From Side Character to Vampire Queen

At one in the morning, I stepped into the old elevator in my office building. Everyone on the floor had gone home. Only the screen on my desk was still lit. The report my boss had dumped on me at the last minute, the tenth revision the client sent at nine p.m., the proposal a coworker had smiled and pressed on me with a casual "you don't have plans anyway, right?" — working this late, there was no one left to even keep a light on for me. I leaned against the cold metal wall, too drained to even be angry. Between the sixteenth floor and the next, the elevator jolted. The lights died. Before I could react, the floor dropped out from under me, and the weightlessness seized my stomach like a fist. Falling. I was crushed into the corner, but my mind was strangely clear. Memories came crashing through like a reel rewinding — I was only twenty-seven. The cake shop with the two-hour line I'd never treated myself to. The concert I'd bought tickets for but never dared take leave for, the light stick still sitting in my cart. All the debts I hadn't paid, the shows I hadn't finished, the things I hadn't tasted, the days I had never once lived for myself... Why? Why did I work overtime for everyone, pay for everyone's feelings — and in the end, even a late-night elevator home had to kill me? Damn my boss. Damn the favors. Damn every single day where everyone felt entitled to use me up. Go to hell. All of you, go to hell— CRASH—!!! The sound of breaking bones, and then a warm, coppery red that spread fast. I knew exactly what I had become. A heap of flesh at the bottom of an elevator shaft, mangled beyond ever being put back together. Then the world went completely silent. "Splash." "Splash." Again and again, something ground against the palm of my hand. I opened my eyes. No fluorescent lights, no pool of blood, no death-sentence report. I was standing in unfamiliar daylight. The sky wasn't fully awake yet; a gray-blue dawn mist hung over a low mud wall. The air was cold and damp — it smelled of earth, livestock, and wood ash mixed together. Above me were blackened rafters, strung with bunches of dried, unrecognizable herbs. I was holding a broom. The wooden handle was worn smooth, split in places, and a splinter was pressing into my palm. I wore a coarse-cloth dress, washed to a faded gray and patched three or four times; when the wind blew, the cold seeped straight through the hem and into my bones. I stood frozen, then slowly looked down at my hands. They were small and thin. The backs were covered in chilblains, red and purple, with tiny cracks across the knuckles, and the nails were caked with black dirt. The wrist was so slender I could have circled it with one hand. These weren't my hands. I knelt by a chipped earthen basin of water and looked at my reflection — a pale, thin face, no older than sixteen or seventeen. Dark brown hair hung in a tangled mess, covering most of the face, and one eye — I couldn't tell left from right — was hidden behind it. I stared at that face for a long time. Then an absurd, burning thought rose from the soles of my feet straight up. I'd transmigrated. I had actually transmigrated. For twenty-seven years my last life had been spent like a part rubbed raw against the ground — working overtime for my boss, taking the blame for my coworkers, paying the landlord's mortgage for him, and even dying in an elevator no one had bothered to fix. Now fate had handed me a second life. How could I not be thrilled? I was shaking with excitement. Without thinking, I gripped the broom handle harder and harder, until my knuckles went white and the whole broom trembled. "Tch—" The splinter drove through the c***k in my palm, and a sharp pain shot up my arm. I sucked in a breath and loosened my fingers, jolted out of that dizzy elation. Pain. Real pain. This wasn't a dream. Before I could even figure out what kind of world this was, a shrill voice split the air from behind the broken door. "Ryn! Ryn, you wretched girl, what are you standing around in the yard moping for!" The door was shoved open, and a stout woman stepped out carrying a huge basin of laundry, her steps heavy. She was in her mid-forties, in a grease-stained coarse dress with a filthy apron around her waist. Her double chin wobbled as she moved, and her eyes were small but sharp, like an abacus that existed only to tally debts. She slammed the basin down in front of me. Dirty water splashed up and soiled half my skirt. "Get the family's washing done, now! Your younger siblings', your father's, mine — every last piece!" Hands on her hips, she thrust a thick stubby finger almost into my face. "If it isn't done, don't even think about eating tonight!" Ryn— The moment the name reached my ears, something in my head buzzed, as if pried open. Scattered images that didn't belong to me rose up alongside my own memories. I remembered. Ryn. That was the name from a novel I'd once clicked open on my phone in the small hours to stay awake, skimming a handful of chapters. I didn't remember much — only that it was a world with magic, werewolves, and vampires. And I remembered the fate that followed this name. The girl called Ryn was an orphan raised by a farming family. Right after her coming-of-age, she would be sold to the local lord. In that castle she'd be favored and live about a year of good days, and then she'd be hunted and exiled. She'd flee to a strange land, meet a wolf prince, bear his child, be abandoned by him, and finally be killed by the demon-kin. She died miserably. In the whole book she was barely even a proper name — just a tool made to be betrayed, to be sacrificed, to prop up someone else's story. My transmigration excitement slowly cooled. I thought I'd finally escaped that rotten life. Instead I'd opened my eyes into another life — one whose ending I already knew, and which was just as miserable. "Are you deaf? I'm talking to you!" Seeing me just stand there with the broom, my foster mother's impatience curdled into fury. Without a word, she raised her arm and swung her broad palm toward my face. SMACK— A crisp c***k. I was knocked sideways. Half my face burned hot, and my ears rang. I'd taken my share of unfairness in my last life. But that had been quiet knives, cold violence, betrayal behind my back. This was the first solid, undisguised slap I'd ever taken. I stayed with my head turned, eyes lowered. I didn't cry the way the original owner