Chapter 2: The Villainess Awakens
The light engulfed her.
It wasn't warm. It wasn't cold either.
It simply... existed.
For a few seconds—or was it years?—Bella floated in that strange, formless realm between lives. Her thoughts slowed. Her memories curled into tight orbs of information, waiting to be unpacked.
Then, with a lurch that felt like being shoved through a too-small doorway, she landed.
Hard.
On the floor.
A polished stone floor.
Bella's eyes snapped open.
Her breath caught in her throat. Her body felt… different. Smaller. Softer. Not weak, but young. She looked down at her arms. Pale. Thin. Tiny fingers with dirt beneath the nails. Her skin was scraped, bruised. The dress she wore was far too grand for how she looked—frilly, expensive... and covered in dust.
Her head spun.
"I'm… a child?" she murmured, the voice that came out light and delicate—high-pitched, but still her own.
> "Age five," she recalled. "I was warned."
She looked around. The room she'd landed in was massive—stone columns, stained glass windows, velvet curtains heavy with gold embroidery. A chandelier above her flickered with artificial mana-light.
But the room was silent.
Too silent.
Then—
CRACK!
Pain exploded in her cheek as a sharp slap sent her reeling. She fell to the side, dazed.
"Get up, filth," a cold voice said. "Don't pretend to be unconscious. You have chores to do."
Bella blinked away tears, stunned—not from the pain, but the audacity.
A woman stood over her—a maid in black and white, tall and stiff like a statue. Her eyes gleamed with disgust.
"I said get up, you cursed brat!"
Bella's mind raced.
> This is it. The villainess's childhood.
She knew this cliché. She'd read it in so many novels: the abandoned noble child, hated for being born with power, or cursed blood, or the wrong mother. Tortured and beaten until they turned cold, ruthless... dangerous.
She touched her stinging cheek.
And she smiled.
A slow, eerie smile that made the maid step back, startled.
"I'm up," Bella said calmly, brushing her dress off. "Lead the way."
---
• Later •
The kitchen was massive and bustling. At least two dozen servants ran about, chopping, washing, roasting. The smell of roasted meat and spices filled the air—but Bella received none of it.
Instead, she was led to a pile of firewood and told to stack it. No gloves. No help. No sympathy.
Her tiny hands ached after minutes. Splinters stabbed at her fingers. Her knees trembled from the weight of each load.
But she didn't cry.
She didn't break.
Because her mind was an adult's, filled with decades of memories and knowledge. The pain? Manageable. The humiliation? Expected.
This wasn't suffering.
This was training.
---
• That Night •
She sat alone in a cold, narrow room—barely more than a storage closet. No mattress, just a pile of hay and a rough wool blanket.
Her stomach growled.
She didn't care.
Instead, she went over everything Christina told her.
> "This world was created from the novel," she whispered. "But the novel became... reality."
She remembered the characters. The arrogant prince. The fake saintess. The beloved male lead who betrayed the villainess. And the villainess herself—twisted by abuse, feared by all, killed unjustly.
That girl was Bella now.
But she would not end the same.
> "I will fix your story," Bella whispered, brushing her fingers over her bruised arm. "And then… I'll stay by your side."
---
• In the Shadows •
Elsewhere, in the same mansion, a cloaked figure stood in front of a mirror that shimmered unnaturally. A beautiful woman stared back—her eyes glowing with divine light.
Christina.
"I've sent her," she murmured to herself. "The cursed soul chosen to rewrite fate."
Another voice responded—dark, low, male.
"You break your neutrality, Christina. Why?"
Christina smiled faintly. "Because this world was never meant to exist. And because Bella Snow... is not like the others."