Chapter 1: Death and Then Something Else.

Monia was a very boring woman. Far from glitz and glam, she was just a normal and completely average OL. On one such banal day; she was working as per usual. There was a knock on her office door, so she looked up from her laptop.

Monia: “It’s open.” She said with a slightly loud tone.

Jessica: “Monia, we’re going to go drink. Do you want to come with us?” She asked after opening the door.

Monia: “No, sorry. I have a bunch of work left to do.” She denied.

Jessica: “So you say… How many days of overtime are you going to do? One of these days, it will end up killing you.” She scolded.

“And whose fault do you all think that is!?” Monia exclaimed in her mind. Rather or not her fellow employees left a bunch of their work for her to do, didn’t really matter. In fact, Monia wasn’t really one to go out, and she was happy to be able to use doing overtime as an excuse to not socialize.

Monia: “One day, maybe… You all go have fun, I still have about an hour or two of work left to get done.” She said with a wave of her hand.

Jessica sighed and closed Monia’s office door. “If only she went out, Monia could meet someone she likes. Then, she wouldn’t be cooped up in the office every day.” Jessica thought as she walked the halls of the office, with her destination being the front entrance of the office. Her coworkers were already waiting for her there, after all.

“Dammit… I am out of coffee…” Monia said in her mind with an annoyed tone. She was lost in her work, and she didn’t even realize that an hour had passed since she denied Jessica’s proposal. With an annoyed groan, she got up from her desk, picked up her decent sized thermos, and went to go get a refill of coffee.

Monia worked on the second floor, and the break area with snacks and the coffee machine were on the first floor. As it was late, 11:35 PM, the elevator wasn’t available. As such, Monia had to brave the long stairwell to get her caffeine fix. This wasn’t that big of a deal to her, though. Or, it usually wasn’t…

Everyone in this office was addicted to coffee, and they drank it like their lives depended on it. “Shit… I shouldn’t have worn heels like these today…” She said with a groan in her head.

Today, Monia was going out to see a movie that she had been waiting to see, so she dressed up as fancy as her salary could extend, but work called her in. Monia didn’t have many dresses, and the fancy clothes she bought were some higher quality women’s dress clothes. As such, she didn’t even have to change before heading to the office.

The only difference about her outfit today was that she had worn very tall high heels. A far cry from her normal flat dress shoes that she usually wears to work. It wasn’t worth it to go back home and change into a different pair of shoes. In her mind, her job was mostly done at a desk.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

It wouldn’t be that big of a deal, as she would only ever need to go get a refill of coffee. The problem was that she forgot that the elevator stops working at an annoying time. Typically, she makes sure to get a refill of coffee before the elevator stops working for the night, but she forgot. Now, she had to walk down and then back up the stairs in these high heels.

Monia: “This is going to really, really suck…” She said with a sigh to no one at all, before starting her descent down the stairs.

Beauty is pain, some say, but the pain that Monia is feeling is just absurd. She just wanted some damn coffee, she thought. After a thirty-minute struggle, she finally made it to the first floor. Her feet were killing her, and Monia was sure that her feet will end up bloody after her trip back up.

Monia: “I knew the pay was too good to be true…” She said with a scoff. The building that she worked in was old, and the stairs were long and steep. It was a monstrous effort just to go down one single floor.

But she didn’t care. She needed her coffee, and not even a God could stop Monia in her pursuit of the addicting liquid that practically kept the woman alive. Now at the breakroom, it was silent as the night. With a shrug, she brewed a fresh pot of coffee and then refilled her thermos once the coffee finished brewing.

With a sip that burned her tongue slightly, she was still very happy to get her fix. Frankly, compared to the rest of the people working at this office, Monia was the most addicted to coffee. Though, the woman herself wouldn’t admit to it ever.

Looking up at the stairs that oddly looked longer than when she went down them earlier, she swallowed the saliva in her mouth, and started to climb once more. Halfway up, she lost her footing, and almost fell. Luckily for Monia, she grabbed onto the railing of the stairs, and prevented her untimely death.

With that, she confidently walked up the rest of the stairs. As she put her foot out to the last step, her high heel on the foot that was still planted on the previous step broke, and Monia fell.

As she fell, all she could think about was… “These shoes must have been fake…” Every flight of stairs was over fifty steps in this old office building, and she fell all the way back down to the first floor.

“Ah, fuck! Shit!… My arms and legs shouldn’t be facing such wrong directions…” She thought with gritted teeth. Luckily, the pain was far too much, and her brain got too confused to send any pain signals. Monia had hit her head many times on the way down.

Rather than the cuts from all over her body, her main concern was that she was bleeding out of her nose. Her mother is a doctor, so Monia’s best guess was that she had bleeding in her brain. There was just far too much blood coming out of her nose to just be a nosebleed. Her guess was most likely correct, as the young woman soon succumbed to her death.

Once she died, she felt at peace. Like there wasn’t any weight on her at all. Soon, much to her surprise, she opened up her eyes. “Where the hell am I?” She asked in her head. As she sat up in a bed, she saw two maids seemingly guarding a door. As Monia’s confusion only got worse, she realized that she had been shackled somewhat.

Looking down at her left foot, she saw a chain that went up to the ceiling of the room. Granted, the chain was very long, and was more than enough for her to explore every inch of the room. Before she could ask one of the maids about her situation, a slightly robotic, childish female voice rang in her mind.

System: “Monia! Don’t break character! Just calm down, and I will explain everything to you!” She pleaded in Monia’s head.

Monia: “…”

“First, I die in a kinda shitty way, and now I reincarnate with a System? Ah, my head is in so much pain…” She thought with an upset tone, while rubbing her head. As she glanced around the room, she caught sight of a mirror. In the mirror reflected the appearance of a woman that wasn’t Monia at all. And even more, she oddly felt like she recognized the woman…