Chapter 4: The Darkness Calls
BEEP… Beep… Beep…
The sound of something electronic was playing on a loop. My body and mind were asleep, but that sound never stopped.
“…-lease wake up.”
It was my mother’s voice. Perhaps I was in my parents’ home. I spent most of my life either alone in my apartment or at work, but I always visited my parents at the end of the year and for Obon.
I didn’t feel particularly hot or cold. Wait, is it winter right now? Or summer? What year is it?
Through my hazy thoughts, I felt something squeeze my left hand. It was soft and warm—the hand of my mother.
“Do you know what day it is? Everyone’s waiting for you.”
Everyone?
“Your coworkers have been calling you. They say they’re waiting to see you again once you recover.”
Recover? Recover from what?
“I know it’s a miracle that you’re alive at all, but your mom and dad want to hear your voice again, ●●. So please come back to us…”
When I heard her tearful voice, that memory flooded back.
The night my whole life changed.
I was going home late after working unpaid overtime at my company. When I saw a kitten jump out into the street, I tried to save it and, a truck hit me. The impact was so intense that I still remember the feeling of being flung through the air.
I’d never comprehended just how dangerous moving cars could be until that moment.
After all, that was the accident that killed me.
But why was my mom crying at my side like that?
It was like something out of a medical drama.
A character would get into an accident and spend the entire episode unconscious in their hospital bed.
Was I dreaming?
Or was I—
“Ah!”
I opened my eyes and sat up slowly.
Morning light was pouring in from the curtains, illuminating the bed where I slept. The smell of disinfectant and the sound of the heart monitor were gone now—they never could have existed here in the first place.
This was the world from a game, after all.
I’d reincarnated into the otome game Evil Alice’s Lover.
My new name was Alice Liddell. I was a baron’s daughter with blood-red hair and eyes—the beautiful heroine of a fictional version of Victorian England. The dream I just had could be nothing more than an illusion constructed from my past life memories.
Still, it felt so real to me…
“I hope Mom is doing well.”
My current mental confusion was probably the cause of that strange dream.
I can’t believe Dum and Dee don’t want to go back to normal.
I’d been eager to undo the spell, but the twins wanted to remain as adults. After hearing their earnest plea in the Nameless Woods, I never got a chance to respond to them.
I want to respect their feelings. But we don’t know what might go wrong if they stay in that state for a long time. It’s a difficult problem.
Leeds was sleeping with his arms crossed in a chair by the window.
I slipped out of my room and went to the first floor to wash my face, where Charles found me.
“Good morning, Charles.”
“Good morning. You’re up early today.”
Charles washed his face with the clear water and dried himself with his sleeve. But his eyes were bloodshot.
“Did you stay up all night?”
“…Robins was out until morning again…” He gasped and put his hand to his mouth. “I just got engrossed in the book I was reading. I’m in a hurry, so if you’ll excuse me.”
Charles left before I could ask anything else of him.
He must have stayed up because he was worried about Robins.
They should only need to visit the cemetery a few times a year for upkeep. What was the old trail in the Nameless Woods really used for? As I pondered that, someone poked me in the back of the head.
“There you are, my lady.” It was Leeds. He scolded me for leaving the room without telling him. “You need to stay safe since we can’t rely on the Tweedles right now.”
The twins had started to act slightly differently ever since the three of us entered the Nameless Woods. Dum and Dee had grown incredibly overprotective of me.
More specifically, they prepared everything I would need to use during classes, lifted and carried me over puddles in the road, and had one go to the dining hall first to secure a table and a plate full of whatever food I wanted.
Then, they followed with the same line.
“As long as you’re smiling, Alice, that’s all I need.”
“As long as you’re smiling, Alice, that’s all we need.”
They were dreamboats. Absolute dreamboats.
Leeds finally had to ban them from sleepovers when they tried to get in bed with me.
Dum and Dee only guarded me in the afternoons, while Leeds took the night shift. The two quickly turned cold toward Leeds before persuading an upperclassman to give them his room. They went to bed and woke up in the room next door to Charles now.
I wonder what has them acting like this?
I didn’t have a clue what was going on in their hearts. Perhaps this was how it felt to have a child move out before they seemed ready. Before all this, they would have simply told me how they felt. I hated how that wasn’t the case anymore.
I returned to my room, changed clothes, and stepped into the hallway with my textbooks. The twins were waiting for me with their backs against the wall. They pulled me close like they were stealing me away from Leeds.
“Goodbye.”
“See you tonight.”
“Bye-bye, you three! No napping in class, okay?”
Leeds bid us farewell like a doting mother. Even I forgot my worries and smiled.