Chapter Text
??? pov
I never thought a game could ruin me so completely.
Love and Deepspace was something my friend introduced casually, like it was nothing—just another game, just another set of characters designed to make hearts flutter and wallets open.
I didn’t expect to linger.
I didn’t expect to care.
I certainly didn’t expect to fall in love.
There were five of them, each carefully crafted, each beautiful in its own way, but Caleb—Caleb was different. From the moment he appeared on my screen, something inside me shifted, as my heart couldn’t stop beating wildly.
He had quiet strength and restrained devotion. Gentle where it mattered, and unyielding when it counted. A man who endured anything for me without complaint, who loved without asking for anything in return. I played through his story slowly, savouring every line of dialogue and every fleeting expression, afraid that if I rushed, it would end too soon.
When it did, I wasn’t ready to let go.
So I went searching.
AO3 became my sanctuary, my descent, and my obsession. Fic after fic, anything involving Caleb as the main hero, I devoured them all—until I found that one.
Happily Ever After.
It was perfect.
Painful. Cruel. Beautiful.
In that story, I was the youngest princess of a fallen kind of fairy tale kingdom. A sweet and kind girl who loves and respects everyone and everything. A true angel of a heroine.
Caleb was there too.
He was Josephine’s grandson, raised within palace walls yet never belonging to them. A boy who grew up beside me, who played with me in sunlit gardens when the world was still kind. A boy who later became a general—respected, feared, and unwavering in his loyalty towards me.
However, my older sister, Princess Charlotte.
She loved him too.
Or rather—she wanted him.
On the day a princess turned eighteen, tradition allowed her to choose a personal knight. A man sworn to her service for life, body, and soul.
Even bed.
Charlotte chose Caleb without hesitation, as if she couldn’t wait to get her hands onto him.
He never wanted her. However, no matter how many times he rejected her advances, she laughed it off, clung to him, and forced herself into his space as she owned him simply because she could. His disgust was written plainly in the story—clear and unwavering—but she never cared.
When she couldn’t have his heart, she took her anger out on me.
The youngest princess. The sweet and kind one, who loved him silently and hopelessly.
Charlotte was vicious—petty and short-tempered, foolish in her cruelty. She humiliated me publicly, cornered me privately, and always, always made sure Caleb saw. She threw herself at him shamelessly, just to remind me that she could.
A villainess in every sense of the word.
Every villain has a downfall.
The crown prince—our eldest brother, Caspian—captured her for poisoning him. Traces of the poison were discovered in her chambers, damning evidence laid out beyond denial. She screamed her innocence until her voice broke, but whether it was truth or fabrication no longer mattered—the proof pointed unerringly toward her, and the verdict had already been decided.
Charlotte was dragged away screaming and shouting profanities, her silk gowns torn, and her crown shattered against stone. She rotted in prison until death claimed her, forgotten and unmourned.
For a moment—just a moment—the story softened.
Caleb and I confessed our feelings at last. The tension that had haunted every shared glance finally broke.
We were finally happy.
But happiness was not allowed to last.
Caspian ascended the throne.
What’s more, he brought war with him.
Neighbouring kingdoms burned. Soldiers fell. Innocents died. The land itself seemed to scream beneath the weight of blood and ambition. The people suffered, starving and afraid, while the king sat upon his throne and called it necessity.
So we rebelled.
Caleb and I, side by side, led a resistance that tore the kingdom apart from within. When Caspian finally fell, it was not with glory, but with exhaustion—with a crown stained red and a nation in ruins.
Caleb was later crowned king.
I became his queen.
The story ended there, with promises of peace, with the words happily ever after written like a mercy.
I loved it.
I loved it so much it hurt.
However, I never thought I would live in it.
***
The street was dimly lit, the air cool against my skin as I walked home, phone clutched tightly in my hand. I reread the final paragraph, my chest aching with that familiar, hollow longing.
Caleb wasn’t real.
Yet my heart didn’t care.
“If only,” I murmured softly, eyes fixed on the screen. “If only I could meet you.”
The world didn’t warn me.
No dramatic pause. No slow realisation.
Just sound.
A horn blared—violent and desperate.
I looked up.
White light swallowed everything.
The truck came too fast.
There was no time to move and no time to think. My scream tore out of me as metal slammed into flesh, and pain exploded—blinding, crushing, and absolute.
It felt like my body was being torn apart from the inside, every bone screaming at once. My lungs emptied violently, air ripped from me as I hit the ground. The impact rattled my skull, my vision fracturing into shards of light and shadow.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t move.
