I Was Never Me

I kept staring at the mirror.

And it kept smiling.

Not mimicking me. Not reflecting.

Just… smiling.

Like it knew something I didn't.

Then—

A sound.

A crack.

Soft but sharp.

Like a promise breaking.

The red shard near the bed — the one that had been humming since the scroll arrived —split into two, down the middle.

And the scroll—

It lifted.

---

It rose without touch, scroll unfurling in the air as though caught in wind.

But there was no wind.

No sound.

No breath.

Just that ancient thing rising like it remembered me better than I remembered myself.

---

Then it bled.

The script written in it — arcane, sacred, forbidden — peeled itself off the parchment like smoke.

Each letter was alive, trembling with blood-colored light.

And then they came for me.

One by one.

The symbols flew toward my forehead and branded themselves into my skin.

Each one a memory.

Each one a scream.

---

Pain Conversion: 79% → 85%

System: Overload Critical

Skill access: Denied

Memory integration: Commencing

---

I tried to move.

To shout.

To cry for Clarisse, who I think was screaming behind me—

But I couldn't do anything.

The scroll finished its bleeding.

And the merge began.

---

My body lifted from the ground.

Weightless.

Back arched, arms spread, head thrown back.

And in that moment—

I remembered.

---

Delmira.

She had been seventeen when the marriage was arranged.

She wore a golden veil at her wedding, embroidered with her mother's initials.

Her new husband, the king, smiled like he meant it.

He kissed her fingers in front of nobles and whispered promises in the dark:

"You are mine. Nothing will ever harm you."

She believed him.

Delmira was never cruel. Never power-hungry.

She ruled with quiet grace, weaving policy into poetry.

But her silence made her dangerous.

People began to whisper:

"The queen prays to old gods."

"She hasn't produced an heir."

"She knows too much of the dead."

And when the fires were lit, they dragged her to the pyre barefoot.

They asked if she had final words.

She only looked at the king.

And he turned away.

"I loved him." her voice echoed now, burning through me.

"And he let me die for their comfort."

---

Vaerra.

Before the Order made her, she was a village girl with laughing eyes.

But the priests came when she was five.

They took her. Shaved her head. Burned her name.

And carved runes into her back until the pain taught her obedience.

She learned to see visions in blood.

To chant in tongues.

To lie when they needed her to.

But Vaerra remembered who she was.

And when she broke the blood pact and tried to end the Order—

Her brother, her only family left, offered her up in sacrifice.

"He carved the last rune into my spine," her voice bled through me, cold and sharp.

"And told me it was for salvation."

---

The other lives.

A healer drowned in a well by her village when a noble's son didn't survive her herbs.

A poet stoned in public for writing verses praising the goddess of night.

A hunter whipped and exiled for killing a beast that bore a duke's mark.

A widow burned alive with her husband's body, per law.

A child stolen before she could speak, turned into a vessel.

So many lives.

So much pain.

So many deaths.

And in every one—

I had begged.

Begged to live.

Begged for love.

Begged to be more than a name they fed to fire.

---

And then—

I saw Elira.

Me.

This body. This version. This… hollow hope.

From a dying noble house.

Dressed up and pushed forward.

Made to be seen but not heard.

She had wanted so little.

Just a place.

A name someone said without shame.

She had hoped the system would give her a future.

Instead, it gave her every past she'd died from.

---

System Merge: COMPLETE.

Master identity Restored: VAERRA DELSHAE

You are now whole.

---

I fell from the air like a broken bird.

Clarisse was crying.

Begging me to speak.

But how could I?

There were too many voices in my skull.

Too many memories clawing at my ribs.

Too much sorrow filling my lungs.

---

I sat up.

And I knew what was fated.

Now that the merge was complete.

Now that the truth had returned.

I was meant to become Her again.

Vaerra.

The Queen of Flame.

The Blood-Bound Oracle.

The cursed name that shook empires.

---

But I didn't want that.

I didn't want to carry that crown again.

Or light those fires.

Or see my enemies crawl.

---

I just wanted to live.

---

"I want to wear a sundress and walk barefoot in a garden."

"I want to sleep through the night without seeing my body burn."

"I want to hold someone who won't betray me."

"I want a family who loves me. Not bleeds me."

"I want a body that's mine. Not theirs. Not the gods'. Not the system's."

---

I was tired of being reborn for pain.

Tired of destiny chewing me up and spitting me back into another tragedy.

---

I fell forward into Clarisse's arms, shaking.

And whispered,

"I've lived a thousand deaths."

"Can I just….have one life?"