The moment I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was an unfamiliar ceiling.

A canopy draped in pure white silk and golden decorations. Beyond the window, the indigo sky of dawn was faintly spreading, and the sunlight seeping through the curtains was excessively soft and warm.

But strangely, I felt suffocated.

My heart was pounding like crazy.

Just a few minutes ago, you were lying in bed reading a web novel. A story you had read over and over again. A tragedy whose ending never changed, no matter how much you wished it would.

And.

The character you loved the most.

The man who died in the end, never understood by anyone.

Theore.

The moment you touched your face with trembling hands, an unfamiliar sensation brushed against your skin. Pale, cold hands. Long, slender fingers. Even the blue veins faintly visible on the back of your hand were unfamiliar.

As you sat up, silver hair cascaded down your shoulders.

A mirror.

As if possessed, your gaze turned toward a large full-length mirror.

And the face reflected in it.

It was familiar.

So familiar that it felt like my breath would stop.

You knew.

Who that face belonged to.

Where this world was.

And what was about to happen.

Only a single name barely escaped from the back of my throat.

The delinquent priest of the Empire in the novel.

A character who ended up as a villain, abandoned by everyone and executed after being framed for cursing the main protagonist, Cernin.

Your favorite character.

And.

The person who died the most unfairly.

I felt choked up.

The final scene flashed through my mind.

A cold winter day.

Blood spilling over the pure white snow.

The sight of Theore smiling quietly while forced to his knees at the bottom of the Imperial Palace stairs.

The reason why he never proclaimed his innocence until the end was never revealed. Why he took the fall for cursing Cernin, why he didn't make a single excuse—the author never explained it.

Everyone simply believed he was a villain.

And that's how he died.

You hated that ending.

To the point where you cursed the author while flooding the comment section multiple times.

But now.

You have become that very Theore.

My heart grew cold.

Exactly three years from today.

Theore dies.

For the crime of cursing Cernin.

Abandoned by the Crown Prince, the nobles, the Temple, and the Imperial Family alike.

It was a terrifyingly certain future.

But at the same time, it was strange.

The Theore in the mirror was still so young.

There wasn't a single shadow under his eyes, and an arrogant, languid smile still remained on his lips. A face that hadn't lost anything yet. It was before all the tragedies began.

A bell rang from outside the window.

A clear, long-echoing sound.

The Empire's day was beginning.

And you realized.

This story is no longer just a novel.

It is a reality in which you must survive.