I, a twenty-eight-year-old, straight woman, wanted to play a dating sim aimed at horny teenage boys for the most pitiable reason: to see how I should act to be seen as cute.

Please don’t make me repeat that.

It came off a string of first dates that didn’t so much crash and burn as awkwardly fizzle out. Growing up and even in my twenties, I’d been told I wasn’t cute, wasn’t girly. I had an on-off relationship with self-hate over that. Worn down by this particularly bad run of rejections, I was desperate and drunk enough to do something crazy.

The Key To Her Heart was, allegedly, the most popular dating sim on a certain website of slightly-less-than-legal repute. A game where I played as a character that “seduces” one of several other characters. In this case, I was a nobleman’s son “choosing” a fiancée at a posh boarding school in pseudo-Victorian England. The character being fifteen was enough to stop me before I downloaded it, but it was listed as not including “Adult CGs” and apparently rated at PG-13, so I thought I would give it a shot—the ratings and reviews really were so incredibly good.

As I said, alcohol also played a part in my decision. But I was soon cursing the beer can that I couldn’t put down, because I absolutely sucked at making teenage girls fall in love with me. Somehow, I managed to say or do the wrong thing. There were usually only two or three options, so, to consistently choose the wrong one, I was basically a genius at repulsing women.

I persevered anyway. The game came with options to save and load, so I could go through all the choices and see which went best, but it wasn’t always clear until much later in the game which choice was actually right. It got so bad I broke out a piece of paper, scavenging across my flat for a pen that still worked. At some point, I managed to forget why I was even doing all of this, lost in my emotional seduction of schoolgirls. Perhaps the only lesson I did learn was that playing hard-to-get would have worked amazingly well on me.

And then, after playing through the entire night, I finally made it to one of the girl’s rooms where she was surely going to give me the “key to her heart”.

That bitch stabbed me.

The laughter bubbled up inside until I had to let it out, rubbing my tired eyes, sinking to rest on the desk. It was a troll game. Of course it had such good ratings and reviews. If the Internet was good at one thing, it was making people waste their time—such as by playing a game where the “good ending” was being murdered. Delirious, I passed out, falling into a patchy sleep in front of my computer.

From there… the next thing I knew I was in warm water, no current to it. Warm like a mother’s embrace. And I was sinking. Then a hand reached out, grabbing me, pulling, and the water was an icy torrent, trying to drag me down, but the painfully tight grip never faltered. In a last heave, I was pulled onto a riverbank. My lungs burned, body prickled, numb and yet it was like my blood turned to pins and needles, poking through my very flesh.

Managing to open my eyes, a strange sight met me: a man in an old-fashioned suit, and women dressed up as maids (the outfits stretching down to their ankles), and another man, his clothes soaking wet but otherwise the same suit without the jacket. When I looked down, my trembling hands were smaller than I remembered. The wrong shape.

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“Albert!”

On instinct, I turned.

“Oh thank goodness. Master Albert is all right,” one of the maids said.

Albert, I was Albert. That thought swirled around my head as they bundled me back into the coach, stripping off my wet clothes and putting on fresh ones, blankets draped over me. For hours, we travelled in silence. The scenery outside showed no tarmac roads, no cars, no distant wind turbines nor skyscrapers.

I was now Albert Luton, eleven years old, second son of the Viscount of Luton. This coach would take me to a boarding school for boys on the outskirts of Cambridge. There, I would spend four years before moving on to a coed school. In my time at the coed school, I would be expected to introduce myself to the girls and at least leave a good impression. It wouldn’t be expected for me to have an engagement by the end of the three years schooling, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if I did or otherwise have a good relationship with one of the girls.

And the coed school, that was the setting for The Key To Her Heart.

I’d been sleeping at my desk. What happened next, I couldn’t remember. But I must have woken up in the morning and looked for breakfast, and my fridge was empty so I grumbled and shuffled off to the newsagent down the road, and… the river. I thought I must have fallen into the river and drowned.

This, then, was my own, personal hell. Brought back to the schooldays that had broken me more times than I could count, mixed with the game which had kicked me (hard) while I was already at rock bottom. If only I’d downloaded a game where I was the doted princess of a beloved king, engaged to a handsome, caring noble. That was the sort of game I should have been playing to heal my broken heart.

As the sun fell, the boarding school not far away, a mewling sound broke the rough silence of old coach wheels on a dirt road. I looked around, trying to find the source. One of the maids held a small bundle of blankets, bouncing it like there was a child inside, softly shushing it.

She looked up and caught my eye, immediately bowing her head. “I am sorry, sir. The kitten must be hungry.”

“Kitten?” I half-said, half-asked.

Hesitation flickered in her expression. “The kitten which you rescued, sir.”

I had taken a short walk while the horses were fed and come to a river, or rather Albert had, the memory coming back to me. There’d been a splash. Albert had looked and seen a small animal lost to the currents, and he had tried to reach out to grab it, but it had been just a little too far, losing his footing.

Then there’d been the cold, pressing in from all sides, digging into his skin. Even if he’d wanted to scream, the icy water had already sucked all strength from him. Sinking, dragged to a darkness he couldn’t escape.

I must have chosen a good day to drown myself, my experience a lot nicer. But, maybe, I had died the same way, trying to rescue a cat or something like that.

“May I see it?” I asked, the polite choice of words coming naturally to Albert’s body.

She again looked reluctant, yet gave in, pulling the blanket back a bit and tilting the bundle towards me. I made no move to take it from her. The kitten was wrapped up much like me, and it certainly looked cute. Far cuter than I’d ever been.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” I asked.

“A girl, sir.”

I smiled to myself. “Would you call her Alice, and raise her kindly at the estate?”

“Of course, sir, if Lord Luton consents.”

So she said, but I doubted she would trouble Albert’s father over a matter as trivial as a cat. Then again, I wouldn’t have been surprised to later find out Alice was slaughtered, little worth put on any animals life in this time. Still, since Albert’s youngest sister had a pet cat, I thought Alice would be fine.

“My youngest sister,” I whispered, correcting my thoughts.

“Pardon, sir?”

I shook my head, letting the disconnect I felt pass. “Nothing.”

Alice, it had been a name too cute for me, but it would suit this kitten well. From now on, I was Albert.

And I would live out this hell.