scheringen be around?
Annette froze in shock.
She couldn't even ask what this woman meant.
“You are doing very well.”
“Does my life seem very good to you?”
Annette was angry.
She didn't know if this was a dream or a real vision, but coming to Elysia Sanatorium meant that this woman knew what hard times Annette had gone through in this world.
So how dare she simply say she was doing a good job?
“Are you the one who summoned me here?”
“I only told the real Annette Scheringen the secrets of this world and how she could grant her wish.
It was the real Annett Scheringen who summoned you here.”
"A wish?
What was Annette's wish?"
“I can't tell you other people's desires.”
"I don't care.
I don't want to know anything about Annette's desires.
All I want to know is how to get back to my world!"
"If the desire of the owner of this body is fulfilled, you will return to your world whether you like it or not, even if you do not want it.
Therefore, fulfill the goal of your original body owner and do not let morality stop you from moving forward towards your goal.
And do not allow mysterious compassion to distract you.
Only when you create a crack in the structure of this world will a hole appear through which you can escape."
“I don't want to solve puzzles!”
“That's all I can tell you.
Don't forget the anger and purpose within you.
I have come today to give you this warning.
Could it be that you have developed an affection for the people here and an attachment to this place?”
“This isn't even a joke.”
“Then why are you relying on him?
Do you really think that this man can be your husband and support you?
He is the one who brought you here after all.”
Annette's eyes widened.
As the woman said, it was Theodore who brought Annette into this world.
But she forgot that and merged into the role she was playing as his wife.
As if helping him wasn't enough, she even began to feel pity and sympathy towards him.
Annette must never forget the anger, contempt and hatred towards Theodore.
Only thus will she be able to return to her world.
She must kill any feeling of sympathy, compassion, or curiosity about this false world.
After all, this was the life of the evil Annette Scheringen, not hers that was considered an outsider in this place.
“I...what should I do to get out of Annette Scheringen’s body and return to my world?”
“This world is a world inside a book, and if you want to erase the letters already written, there is only one way.
You have to break the most important pillar of this story.”
“Break the most important pillar in this story...?”
Annette repeated in amazement what the woman had said.
“You must break the greatest law that keeps this world together and create a rift in the process of events.”
"I don't understand.
I have no idea what you mean.
What the hell do you mean...?"
Annette tried to question her, but the woman disappeared as suddenly as she appeared.
Annette collapsed to the ground angrily.
The terror of being in Elysia Sanatorium once again overtook her.
“I want to get out of here...please get me out of here.”
Annette sat on the floor and mumbled helplessly, when the door to the hospital room opened with a terrifying sound.
“I'm here to take you with me.”
It was Theodore again.
He extended his hand to Annette just like the day he first came to Elysia Sanatorium.
Annette held his hand helplessly.
Her grim face didn't even smile, but Theodore's hand was the only thing that could pull her out of that hell.
Even though she knew that he was the cause of her unhappiness, she felt sorry for her current situation as she had no choice but to cling to those hands that brought her destruction.
Theodore was the one who was going to break her out of the damned Elysia Asylum again.
The moment his fingertips touched Annette's hand, she finally woke up from her nightmare.
“Her Highness the Grand Duchess!”
Someone was violently shaking Annette awake.
When Annette opened her eyes, she saw a worried Lisa in front of her.
It must have come after hearing Annette's screams during her nightmare.
"Oh my God!!
Look at the cold sweat all over your body.
I'm sure you were fine during dinner, but since when did you get so bad?"
Lisa was worried and tried to carefully wipe away Annette's sweat, but Annette slapped Lisa's hand and unconsciously pulled it away from her.
When the warmth of Lisa's hand touched her frozen fingers, Annette barely regained her senses.
“Am I not in a dream now?”
“You must have had a terrible nightmare.”
Annette didn't even notice Lisa's worried voice.
She wanted to go back to sleep and forget what happened, but she didn't think she would wake up again.
“Where are those sleeping pills I used to take at the villa?”
“You should avoid sleeping pills as much as possible.
Even a trivial medicine can become a fatal poison to Her Highness’s body.”
“However, bring him now… No, it's okay.”
Annette tried taking large amounts of sleeping pills, but eventually gave up.
She thought that if she took those pills and slept deeply and had nightmares again, she would never be able to wake up again.
She didn't want to fall into that nightmare again.
“First, I will get you some soothing tea.”
While Lisa went to make tea, Annette got out of the hard bed and went to the window.
She needed some fresh air.
She needed to prove that everything in this world was flowing naturally, unlike the stagnant world of that nightmare.
As soon as she opened the window, the cold night wind rushed in and brushed her sweaty face.
It was the beginning of summer so the heat was widespread throughout the empire, but those winds were extremely cold on the dark nights.
Annette bowed her head as she felt the fresh air caress every part of her body under the thin nightgown.
Who was that woman she saw in the dream?
A goddess or a being with supernatural powers?
Or was she the real Annette Scheringen?
Whatever her identity, she was not on Annette's side at all.
There was no one beside her in this world to begin with.
Annette closed her eyes and remembered the contents of the dream.
“You must break the greatest law that keeps this world together and create a rift in the process of events.”
The biggest and most important law in romantic novels...
إنه الحب.
The woman in the dream said that Annette could only return to her original world after she broke Yvonne and Hugo's love.
Annette seemed to begin to understand why she had been reincarnated into the body of the novel's villain.
In order to survive, she had to become a true villain.
She must now become the villain who will succeed in destroying the main character, Yvonne.
***
Lisa had come to Theodore's room since the early hours of the morning.
She did this to disinfect the wound on his waist.
While Lisa was checking his wounds and was about to leave, Theodore suddenly felt empty and asked her:
“Where is Annette?”
“Ah...S-Her Highness the Grand Duchess now...”
When Theodore asked where Annette was, Lisa was startled and dropped the disinfectant on the floor.
She still hadn't adjusted to Theodore's calm eyes no matter how he looked at her.
“Did I ask you something that confused you?”
“No.
Her Majesty didn’t tell me where she was going, so I… I don’t know.”
Lisa answered with great difficulty.
It was Lisa who wanted Annette to be with them the most now.
“Don't you know when I left?”
Lisa swallowed her saliva when she heard Theodore's voice become a little harsh and answered.