”Something the matter, dear?”

An unknown woman is talking to me. I suddenly feel an intense pain, scream out and hold my head. Fuck!

“Dear!?” “Young Master!?” Voices cry out for me as instinctually crouch and hid my head on the table. Table? I should be in bed.

There’s fancy food here and four people seated around it including me, but I feel too dizzy. It grows dark.

The next thing I know, I am staring at a ceiling. I do not recognize it. It is made of wood unlike the ceiling I am used to in my apartment building. I lift myself up. I am in an extremely large, fancy bed… The covers and sheets feel incredibly smooth, what even is this material?

I look around me to see a room I don’t recognize. It is filled with hefty furniture adorned with beautiful carvings and… are they lined with freaking GOLD?

I get down from the bed, but something is strange. The bed is weirdly high up. My feet don’t reach the floor, when I sit on the edge.

In fact, does my own body not look a bit… off.

During my quick scan of the room, I caught sight of a mirror. I jump off the bed and run up to it in order to examine myself. What is reflected isn’t me, but rather a young boy, maybe nine or ten? In addition, it is like no young boy I have ever seen.

My irises are red and my hair is pitch black. What the hell?

I think for a moment it must be a weird dream, but I quickly dismiss it. I can feel my weight moving around. I can feel things around me. Dreams tend to be floaty and shifty, but here, everything to be concretely in its place, even if I turn away and look back, the same things are still there.

What is happening?

At this moment, my door is opened and an old man clad in black and white dress suit, butterfly and gloves steps through. He looks wise and has long grey hair tied up in a ponytail.

“Ah, the young master has recovered.”

“Young master?” I confusedly repeat.

“Is… Is young master all right?” His face contorts into one of worry as he asks me. It is clearly not me, so I end up asking.

“This might sound strange, but… Who am I?” The old man looks like his heart broke, but only for a second.

“Young master is the eldest son of the Sterling ducal house, Hannibal Sterling.” I grasp my head. I know that name. But that is impossible. It really must be a dream.

A game I played some six months ago, and a source of much enjoyment was called “Thousand Roads”. It was originally a Japanese game, and was recommended to me by a friend as it was being localized to English. Thousand Roads was a weird game. It was part RPG, part dating simulator. It was notorious from just how much content was in it. In fact, I should have seen less than a third of it.

The game starts off with you picking your gender and immediately sets off at an Academy at phase 1, being 18 years old. There are twelve capture targets in total, six men and six women, only dateable by their opposite gender.

And Hannibal Sterling was one of those six men. I never played his route, heck, I didn’t even try to play as a woman, but he appeared as an antagonist in one of the routes I did play. I remember him being tall, burly with red eyes and black hair.

I shook my head, not wanting to reminisce. I was now sure it was a dream after all. I started slapping myself.

“Yo-young master?” The elderly gentleman cried out, but I ignored the figment of my imagination and slapped harder. It hurt. It hurt badly. But I have had dreams that hurt before, it was no reason to quit.

I bit my thumb hard, while repeatedly thinking I should wake up. My nail broke and it started bleeding. “YOUNG MASTER!” Was said again, and soon, I was completely restrained by the old man. I determinedly bit down on my tongue. My mouth filled with blood. The taste of iron was everywhere. And then it went dark again.

The next time I awoke, there was still the unfamiliar ceiling. I started to move, but couldn’t. I was in some kind of weird binding shirt, that wrapped all around my body. I then noticed my mouth was open and I could close it. It was pried open by something. What the hell? I started struggling what little I could, but I merely shook a little back and forth.

“Oh! He’s awake!” An unknown voice sounded. I tried to move my head to look at the source but couldn’t. It was a somewhat deep male voice.

“Can you hear me? Do you understand me?”

“I hoo” I tried to say I do, but my mouth being pried open made it difficult.

“Good, good. Now, do you know who you are?” A new face appeared in front of me. It was a middle-aged, fat man with a bald head and a pedo ‘stache.

“I hoo.” I said again.

“Can you tell me who?” I wavered a little. Should I tell him who I really am, or should I play to the dream? I could only see the same wooden ceiling above me, so I was definitely still in the dream. And my attempt to escape it really fucking hurt. I sighed and agreed to play along for now.

“anni-al serling” I said.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Excellent. And who is your parents?” Shit… I don’t know. It was something starting with an S. The head of Sterling ducal house appeared in one of the routes, as he was pressuring for the princess Zoenna to be the wife of his son. I gave up.

“I on no” I replied.

The face looked troubled. “hmmmmm” was heard.

“Do you remember why you were trying to hurt yourself?” I wonder what I should answer. If I say yes, what reason could I come up with? I decided to go with the route of complete amnesia. This should at least maximize the chances of me being released.

“I urt yselth?” I tried to appear genuinely confused. “is that uhy I a tie uch?”

From my play, an apparent examination of me was concluded. I was asked what I do remember, if I would try to hurt myself again, if I felt anything strange, how old I was. I answered no to all. Then came a series of questions testing my mental wellbeing. Simple math and logic questions, hypothetical situations and how I would react and more. I answered to appear as sane as possible.

My efforts paid off, and within the hour, I was released. The weird shirt was taken off me, and a weird piece of metal was removed from my mouth. I smacked as I enjoyed the feeling of being able to move my jaw again.

“I will inform your parents of the situations.” The man said as he left the room. I wonder who he even was?

As I was free to rise and look around, I saw the man with the ponytail from earlier stand in the corner of the luxurious room. He almost looked like he was crying. I felt a bit of guilt.

“Who are you?” I asked him. He burst into tears.

