Scarlet’s steady, affectionate pats as she stroked down my back were the only salvation allowed to me in this hell, like a powerful anesthetic. Against the warmth of her body, the spasms that had wracked my trembling form slowly subsided, and my ragged, tangled breathing gradually found its proper rhythm again.
Even the hallucinations of blood stench and a gray world that had been tearing through my mind scattered, pushed away by the warmth Scarlet radiated. Clutching the hem of her clothes as if my breath would stop the moment I fell from her embrace, I sank into sleep like a child.
How much time had passed? When I lifted my heavy eyelids again, only bone-chillingly cold air lingered in the cramped solitary cell. Scarlet was gone.
The mere fact that I had been left alone in the empty space where her warmth had vanished sent a terrible chill down my spine. Fortunately, the same horrific seizure as before did not return, but in that empty room, I craved her gentle touch with the desperation of someone suffering withdrawal.
Several days passed like that.
During that time, Scarlet came to the solitary cell whenever she had the chance. I reached the point where I anxiously waited for the sound of her cautious footsteps beyond the door. Whenever the door opened and Scarlet approached to lift me from where I was curled up on the cold floor, I melted helplessly into the comfort of her tenderly brushing back my sweat-soaked hair. The warmth Scarlet gave me was no longer a choice; it was becoming essential to my survival.
As I slowly regained my reason, it became clear why I had fallen apart so hideously. My emotions and my brain had both become so hopelessly scrambled that they could not possibly endure it.
The terrible fear and phantom pain of my neck being sliced off in a single stroke. The shock of having blown up dozens of bodies with my own hands and turned them into chunks of meat. The extreme rage toward that dogshit bastard of an author who treated this insane world as nothing more than entertainment and mocked me. Since all of that had come crashing down on me at once, it was only natural, in a way, that my sanity had broken.
The violent flood of information poured into that brief instant had completely paralyzed my brain, overloading it like a computer hit by a system error.
But now that I had returned to myself to some extent, I was suffering from another strange symptom.
‘If Scarlet isn’t here, I get so anxious I feel like I’ll go mad.’
It was a dependency even I could not understand. Thinking about it calmly, I had never built such a deep inner intimacy with Scarlet that we could exchange emotions this openly. After I possessed this body, I had faced her only once, and to me, she had been nothing more than an extra in a novel I had merely read and moved on from.
And yet, if I did not feel her warmth, my nerves sharpened and my breathing grew ragged. The moment I became aware that she was not by my side, my vision began to sway uneasily and my fingertips trembled.
Was it because, in this hellish blood-red world, she was the only person I could rely on right now, the only person who would unconditionally be on my side? Or was it because I feared that the moment I was left alone, that gray vision of my neck being cut off would descend upon me again?
Whichever it was, one thing was certain: I was clinging to Scarlet to an abnormal degree, like a child clutching a lifeline.
Whatever the reason, whenever I saw Scarlet, I became a helplessly whiny child. When I was held in her arms, I fell into the strange illusion that even if Cassian stormed in tomorrow and cut off my head, everything would be resolved peacefully.
When we shared each other’s warmth in silence, holding each other tightly, one corner of my frozen heart grew tender and melted warmly.
“……Scarlet, can I hug you tight just once?”
“Yes, unni. Do whatever you want.”
No sooner had she spoken than I grabbed Scarlet’s soft waist in my arms and rubbed my face all over her chest. It was soft and warm, and she smelled good, too. We were both women, so what was the big deal about this much skinship? I brazenly rationalized it to myself while secretly indulging my selfish desires to the fullest.
“Mmh, unni…… that tickles.”
“Stay still. This is all for the stability of my mind and body.”
I had recovered my pace completely, to the point that I had enough leisure to spout such nonsense while squishing Scarlet’s soft cheeks.
Scarlet was a truly strange child. At times, she was like a gentle mother who embraced everything; at times, she was like a comfortable friend who shared secrets with me. No matter what insane thing I did, no matter what absurdly childish behavior I showed, it felt as if she would simply blink those large eyes of hers and silently accept it all.
In truth, I wanted to ask her. Back then, why had she attacked Cassian? It would be pointless to say it out loud. Even if I asked, the Scarlet of that time and the Scarlet now were different people.
Time in the solitary cell passed helplessly, but quietly, without any particular threat.
