Evan woke up with the wrong texture of thoughts in his head.
Not too many—too few. The kind of emptiness that felt like chewing on static, when your brain was still deciding whether to boot up properly or leave you face-down in existential dread forever.
Something was wrong with the bed.
Not broken. Not yet. Just... wrong in ways his body understood before his mind caught up. The mattress hugged him like an overfamiliar relative at a wedding you didn't want to attend. The sheets had a thread count so high they felt illegal, sliding against his skin like buttered silk. And the pillow—the pillow had opinions about the optimal angle for his cervical spine.
He tried to roll onto his side and kept rolling. And rolling. His hand reached for an edge that wasn't there. He flopped onto his back again, staring up at darkness, and tried again. Same result. The bed was approximately the size of a small European country.
"Did I get kidnapped by a mattress company?" he muttered. "Is this some sort of sleep-deprivation torture? Because it's working. I'm very deprived. Of understanding what's happening."
He opened his eyes.
The ceiling was painted with what could only be described as "aggressive opulence." Angels wrestled dragons across a sky of ultramarine so deep it hurt to look at. Gold leaf caught the light in ways that suggested the artist had been paid by the leaf and was really going for it. One angel had the exact same face as Mr. Henderson from accounting—complete with the slightly confused expression he got during quarterly reports when the numbers didn't add up.
That's when Evan's brain made an executive decision:
"NO," he said aloud, his voice bouncing off frescoes that definitely didn't deserve to hear it. "Nope. Absolutely not. Canceling this experience. I want a refund. I didn't sign up for this."
His voice echoed back at him, but wrong—like the room was repeating him in a mocking tone. Like the ceiling was in on some joke he wasn't part of.
He pushed himself upright.
The bed made a sound like a dying orchestra. Not a dramatic snap. Not a cinematic crash. Just the accumulated exhaustion of centuries-old enchanted wood going, "You know what? I'm done. I've held dragons. I've cradled kings. I've supported generations of Carters who absolutely did not appreciate me. This is where I get off."
A crack spiderwebbed across the headboard. Then another. Then the whole thing just... gave up.
Evan froze.
In the silence that followed, a single chunk of mahogany the size of his head detached itself from the wreckage and hit the floor with a soft, almost apologetic thump.
Thump.
...thump?
...thump...?
The echo didn't make sense. There shouldn't have been an echo. The room wasn't that big.
Evan stared at the chunk. Then at his hands.
They were wrong. Too smooth. No ink stain on the right index finger from that pen that exploded during the 2019 audit. No scar near the knuckle from the box cutter incident that cost him four hours in urgent care and a lifetime of "watch out, he's got a weapon" jokes from coworkers. No calluses from years of mediocre guitar playing in college.
These hands had never filed taxes. These hands had never microwaved day-old pasta and called it dinner. These hands had never nervously Googled "is my boss allowed to fire me for falling asleep at my desk" at 2 AM.
These hands were young and unblemished and deeply, profoundly suspicious.
"Oh," he said quietly. Not panicked. Not even surprised.
Just the bone-deep weariness of a man who'd read enough fantasy novels to know exactly where this was going. The isekai genre had prepared him for this moment. All those sleepless nights binging web novels were finally paying off.
He just wished the payoff didn't involve waking up in a bed the size of Nebraska.
The door burst open.
Six people stood there in descending order of importance, arranged like they'd been told "stand dramatically and await judgment." Matching uniforms. Identical expressions of carefully calibrated concern. They looked less like servants and more like a painting titled Witnesses to Something Unfortunate, Circa Now.
One of them—a woman whose iron-gray hair looked sharp enough to cut glass and whose face had never learned to smile—clasped her hands so tightly her knuckles went white. The sound was audible, a soft creak like old wood under pressure.
"Milord," she breathed, and the word carried the weight of someone who'd been holding that breath for three years. "You're awake."
Evan opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
He tried to remember what a normal person would say in this situation. The only thing that came up was a memory of his aunt Gladys finding him asleep on her couch at Thanksgiving, except in that scenario he'd just had too much turkey and she'd thrown a blanket at him.
"...Hi?"
Something shifted in the room. Not physically. Existentially. Like reality had just blinked and decided to pay attention. The air thickened. The candlelight flickered. The six servants all took a simultaneous step back.