The world faded at the edges, sounds drowning beneath a thick and suffocating silence. Warmth spread beneath me, sticky and wrong. My phone slipped from my fingers, clattering uselessly against the pavement.
Terror bloomed.
I don’t want to die.
Each heartbeat came slower than the last, heavy and uneven, like it was struggling just to continue.
My limbs grew cold.
My chest burned.
Tears slid helplessly into my hair.
Caleb’s face surfaced in my mind.
His steady gaze, his quiet devotion, and the way he always chose me, even when the world tried to take that choice from him.
The pain softened, not because it was gone—but because I was slipping away from it. Darkness crept in gently, mercilessly, until even fear dissolved.
My last thought clung stubbornly to my fading consciousness—
If there is another life… let me meet him.
Then the darkness claimed me whole.
***
Pain dragged me back to consciousness.
It was the first thing I felt—a scorching, splitting headache, like molten iron being poured slowly into my skull. My brows knitted instinctively as a weak groan slipped past my lips. Every thought felt delayed, wrapped in fog, heavy and wrong.
I tried to open my eyes.
Light stabbed through my eyelids.
I sucked in a sharp breath and squeezed them shut again, my heart pounding. The air smelled unfamiliar—not of asphalt or smoke, but something softer, cleaner, and floral, like expensive incense and polished wood.
When I finally forced my eyes open, the world that greeted me was impossibly… grand.
A vast canopy loomed above me, sheer fabric embroidered with silver thread that caught the light and shimmered faintly. The bed beneath me was too soft, layered with silk and velvet that cradled my body instead of the cold, unforgiving ground I remembered. Sunlight streamed through tall arched windows, filtered by heavy curtains with the colour of wine.
I stared.
My mind stalled.
This wasn’t a hospital.
The memory hit me all at once.
The horn.
The blinding headlights.
The scream ripped from my throat.
The pain—crushing, all-consuming.
Then darkness.
“I… died,” I whispered hoarsely.
My voice sounded wrong—softer, clearer.
Not mine.
Panic surged.
Is this heaven?
The thought felt absurd even as it formed. Heaven didn’t come with headaches this vicious, or rooms this extravagant. My heart raced as I lifted a trembling hand and pinched my cheek hard.
“Ow—!”
Pain flared sharply.
I gasped.
Real pain.
I wasn’t floating. I wasn’t translucent. I wasn’t gone.
“I’m not dead?” My breath came faster. “This isn’t a dream?”
Dread crept in, cold and crawling.
I forced myself upright, silk sheets sliding down my body. That was when I noticed what I was wearing.
My breath caught.
A long nightdress clung to me, white as moonlight, made of impossibly fine silk that pooled around my legs like liquid. Delicate lace framed the neckline and sleeves, embroidered with tiny pearls that glimmered faintly with every movement. It was modest and elegant—unmistakably extravagant.
My hands trembled.
This isn’t mine.
I froze.
A mirror stood across the room—tall, framed in gilded gold, reflecting the sunlight like a silent witness.
No.
My heart slammed violently against my ribs.
“No, no, no…”
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and nearly stumbled as my feet touched the plush carpet. The world tilted, my head throbbing, but instinct overrode pain.
I ran.
The distance felt endless.
When I finally reached the mirror and looked up—
I screamed.
It echoed—high, sharp, hysterical—bouncing off gilded walls and marble columns until it no longer sounded human. My throat burned, my chest heaved, and the woman in the mirror stared back at me with the same wide, horrified eyes.
That’s not me.
Gone was my short brown hair, always stubborn and uneven, no matter how much I trimmed it. In its place cascaded long and luxurious black curls, thick and glossy, spilling down my back like a dark waterfall. Each strand caught the light, framing a face that was devastatingly beautiful and terrifyingly unfamiliar.
My skin was pale and flawless, porcelain smooth. My features were sharper—high cheekbones, a delicate nose, lips tinted naturally rose, parted in shock.
The eyes were what stole my breath.
Red.
They weren’t dull or dark.
They were a vivid, crystalline crimson, sparkling like garnets held up to the sun—cold, piercing, and undeniably regal.
Eyes that had looked down on others.
Eyes that are judged.
Eyes that belonged to someone powerful… and cruel.
I raised my hand.
She raised hers.
My fingers brushed my cheek, tracing unfamiliar curves, and the woman in the mirror did the same.
“This isn’t me,” I whispered, voice breaking. “This isn’t—this can’t be—”
The door slammed open.
The sound was sharp, decisive, cutting straight through my panic like a blade.
Heavy footsteps crossed the room in seconds.
“Your Highness!”
His voice.
I froze.
My blood turned to ice—and then, impossibly, to fire.