The eyes watching me were still sharp, but I did not even dream of escaping. No, I had completely erased it from the options in my head in the first place. I had already learned, down to my bones, what kind of catastrophe would happen if I recklessly tried to run from here.
Starting with Scarlet’s head rolling across the floor, dozens of people bursting to death amid the Bomb Witch’s cackling laughter, and even Elise, who had helped me, turning to ashes. And in the end, even my own damn neck would be sliced through and sent flying through the air in that cursed bad ending.
I held my breath as if I were dead. For now, simply enduring this suffocating life in solitary confinement in silence was the only way to survive.
#
“Unni. There’s exactly one week left in your confinement period.”
At Scarlet’s cautious words, I nearly sucked in a sharp breath. I hurriedly lowered my head so she would not see the blood draining from my face.
One week before my confinement was to be lifted. It was the day that damned emergency bell had rung. The very day Scarlet’s head had dropped in the gray world, and even my neck had been coldly sliced off.
My vision went slightly distant, but I forced myself not to show it and calmly nodded. It was fine. I had not struggled recklessly to escape like I had then, and I had lived quietly, holding my breath like a dead mouse. As long as I did not repeat the flow of that day exactly, the tragedy of that day should not repeat exactly either.
After Scarlet left, I approached the bookshelf like someone with a compulsion and took out “that book.”
Ever since I had been locked in the solitary cell, I had checked the book every single day without fail. But after the words that had mocked me that day appeared, the book had only remained silent. I had no way of knowing what trigger was needed for a branching point to occur and the gray world to appear.
There had been times when I tried, in a fit of rage, to tear it to pieces or burn it to nothing. But no matter how much I damaged that damned book, by the next morning it would be perfectly restored and sitting on the bookshelf as if nothing had happened. It was enough to make a ghost wail.
Time continued to pass.
It was an ordinary dull, static day. A maid silently brought in a meal, Scarlet secretly came and went, and armed knights guarded the door like an iron wall in my suffocating routine.
But into this quiet solitary cell, which I had believed to be perfectly controlled, an unexpected variable suddenly arrived. Creeeak. The heavy iron door opened, and just like that day, the emperor abruptly appeared.
It was Cassian.
The memory from the previous round of him yelling at me with bloodshot eyes, drenched in blood, overlapped with the present, sending a cold shiver up my spine. But I did not get up, nor did I tremble in fear. I merely looked up at him in silence.
Cassian gazed down at me indifferently and opened his mouth.
“Do you like the solitary cell?”
His voice was coldly subdued.
“I was told you collapsed in a fit. You look fairly fine.”
I kept my lips firmly shut and waited for his next words.
“In one week, my engagement ceremony will be held.”
It was exactly the same as what he had said to me before the regression, without a single word different. But my mind was spinning quickly. Everything was the same, yet there was one crucial, enormous difference.
‘……He didn’t tell me to become empress.’
In the previous round, while informing me of the engagement, he had forced the position of empress on me. Was this what they called the butterfly effect? It seemed that the mere fact that I had not attempted to escape and had obediently endured in the solitary cell had subtly twisted the situation.
I did not know where or how the trajectory had been adjusted, but at least avoiding that insane empress route was not a bad change. I carefully asked Cassian,
“Then…… what will become of me?”
Cassian’s gaze swept over my pale face.
“Become my personal maid. Once your confinement is lifted, I will see you then.”
As if his business were finished, Cassian coldly turned and walked toward the door. Inwardly, I let out a sigh of relief. If it was personal maid rather than empress, then that was far more manageable.
It was when he grasped the doorknob. Cassian’s movement as he was about to leave came to a sudden halt, and he slowly turned his head to look at me again.
Humans possess a realm known as the “sixth sense,” something that cannot be explained by reason. A cold sense of foreboding that crawls up the spine without any basis or clear evidence. Whenever the strange intuition that something was about to go fucking wrong flashed through one’s mind, the worst situation would inevitably erupt, like Murphy’s law.
This was exactly that moment. Cassian’s low voice echoed through the quiet solitary cell.
“But, Iliana.”
His red eyes flashed sharply, as if piercing straight through me.
“Are you not hiding something from me?”
My heart dropped to the floor with a thud. I desperately managed my expression and calmly asked back,
“……What do you mean?”
A cold sneer formed on Cassian’s lips.
“No matter where I searched in the empire, there was no family called ‘Revni.’”
My breath caught in my throat. As if the air in the world had thinned in an instant, Cassian’s cold gaze gripped my neck like a noose.