This is your typical story.

I recovered the memories of my past life one summer day when I was eleven years old. There wasn’t any accident or life-changing situation or anything of the sort that suddenly made me remember everything. Rather, I was simply brushing my hair in front of the mirror when I noticed a small mole that had appeared on the right side of my mouth. Sometimes they just popped out of nowhere and I was left wondering when the heck they appeared. Anyway, it was as I saw that mole, when something flashed on my mind. That specific mole elicited a certain memory of my own face in a very particular predicament, and just that was enough to make me remember everything.

Of course, as any normal reincarnated person I tried to deny it at first. It couldn’t be, right? But the more I looked at that mole, the more certain it became. How could one simple mole trigger my past memories like nothing else could?

Ah, I was certainly surprised, discovering the world I lived in was fictional, created by someone for the entertainment of the masses. Actually, I was even scared. But at the moment, after resigning myself at the fact this was real, I was really living in a fictional world, and this was the single most cliché thing that could happen to me, I simply left my brush on the table, stepped outside to take a long, long walk and think about what I just remembered, and came back home to enjoy the measly meal my family could scoop up and sleep on the shared bed with my younger brother.

Oh, I also destroyed a few bushes and small, dry trees while in my rage for my fate, but that’s another matter entirely.

You see, in a country called Japan, in a planet called Earth, in the twenty-first century, I was a normal Japanese woman named Mio. Last name’s not important, so I won’t talk about that. When I was Mio, I was quite a tomboy, being the youngest out of four children, and the only girl at that.

Mio had many hobbies, like tree climbing, playing different sports, and overall moving her body. This meant Mio was quite fit, and at age 26 she was just as hyperactive and unrefined as she was at 10.

Why am I talking about my past life in third person? Because, even if it was indeed my life once upon a time, that didn’t mean I still thought of myself as Mio. My name in this life is Elaine; no last name this time; a simple farmer’s daughter and a very, very minor character in a shonen manga called Zombie Time. Quite a badass manga, if I may add.

In fact, Elaine was so minor of a character, she was barely seen by about three panels before she was used as a sacrifice by one of the villains to revive his dead wife. Her name was never mentioned; that how’s minor she was. No, wait, her scene didn’t even have the protagonist in it. You know, one of those moments when you get to see what the other party is doing while the heroes go about their own business. That kind of scene.

Could Elaine even be called a character? More like an extra, actually. Anyway, going back to Mio, after finishing high school she chose her career with the main criteria of never becoming an office lady, so she became a violinist, because she already knew the basics from her grandfather and she quite enjoyed playing. She lived a pretty normal life, working, reading manga, fooling around with her friends.

Until one day she committed suicide.

Oh, you thought I was gonna say she was hit by a truck? I’m sorry, this story isn’t that typical. As to the reason why she decided swallowing a bunch of pills was better than living? She was already quite depressive, but when her boyfriend of ten years cheated on her with her best friend and then married her barely two months later… well, it might have been a little too much for her to bear.

Now, while I do remember the feeling of abandonment and betrayal and the dismal void left in her heart, I in no way condone what she did. I mean, she had so much life left to throw it away because of a pair of bastards. But that was water under the bridge, there was nothing that could be done.

What could be done, however, was avoid my death since unlike Mio, I had a big desire to live until I was old and decrepit.

The big problem was, obviously, since I didn’t know anything about my circumstances or how I even ended up in the hands of the villain, I couldn’t predict his movements, and thus, was unable to take the necessary steps to stop my fate.

So, I had no means, no knowledge, no nothing to go by, not even a certain date. How was I supposed to prevent my death? All I had was the image of myself dying which only helped to raise my tension. Really, if getting back my memories was going to be this useless, then why recovering them at all?

That’s when, about a week later, a newspaper arrived with a travelling merchant mom used to buy cleaning products from, and I finally had a clue to go by: the front page of our poor, boring local newspaper featured the announcement of the sixteenth birthday of Viscount de la Rosa’s first son. The viscount who was the villain who sacrificed me on the manga.

Now, the viscount had two sons, separated by three years. They became important characters in the manga after the hero managed to defeat their father and bring them to his side with the power of friendship. I knew for a fact the older son was sixteen when this happened, so that meant now I knew three important things: my doom was closer than I expected, I lived on the land owned by the viscount, and my best chance at salvation was escaping and living in the forest until the danger passed.

Pretty good for not knowing anything at all, don’t you think?

Until the next day, when a man presenting himself as Viscount de la Rosa’s servant showed up on my doorstep offering my parents money in exchange of me.

God damn it.