I turned slowly.
He stood near the doorway, already half-drawn sword in hand, eyes sharp and alert as they swept the room for threats that didn’t exist. He was taller than I remembered from screens and words, broader in the shoulders, his presence filling the chamber until the air itself felt different.
Caleb.
Instead of the many familiar outfits he always wears in the game, he wore a royal general’s uniform—black from collar to boots, severe and immaculate. The fabric was tailored perfectly to his frame, hugging strong shoulders and a narrow waist, the silver insignia of his rank gleaming faintly against the dark cloth. His gloves were black leather, one already pulled halfway off, sword held loosely in the other hand like an extension of his body.
He looked real.
Too real.
Not a sprite. Not a portrait. Not lines of text.
My vision blurred.
I had dreamed of this moment a thousand times—meeting him, seeing him, and hearing his voice spoken to me. I had dreamed of it with a longing so sharp it hurt to wake up from. Now that he was here, standing only a few steps away, my chest felt like it was collapsing in on itself.
Fate really likes to play games with me.
He scanned the corners of the room, the ceiling, and the windows. His movements were efficient and practised—someone who had seen danger often enough to expect it everywhere.
“There was screaming,” he said, voice low, edged with tension. “Did someone enter the room?”
I couldn’t answer.
I could only stare at the familiar curve of his jaw, the familiar violet eyes with pink hues at the bottom, and the way his brows knit together when he didn’t immediately find a threat.
He sheathed his sword slowly.
Silence settled, thick and awkward.
When his gaze finally landed on me, the intensity softened—but only slightly. His brows furrowed, lips pressing into a thin line. Annoyance flickered there, restrained but unmistakable.
“Princess Charlotte,” he said again, firmer this time. “What is wrong?”
Princess Charlotte.
The words struck like a slap.
I blinked.
Once.
Twice.
My mouth opened—but no sound came out.
He watched me carefully now, eyes narrowing just a fraction, as if recalibrating. “Your Highness?” he asked. “Is something the matter?”
I swallowed hard.
My hands were shaking. I curled them into the silk of my night dress, grounding myself in the texture—the cool smoothness, the undeniable reality of it. Panic threatened to spill over again, but I forced it down, pressing it into the pit of my stomach where it burned like acid.
Don’t pounce, you might scare him off.
Think.
Breathe.
Survive.
“I—” My voice came out unsteady. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Nothing is wrong.”
The lie tasted bitter.
“I just…” I hesitated, then grasped desperately for the first harmless excuse I could think of. “I saw a bug.”
A beat.
Then another.
Caleb stared at me as if I had grown two heads.
“A… bug,” he repeated slowly.
Heat crept up my neck.
“Yes,” I said quickly, too quickly. “It startled me.”
The silence stretched.
He didn’t move, and I didn't relax. His eyes searched my face now—not the room—sharp and unsettling, as if he were trying to find the truth beneath my skin. I felt exposed, flayed open beneath that gaze, terrified he would somehow see through me and discover that I didn’t belong here.
“Where is it?” he asked at last.
My heart skipped.
“Ah—” I let out an awkward, breathy laugh that sounded painfully fake even to my own ears. “It crawled into the cracks.”
I gestured vaguely toward the marble floor.
Another pause.
There was something unreadable in his expression---confusion, perhaps suspicion, or simply the fatigue of dealing with Princess Charlotte yet again.
“I see,” he said finally.
The relief was so intense it made me dizzy.
“General,” I said softly, forcing calm into my tone, forcing myself to sound like her, “you may go. I wish to be alone.”
His brows shot up before he could stop them.
For just a moment, he gave me the same shocked and confused look again, as if I had grown two heads.
Then discipline snapped back into place.
He stepped back, straightened, and bowed deeply, one fist crossing his chest in a flawless salute. “Of course, Your Highness.”
His voice was formal and distant.
God, I wanted to change that. I want to pounce onto him and worship every part of him.
Calm down, you don’t want him to run away, thinking you’re some pervert.
“If you require anything,” he continued, eyes lowered now, “please do not hesitate to call for me. I will always be right outside your door.”
He turned and left, the door closing softly behind him.
Right. After Charlotte attempts to seduce him in the bedroom, he doesn’t want to be in the same room as her again. He will only stand guard outside her door or follow her behind when she takes walks around the garden, but she secretly admires him... more like, boasting to everyone that Caleb is hers.
Once the door closed, my legs immediately gave out. I sank to the floor, pressing a hand over my mouth to smother the sound that tried to escape—half sob, half broken laugh.
Caleb is real.
And I had become the one person he detests.