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Chapter – 01
Prologue
The moment I opened my eyes, my head throbbed as if it would split open.
Memories surged in like a tide. In those flowing memories, I was “me,” yet not me. The unfamiliar recollections were dizzying… nauseating. I felt like vomiting.
“I don’t understand anything… Who are you people? I…”
“Don’t you know who we are, Florence?”
“I don’t know… Florence? Is that my name?”
Her trembling voice was pitiful—and disgusting. While pretending to cry, she was thinking, “Amnesia really is the easiest route. Clichés exist for a reason.” And she laughed.
Yes, it must have been convenient.
“…Yes, Florence. You are Florence. My daughter.”
“And our younger sister.”
They smiled at her warmly. It was a smile they had never once shown me. They so easily opened their hearts to her instead of me. The same people who were cruel beyond measure to me, who I had once groveled before like a dog, exposing my stomach and begging for their affection.
Everything that was difficult for me was laughably easy and simple for her.
“Florence, my one and only flower.”
Even my fiancé—who had never once looked at me—whispered his love in a sweet voice.
He stroked “me” as if I were precious. Eyes melting with warmth I had never seen before. Careful touches that feared I might break, the feel of his palm and body heat—I had never known any of it. The sensation felt like a feather tickling the inside of my throat. But it wasn’t my sensation.
I don’t know such overwhelming happiness.
I remember the way he used to look down at me. That gaze that looked at me like an annoying insect after I tripped while chasing after him.
Not that kind of warm gaze. The person who looked at me could never have eyes like that.
“I will never let you go, my love.”
“Where would I even go without you? You’re all I have. I’ll stay with you forever.”
A chill ran through me. The sound of “my” voice echoing in my mind was horrifying. It was my voice, but not my will.
My body, my voice. Something else was moving them.
A different soul had taken over my body.
A woman from another world who possessed me—“Jang Hyeonji.”
“You can use magic and spirit arts? This is insane. Amazing.”
“Give it back! That’s my body!”
“She’s even beautiful. Wow, just looking in the mirror is enough to make you full.”
“Give it back! Get out! Disappear, you demon!”
“And this body… wow. Healthy, and look at these slim calves. How did she even walk on legs like this?”
“Don’t touch! Don’t mess with it! Don’t move! I said stop!”
The reflection in the mirror she looked into felt unfamiliar.
With my face, she wore expressions I had never made. I didn’t smile. I didn’t speak. I didn’t move.
My body had been stolen by a demon!
The girl looking into the mirror grinned and said,
“So I’ve possessed a supporting character in a romance fantasy novel… I feel a little sorry for her, but if someone could possess her so easily, she was destined to die anyway. Just a common trope.”
“No, I didn’t die! I never died!”
“Florence, I’ll live the rest of your life well for you, so rest in peace.”
“I’m not dead! Get out right now! Leave my body!”
“So now my name is Florence Love Seymour. Wow, that’s a long name.”
“That’s my name… My grandmother gave it to me, you demon!”
I screamed until my throat tore, but my voice never reached anyone and vanished into emptiness. She smiled faintly, turned away from the mirror, and left with light footsteps. Her humming echoed as my consciousness faded out.
I don’t know how long I cried or how much I screamed.
No. Give it back. Disappear.
After crying myself unconscious, I opened my eyes in an unfamiliar world.
Instinctively, I knew it. This body belonged to the woman who had stolen mine.
“I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die…”
“Help me! It’s hot! Why… why me…?”
Every night, unbearable pain like my entire body was being burned engulfed me.
Flames swayed before my eyes, and unfamiliar lifeless faces appeared. I ran and cried and woke up again and again. In my mind, that woman kept screaming.
“I am Florence. This is mine now. I won’t ever give it back. Not to that trash world you came from.”
“…I don’t want to die…”
I don’t want to die.
I gasped for breath.
I had only lived about five months in “Jang Hyeonji’s” body, yet five years of memories had accumulated in mine. Hollow, desperate screams drifted through my mind like sticky oil, but my churning stomach slowly settled with deep breaths.
I looked at my palm.
I clenched my fist, then opened it. My body moved exactly as I wanted.
“…I can move…”
Tears dripped onto my palm.
My voice reached my ears.
My body moved.
It had been five years since my body was stolen by the heroine who possessed me in a romance fantasy novel.
I had finally taken my body back.
