Chapter. 3

The feeling of falling.

After everything turned dark, the next thing I remembered was the feeling of continuously being pulled by gravity. I’m not falling too fast, as if the force pulling me was a constant. But, everything felt… unreal.

It’s still difficult… to accept the fact that I’m dead.

How old am I? How was my life, up until now? Am I satisfied, dying this way and at this moment?

… Do I even have to think about where that demon came from, and why he targeted me, specifically?

Everything felt so unfair. I was only seventeen, and I barely escaped high school to go to university. I did my best to study for the entrance exams, and yet it was all for naught.

No, I’m not satisfied. I shouldn’t die this way. Accidents happen, murders happen. But, this felt weirder than most murders.

Most murderers use weapons to kill. Some use a ranged weapon, while some use a close range item, like a knife or some sort. Those that don't use a weapon use their bodies to cause harm, like choking the life off someone with their hands.

That demon falls into neither category. He killed me using supernatural powers.

This way of dying… felt wrong.

But, what’s done is done. I am now dead, and there is no way to come back. And now, I am falling for eternity, in this dark and cold black hole.

How long will this fall take? What will happen if I do arrive at the bottom? Will I die again from the fall?

What will I do until then?

Falling for eternity sounds very bad for my sanity. By the time I arrive at the bottom, it might take another thousand years, and imagining that alone already made me lose my mind.

But, apparently it didn’t take that long.

Not long after I started imagining those things, warmth could be felt on my body. The fall felt like it was becoming faster and faster, and vision began to return to my eyes as light entered this dark realm.

The light came from below me, and it seems like that small glimmer of light is at the bottom of this deep hole. I quickly turned my attention towards it.

I can… see it…

The bottom… it’s very bright.

It's like I'm falling towards the light. Inside all these darkness, the only place I can see is that same light, and it got even bigger and bigger as I fell.

What will I see? What is at the bottom of the deep hole? And what will happen to me as soon as I reach the bottom?

The questions were popping in my head rapidly, but I couldn’t answer fast enough.

Because the light kept on growing bigger and bigger, until finally my entire body was eaten by it entirely.

The world around me became much brighter and warmer, and everything became so loud and sensitive.

BWUUSSHH!!!!!!!!

The sound of wind suddenly entered my ears, and I quickly became annoyed by it. I tried opening my eyes to see more of the world around me, but was halted instantly by the blinding light.

It's… very bright. And It's warm… but cold, at the same time.

Windy… the air feels really fresh, as well.

The floor, it's...

Green?

My consciousness is coming back. My eyes can be opened again. My ears are working perfectly, hearing the ambience around me. My skin is feeling the breezy air, and my nose can smell the soil. And the first thing I noticed was the ground material below me, which was… grass.

Somehow, I woke up in the middle of a grass field, under a tree.

I moved the top of my body using my hand, pushing me up until I gained a sitting position. Behind and soaring on top of me is a single large apple tree. The tree is covering me from the bright sunlight, but there are a few openings from the leaves which allow the sunlight to enter. The air's breeze had shoved the sunlight's heat away, so I didn't feel hot at all.

It's truly the most refreshing thing I have felt in a long time, which made me forget about certain things, such as my condition.

Where… am I?

I stood up immediately and I faced forward, towards the forever-green that was blessed right in front of me. The grassland hills as the eyes can see and the forest beyond it, the clear light blue sky with white clouds, as well as the sun that is right on top of my head. The mountainous range at the horizon, and the forest trees at the edge of the grassland.

Woah… this is beautiful.

Is this... heaven?

But the scenery… doesn’t stop there.

Right under the hill where I am currently at, there is a rocky road. It occurs to me that I am probably no longer in my home country, and that road looks so traditional. It’s not made out of asphalt, which should have been the default material to roads like this. The size is quite wide, and should fit three lanes of cars.

Yet, the thing that shocks me the most is what that road led up to.

On the right side, the road leads to a forest, far beyond what I could see since the trees were so dense. But on the left side, is what seemed to be the main destination of the said road.