of this body would have, and I didn't swallow it all the way I used to. I simply, slowly, registered the weight of that slap — and memorized it. "Eating my food, living under my roof, you ungrateful little burden, and you dawdle over a bit of washing!" Foster mother stood with hands on hips, spittle flying. "What are you waiting for? Go!" On the low stool beside her sat two younger children, a boy and a girl, dressed noticeably better than me. They held wooden bowls of hot soup, watching me with open glee, chewing as they smiled, utterly certain they were in the right. Under the eaves, a lean man had his back to us, chopping wood. The whole time, he never turned around, never spoke. The axe fell again and again, steady, as if he'd heard nothing. That was the body's foster father. I instinctively searched the small crowd for the one person who'd ever spoken up for the original Ryn. Her memory held a vague outline — an eldest brother, who worked in the town and rarely came home. I knelt and dragged the basin to the well in the middle of the yard, drew icy water, and scrubbed the clothes one by one. The water was genuinely cold. The moment my hands went in, the chilblains and cracks stung as if countless needles had gone in at once. I gritted my teeth and pressed a thick, filthy outer shirt against the washboard, scrubbing mechanically, again and again. The sun crept up behind the mud wall, falling on my soaked, red-chapped hands without giving any warmth. As I washed, I kept my head down and quickly studied the household, while desperately piecing together the scattered memories of Ryn. The house was adobe with a thatched roof. A few thin chickens wandered the yard, and firewood and tools were piled in the corner. They were poor, genuinely poor. But even this poverty had its ranks — the two siblings wore whole clothes and drank hot soup, while I wore a patched dress, did all the family's work, and had to earn even a full meal with a beating. I was halfway through the washing when the gate creaked open again. A young man of about seventeen or eighteen sauntered in. He was shortish, wearing a short tunic nicer than anyone else's in the family, but it was wrinkled and stained with suspicious wine marks. His hair was messy, his eyes were sunken, and his face was a hollow, bleached white — the kind of white worn by someone drained by late nights, gambling, and drink. He yawned, lazily stretched, and his gaze swept over and landed on me. The second son, Bram. In Ryn's memory, this man's appearance never meant anything good. He strolled over, gave me a once-over as if I were an object, and then his eyes landed beside me — where a small piece of hard black bread sat, the ration I'd collected from the kitchen that morning and never brought myself to eat. He bent and picked it up without a by-your-leave, weighed it in his hand, and held it to his nose. "Tch." He looked disgusted but still took a big bite, chewing as he mumbled, "Ma, I've got something to tell you." Foster mother, carrying out a second basin, snorted. "What?" "I went into town yesterday and asked around." Bram chewed my bread, his eyes slanting toward me, the corner of his mouth lifting into a meaningful smirk. "The lord of Blackthorn Hold has been picking girls from the villages lately — wants a few decent-looking, hard-working ones for the keep. And guess what? The price he's offering isn't low." He paused, then bent down, looming over where I squatted by the basin. "Look at this one here," he nudged the basin with the toe of his shoe, sloshing dirty water onto my patched dress. "Years of work, and she hasn't earned the family a single coin. Eats our food for free. Her coming-of-age is almost here, so why keep her? I say sell her to the keep while we can, trade her for a couple sacks of wheat and some silver. Wouldn't say we raised her for nothing." Foster mother's hands paused. I kept my head down, but my hands, scrubbing in the water, silently stopped. I knew. I remembered this part. This was the line where the first domino of fate tipped over. Before long, the man chewing my bread and calculating my price — and the woman who'd just slapped me — would use "coming-of-age" as the excuse to sell me out of this house and into the castle called Blackthorn Keep. And that castle was the starting point of every good day and bad day ahead, of the hunt, the exile, the lover, the child — and of my death. "Say something, Ma," Bram added with a grin when she stayed quiet. "Look at those eyes of hers, all covered up, nothing but bad luck. Never says a word, like a block of wood. Send her to the keep — if some steward takes a liking to her, the family might even benefit." As he spoke, he reached out and grabbed the lock of hair that covered my face, yanking my head up. "Isn't that right, little sister?" My neck burned with the strain of being forced to look up, and my one uncovered eye met his gaze directly. He probably wanted to see fear, to see tears, to see the trembling, begging girl he was used to. I didn't give him that. I just looked at him, calm and quiet, no tears in my eyes and no fear. In my mind, I recorded his face in careful strokes — his expression, his eyes, the way he chewed my bread, the hand that held my hair — clear and complete. For some reason, Bram's smile stiffened. He'd probably never seen this cowardly sister look at him this way. There was nothing in that gaze, and yet too much — a calm that didn't belong to someone ground underfoot, more like the look of a buyer sizing up a piece of merchandise and weighing the price. ***********。****，*********，*******。 “****。*****！*！” **********************，********。 ************。 *******，**************。 *********。*****，*******。**********。*******。 ****。 *******，*************，**********。 *****，**********—— **********，****。 **************。 ************************，****。 ******。 **********，****。 *******。 ********，***************——****。 ***********。****，*************。 ****************。 ***********“**”**——***********：*****、**、*********，******************。 ******，************，******，******。 *****。 ************。******，**。*********。 ********，*******，*******，************——*******，****************。 ********，*********，******。 ******，****。 *******，**************。********，*********——**************、****、***“*****”***。 ****，*******，***************，****，****。 *****，*****、*******，******、**********。 ****，**，********—— ***。 ***、**、*****——**********，******。 *******，****。