“Yo-yo-young ma-maaaaaster!!! I a-am your tru-trusted personal at-atendaaaant!!! Do yo-you not remember meeeee?” He wailed out. I truthfully didn’t and shook my head. He started crying even harder.

I felt pity and jumped off the bed. I stroked his back. “There, there” I said. He immediately stopped crying.

“Yo-young master?” He appeared very confused and in turn, confused me. I tilted my head. “What’s the matter?” but I suddenly remembered. From what little I saw of Hannibal Sterling, he was not a pleasant character.

I even remember seeing a bad end, where princess Zoenna was imprisoned by him and whipped. Had he always been a cruel character, even as this child?

“For-forgive me young master, I must confess. I hurt you. I saw you trying to hurt yourself and I knocked you out. Please, punish me as you see fit!” The old butler said and bowed his head towards me.

“I don’t really understand. You only tried to help, right? Why would I punish you for that?” I think it is pretty admirable. Had I been left to my own deviced, I would probably have killed myself. Well, it is only a dream, though.

“You won’t have me cut? Or pricked by needles? Not even a slap?” Why does it sound like he is disappointed rather than relieved? Maybe because I don’t act like the usual Hannibal would, but I have no such hobbies.

“No, I won’t.” I replied, and he hung his head down. “Oh… I see….” I get the feeling he had a weirder, more selfish reason for wanting the punishment.

The door was suddenly slammed open. “My little darling, do you really not remember me?” The women who appeared immediately close the distance and enveloped me a strong hug. It was the woman who first talked to me in this world. She had long, silky black hair and red eyes to match mine. She was slender and well dressed. And she was suffocating me.

“Ca-can’t breathe…” She was pressing me against her body really hard.

“My darling, my poor baby, what happened to you?” The lady cried out. I assume it to be Hannibal’s mother.

“Cool down, ma’am, you are smothering the poor boy.” It was the pedo ‘stache from before that tried to calm her down.

“As I said before, this is likely the result of a curse misfiring. You will be wise to sharpen security around here, but the boy should be perfectly fine and gradually recover.”

The face of lady Sterling took on a grim appearance. “When I find out who did this, I’ll have them skinned alive, then force them to eat their own hide, before boiling them and serving them to their own family!” It was honestly a terrifying sentence. I almost recoiled a little, but couldn’t as I was pulled into her grasp once more.

“Oh, my sweet, sweet baby boy.” Was said as I was showered with kisses. Had it been my own mother, I would merely think it annoying, but I couldn’t help but draw in her sent a little and feel flustered, as this beautiful lady showered me with affection.

I patiently waited for my dream to end after that, but it didn’t. First a few days of staying in bed. I got impatient, but my personal attendant, Holger was there to keep me company.

Then, I resumed the apparently busy schedule of Hannibal. Horsemanship and swordsmanship, magic classes and etiquette lessons. I was getting really worried.

Four weeks had passed in real time, with all the appearance of actual life, before I gave up. It seems I really was living in this strange world now.

On the plus side, a question that nagging me in “Thousand Roads” had been answered. Just how could the Sterling family be so sadistic? There were a few clear factors.

First off, Holger seemed to active encourage physical disciplinarian tactics, especially towards himself. This old pervert didn’t go a day without suggesting he be whipped, slapped, cut or otherwise tortured for every minor mishap.

Secondly, the lady of the Sterling House, Dolores Sterling, had a knack for describing the horrific torture and execution of anyone she took a dislike to. And it was not only triggered by something as horrible as her own son allegedly being cursed. Were there some tiny fault in our food, in our dresses, in our hair, out flew the incredibly cruel machinations of her mind for her children to hear.

In addition, she was completely overbearing and spoiled us constantly. If I expressed desire towards anything, I got it. As an example, I once saw a beautiful, black horse, in the city and gasped as I admired it. Mother caught it and sent Holcker to acquire it. When the owner refused, harsh death threats rained down on him, and he was eventually bullied into handing it over. If I was an actual kid, I can only imagine how much my world view would be changed. That everything I wanted already belonged to me.

My sister, Alicia Sterling seemed to have adopted the cruel, spoilt persona one could imagine would arise from such treatment. My only saving grace was, it seemed our mother took a staunch approach to no conflict. Alicia had set her eyes upon a piece of jewelry in my possession, that Dolores had acquired for me. It was a precious red stone in silver, shaped into wings, with a pin to attach to your clothes.

Alicia demanded I handed it over. I still thought I was in a dream at this point, though doubts had started to build. I thought to maybe change Alicia for the better, if I really had to spend the rest of my life in this world, but as I started lecturing her, she took it from me mid-sentence, and started to run. I then chased her down and pried it from her hands and we got into a bit of a tussle.

Holcker broke it up sternly, and escorted us to Dolores and informed that he found us fighting. We were then given a long and exhausting lecture on how one should treat family and were not allowed to leave before we hugged and kissed it out. Alicia complied with a sour mine, and exaggeratedly wiped her cheek after the exchange of kisses, as if it had been something truly disgusting, which Dolores then used as an excuse to start the process over.

It is the only time I have seen Dolores or Holcker even hold a remotely negative opinion.

My father, Stannard Sterling, I didn’t see much of. Only really at dinner was he present, and the only talk that happened at dinner was Dolores asking to our day and well-being, as well as cursing out any minor faults she had found with people and describing the torture she would put them through. I hadn’t even heard him speak since I started inhabiting this body.

Anyway, four weeks had passed and I was now firmly convinced this was a real world and not a dream. And that had some terrifying implications.