Trapped In My Own Novel

Sirvived The Story She Created

The name. Mabella. She had seen it somewhere before… Suddenly, she went still as memories flooded in.

Her breath came in sharp gasps. No… no… this is not possible. She had transmigrated here?. But the pieces slammed together mercilessly in her mind—the electric jolt - and now—the pearl ceiling, the sea beyond the walls, the consorts. And it starts to make sense.

She knew it all. She had written it herself.

This was her story… Her novel."

And Ysabel … Ysabel was the very character she had doomed to misery. The unloved consort. The disposable one. The woman framed for poisoning the Sea King’s favourite, punished without mercy, erased from the story before the true heroine even began her rise.

And she was trapped in the body of the very woman she had doomed to misery.

Her lips trembled. “This…" this can’t…”

The maid lifted her tear-filled eyes. “My lady, the guards are on their way. Please, you must prepare yourself—the sea king himself has demanded your presence.”

And then the distant sound came, rolling through the far end of the corridors like thunder: the footsteps of armoured soldiers, sharp and final, coming closer with each strike against the polished floors

Hi Joon ’s body froze, terror coiling in her chest like a serpent.

She had written this moment herself. She knew how it ended.

Dragged before the Sea king. Accused. Condemned. Cast into the abyss without a chance to speak.

But now, it wasn’t Ysabel who would die.

It was her.

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Chapter Two – Dragged Before the Sea King

The words continued to echo in Hi Joon’s mind, cold and merciless.

The Consort Mabella has been poisoned. And the evidence points to you..

Her stomach churned again. She tried to laugh, tried to shake herself awake, but the room, the maid, the shimmering walls of coral—everything remained terrifyingly solid.

This wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t some cruel trick of exhaustion.

This was real.

And worse, she knew exactly how the story went from here.

In her manuscript, Ysabel —the character whose body she now wore—was given no chance to explain herself. The guards would arrive, drag her before the Sea king, and without so much as a hearing, he would condemn her. She would be stripped of her title, thrown into the abyss, and never seen again.

Her first appearance. Her last.

And now, that’s me.

Her knees trembled so badly that she had to grip the bedpost to steady herself. The maid was still kneeling, looking at her strangely, as though unable to understand her mistress’s shaken behaviour. Hi Joon, I swallowed hard, forcing herself to think.

There had to be a way out. There had to be.

“Listen,” she whispered, her voice rough. “You said… the evidence points to me. What kind of evidence?”

The maid blinked, startled by the question. “The… poisoned tea was delivered from your own kitchens, my lady. The healers claim the cup was laced with sea-mist flowers. The Consort Mabella has taken gravely ill. And she is pregnant. Everyone is saying—”

Her voice faltered as though afraid to finish.

Hi Joon’s stomach dropped. She remembered writing that detail—the cup, the poisoned tea, the fatal flower. It had been one of the cruel twists she’d been so proud of. Now, it was her noose.

Her pulse hammered in her ears.

“I didn’t do it,” she whispered, more to herself than to the maid. “I didn’t… I would never…”

The maid looked even more puzzled, brow furrowing as she rose halfway to her feet. “My lady, of course you didn’t. But what matters is not the truth—only what His Majesty believes. You must… you must try to plead your case when you face him.”

Hi Joon’s chest constricted. Plead her case? Against the Sea king? She had written him to be cruel, distant, merciless. He had never cared for Ysabel and had never spared her so much as a glance of compassion.

And if he was truly as she had written him, then no words could save her.

Her thoughts raced wildly. Could she run? Hide? No—the palace was vast but guarded on all sides. And even if she managed to slip past, where would she go? Out into the endless sea that surrounded this world? She would be swallowed whole before she took ten steps.

Think, Hi Joon. Think!

The continued heavy clang of armoured boots interrupted her frantic thoughts. The sound reverberated closer to her quarter, each step bringing icy dread closer to her door.

The maid gasped, pale. “The guards are here already.”

Hi Joon’s legs nearly gave way. She stumbled back a step, pressing her body against the bedpost like a cornered animal. The urge to scream that this was all a mistake, that she didn’t belong here, clawed at her throat—but what good would it do?

The doors burst open.

Two soldiers entered, tridents in hand, their armoured gleaming like scales under the lantern light. Their expressions were stone, unyielding.

“Consort Ysabel,” one of them intoned, his voice deep and cold. “By His Majesty’s command, you are to be brought before him to answer for your crime.”

Hi Joon’s breath hitched.

Her crime.

This was it. The moment she had written. The moment Ysabel’s story ended.

Except now, it was hers.

Her mind screamed, searching desperately for any loophole, any detail she might twist, any scrap of knowledge she had as the author that Ysabel herself never possessed.

There has to be a way. I wrote this world. I know this world. There has to be something I can use—

The guards seized her arms, their grip like iron. The maid looked on helplessly, wringing her hands.

As Hi Joon was dragged from the chamber, her pulse pounded with a single, desperate thought:

If she wanted to survive, she would have to outwit the very story she created.