Far on the left end of the road, there is a single huge stone wall that spans over kilometers. The wall is over twenty meters tall, and it is hiding a bunch of tall buildings on the inside that I can barely see.

And from the shape of that wall, a world came to mind.

Is that… a kingdom?

I thought I was going crazy. It looked so real, yet so fake at the same time because it was so real. The road that led to it is leading to a large double door that seemed to be the gate towards the inside of the castle walls. After seeing how traditional those gates look, I am fully certain.

It's actually a kingdom city... My eyes weren't lying. Am I in... Europe?

I'm not sure whether some European countries had such a wide green area, and those castle walls sure look pretty big. Not to mention the fact that the entire city is very big as well. I have never seen or heard of a castle that big still exists in any country of europe.

It's a genuinely large and long castle wall, and the size that it covers looks very big. The center of the kingdom looked quite hilly, and I could clearly see a single large castle at the top of that hill. I can also see the smaller buildings that are inside the walls, that is furthest on the city from my position.

It's impossible that something like this still exists in Europe.

Then… where am I?

Didn't I just die? What the hell is going on??

Is this heaven? If it does, it doesn't look like what any of the religions says.

As I was grinding the gears on my head trying to find an answer, a long red object fell to my face from on top of my head.

My first thought of it was a snake, but I wasn’t that afraid of snakes so I didn’t panic. But my second thought was questioning how this thing managed to arrive in my head.

I lifted my right hand and tried pulling it away carefully, but it seemed to be attached to my head.

… Huh?

I tried pulling again, but it’s not budging. If anything, my head hurts.

This is… my hair?

I tried pulling again to confirm, and finally felt pain after pulling multiple times.

Yep, this thing is totally my hair.

It’s… so long, though…

Wait, the color–!?!?

I lowered my hand slightly so I could see my own hair, and I noticed that not only is it long, it is also really… red.

Very red. Blood red. Crimson. Any of the weird color names you can name.

My heart skipped a beat as my mind started to switch focus, from questioning my location to my current condition.

My eyes were then averted towards the very thing that is holding the hair, that is my hands. They look very thin and skinny, not to mention becoming so pale as if I have never bathed in the sun before.

At that moment, I just realized that something was definitely wrong.

Slowly, I regained my senses and found that my body felt quite weird. I started to silently panic, and sanity began to leave my body piece by piece.

My left hand reached for my head, specifically my hair. I lowered my head so that my hair can fall forward, that way I’ll be able to see my own long hair clearly.

What I found wasn't the short curly hair that I once had, but a long, smooth red hair. And it’s… very long?

My eyes followed the hair until the edge, and I can see that it goes all the way to my knee. I am lowering my head right now, which means this hair should be reaching somewhere around my waist. And the color, it wasn’t just any red, it's the blood red color.

No natural hair ever went this dark red, unless painted. So somehow, my hair got longer, and it's painted?

I became red haired just like that. And not even redheaded people have this unnatural hair color.

I fixed my hair with both my hands, and now my focus is turned towards them.

Besides being small, it's smooth. Like a newborn baby smooth. The nails looked so beautiful, and the slender fingers moved very perfectly.

What… is going on…?

But of course, the chaos did not stop there.

The more I look into... My very own body? The more wrong it gets.

I touched my face. There are no acnes or any acne scars waiting for me. Not even the scar from the fight with my sister back when I was little can be found on my forehead.

After my face, I touched my ears, my neck, my hair again just to be sure, my mouth and eyes...

That's when I realized something was even more complicated.

I haven't checked my lower body.

At this point, I can already feel them. The difference, the change, the subtle but clear uncomfortableness.

My mind kept on thinking, wondering what was happening while losing bits and pieces of my sanity.

What the hell... Why is this happening?

I took a deep breath, and very slowly let it out.

“Hahh…”

Damn… just from the sound of my breath, I can already tell the answer to the most essential question of all.

I looked down at my body.

Yep. I got the answer.

I am now a female.