The woman swallowed audibly. "The bed, milord—"
"Is having a really bad day," Evan finished. "I get it. Me too. We should start a support group. 'People Who Woke Up Confused And Destroyed Furniture.' Weekly meetings. Snacks provided."
He swung his legs over the side.
That's when the rest of the bed gave up the will to live.
It didn't collapse violently. It didn't crash dramatically. It just... surrendered. The remaining structure folded inward with a long, exhausted sigh, settling into a pile of expensive kindling that looked almost peaceful about its fate.
Evan ended up sitting in what was essentially a very comfortable nest of ruined craftsmanship, staring at six people who now looked like they were reconsidering several life choices.
He rubbed his face. The skin was smoother than it should be. No stubble. Apparently this body didn't need to shave. Lucky him.
"Okay," he said. "Either I'm dead, dreaming, or I've made a truly catastrophic career change. Someone want to fill me in? Preferably before I break anything else? Because I feel like that's going to keep happening and I'd like to apologize in advance."
No one laughed.
That's when it really sank in.
The woman—who he'd later learn was named Elara—stepped forward carefully, like approaching a wild animal that might bite. "Milord. You're in Carter Manor. You are Lord Evan Carter, heir to the Carter estates. You've been... asleep. For three years."
"Three years." Evan processed this. "I slept for three years and woke up in a destroyed bed. That's... honestly kind of impressive. Did I eat? Use the bathroom? Or was I just... hibernating?"
"The healers sustained you with enchantments, milord."
"Right. Enchantments. Of course." He looked at the bed debris. "And this? Was it... fragile?"
The woman's eye twitched. It was small, almost imperceptible, but Evan—veteran of countless budget meetings where people said "we're on track" while everything burned—recognized the tell. "It was enchanted dwarven oak, milord. Designed to withstand a dragon's weight. It has held dragons. Several dragons. Over multiple centuries."
Evan looked at his hands again. They still looked like hands. Nice hands, admittedly—smooth, unblemished, with the kind of fingernails that suggested regular manicures. But still just hands.
"Right," he said. "Dragon-proof bed. Destroyed by me sitting up. This bodes well for my future interactions with furniture."
He stood up carefully. The floor tiles beneath his bare feet groaned but held. Small victories. The room smelled of lavender and centuries and something metallic, like lightning had struck nearby recently. Or magic. Probably magic. Everything probably smelled like magic here.
"Let's start simple," Evan said, carefully extracting himself from the wreckage. "One: Where am I? Two: Who am I? Three: Is there coffee? And I don't mean whatever magical leaf-water you people probably drink. I mean actual coffee. Black. Bitter. The kind that makes your soul sit up straight and apologize for its life choices."
The servants exchanged glances. The message passed silently between them: He's awake, he's confused, he's already judging our beverage choices, and he destroyed a dragon-proof bed.
Elara clasped her hands again. "You are in Carter Manor, milord. You are Lord Evan Carter, heir to the Carter estates. And... coffee?"
"It's a drink. From beans. Makes you alert. Prevents accidents like falling asleep at your desk and waking up in a different dimension."
"We have morning tea, milord."
"Of course you do." Evan sighed. "Step one: Find clothes that won't disintegrate if I look at them funny. Step two: Locate someone in charge who can explain why my existence seems to be a structural hazard. Step three: Find coffee, even if I have to invent it myself."
As he followed the servants into a dressing room larger than his old apartment, Evan caught his reflection in a full-length mirror.
The man staring back was approximately twenty-five, with the kind of cheekbones that could cut glass and hair that fell in artfully tousled waves without any apparent effort. He looked like the love interest in a fantasy novel—the one who broods handsomely while reciting bad poetry, before dying tragically to motivate the hero.
Evan Carter, forty-two-year-old accountant with a mortgage, a mild oat milk allergy, and a 401k that was probably still growing somewhere, felt a bubble of hysterical laughter rise in his throat. He swallowed it.
"Well," he told his reflection. "At least you're pretty. That'll help when I inevitably destroy more furniture."
The reflection smiled back. It looked slightly smug about the whole situation.
Evan decided he already hated this body.
***