Two weeks ago.

 “As the top reader and gifter for this story, I think it’s time I give a review.

 First things first: this story sucks hard. Do not waste money on this!

 The author is crazy. The plot will put you in an anger management class. And the villainess is so unreasonable, her death at the end doesn’t do her any justice. After wasting seven years of my life reading this, it’s only fair that right after this review, I thoroughly wash my eyes with bleach to prevent myself from reading stories like this in the future!”

 Those were the words that got me into this mess.

 Sure, I hated my life. Who doesn’t? Living as a chronically ill twenty-five-year-old marketing executive in 2026 was a special kind of soul-sucking grind. My hobbies were simple: using my hard-earned money to buy trashy online novels, then fuming about them for hours afterward. I either thirsted over fictional men with the emotional intelligence of a teaspoon, or developed migraines from protagonists making decisions so stunningly stupid they could qualify as performance art.

 But that didn’t mean I wanted to die.

 My greatest love-hate relationship was with ‘The Secret Princess: Which Man Does Maryann End Up Choosing?’ I started reading it when I was eighteen. For seven long, masochistic years, I purchased every single weekly chapter. Out of spite. Pure, undiluted spite.

 Did I enjoy it? Absolutely not. It was a trope landfill. The female lead, Maryann, was a Mary Sue of such epic proportions. The sun shone brighter when she smiled. Birds sang in harmony around her perfectly coiffed hair. Grown men—dukes and assassins and princes alike—literally swooned if she so much as breathed in their general direction. It was ridiculous. It was absurd. It was two thousand five hundred chapters long.

 The story started okay, I’ll admit. Then popularity hit like a freight train, and the plot ballooned into an ungodly mess of fan service, unnecessary side quests, and me screaming at my laptop screen at 2 AM: “JUST PICK ONE, YOU FLIGHTY HISTORICAL DISASTER!”

 My breaking point came with the finale.

 After two thousand five hundred chapters of agonizing “Who will she choose?” tension, complete with dramatic fainting spells and approximately four hundred scenes of men brooding attractively in the rain… she chose all four. A “happy polycule” in Regency-era England. Because of course she did.

 And the villainess? Beatrice Cruelton—yes, that was her actual surname, and no, the fact that I shared her first name was pure coincidence and absolutely not foreshadowing—the most hated character in the entire godforsaken novel, who had no other goals or personality traits beyond being a stumbling block to Maryann’s inevitable happiness… she died off-screen. A passing mention in the epilogue.

 “Oh, that terrible Lady Cruelton? She perished in some accident, poor thing. Anyway, here’s another scene of Maryann giggling while four men fight over who gets to bring her tea.”

 The end.

 I stared at my laptop screen, the glow burning my retinas in the darkness of my bedroom. Then I laughed. It was a high, slightly unhinged sound that went on for a full thirty minutes. My cat left the room in what I can only describe as feline concern for my mental health.

 With the fury of seven wasted years and approximately $4,000 in chapter purchases fueling my fingers, I typed that review. I even considered throwing my laptop out the window for dramatic effect. My bank account, ever the voice of reason, whispered desperately in my mind: You can’t afford a new one, you melodramatic idiot.

 So I went to bed instead. Fuming. Seething. Fantasizing about finding the author and forcing them to read their own drivel at gunpoint. I had work in less than four hours, and my mood was already ruined for the entire day.

 By a twist of truly cosmic unfairness—the kind reserved for people who leave one-star reviews on beloved internet novels, apparently—my recurring heart condition picked that night for its grand finale. A sudden cardiac arrest. One minute I was glaring at my ceiling, plotting a scathing follow-up comment about the author’s questionable understanding of human romance. The next… nothing.

 Darkness.

 Silence.

 And then—

 I gasped, jerking upright so fast my vision swam. It felt as if I’d just run a marathon while being chased by wolves. My chest burned as I dragged in air, my heart hammering against my ribs like it was trying to escape. I blinked hard, trying to clear my blurry vision.

 Where the hell was I?

 “My lady? Lady Cruelton?”

 I froze. Someone was talking to me. Lady? What?

 I looked up, then slowly around. The room was… massive. Ornate. The four-poster bed I was sitting in was the size of my old apartment. Heavy velvet curtains the color of burgundy wine framed windows that looked out onto manicured gardens. A chandelier—an actual crystal chandelier—hung from the ceiling. The sheets beneath my fingers were silk.

 This was not my cramped studio apartment with the broken radiator.

 “Lady Cruelton?” The woman in the maid uniform spoke again, her brows furrowed in concern. Three other maids stood behind her, all watching me nervously. “Is your headache better now? You’ve been asleep for four hours.”

 My brain short-circuited. “Hold up. Did you just say Cruelton?”

 I threw my hands out in a gesture of pure confusion.

 “Aah!” Several of the maids flinched dramatically, as if I’d just pulled a knife.

 I raised an eyebrow. What was with the exaggerated reaction? I wasn’t that scary. Was I?

 The woman who’d addressed me stepped forward. She had the bearing of someone in charge, her posture straight and her expression carefully neutral. “Yes, Lady Cruelton.”

 I blinked at her. Then nodded slowly, reaching back to fluff the pillows before flopping down again dramatically.

 This was a dream. Obviously. There was no way—absolutely no way—I was inside a trashy historical novel. Maybe this was some kind of stress-induced hallucination. Or astral projection? I’d read about that once in a Reddit thread at 3 AM. But it was too vivid. The scratch of the silk sheets felt too real. The faint scent of lavender and old wood was too specific.

 Okay. Okay, Beatrice, calm down. Get some rest. You’re going to wake up to your alarm any second now, realize this was all just a weird fever dream, and need to hurry to work where you’ll face that smug receptionist Staring like always. Just breathe in and—

 “Lady Cruelton? Lady Cruel—”

 “FUCK, this isn’t happening!” I jumped up, ignoring the way the other maids behind the head maid scurried backward like I’d spontaneously combusted.

 I hurried toward the full-length mirror I’d spotted earlier, my bare feet slapping against cold hardwood floors. My reflection stopped me dead in my tracks.

 No. No way.

 I pinched my cheeks. Hard. The face staring back at me was entirely different from the one I’d worn for twenty-five years. Sharper features. Porcelain skin. And—

 “What the hell, I have purple hair?”

 It cascaded down in waves, an unnatural shade of violet that definitely didn’t exist in any normal human genetic code. My eyes were different too—larger, a striking amber color that seemed to catch the light.

 This was Beatrice Cruelton’s face. The villainess. The woman who died off-screen like a footnote.

 The more I tried to deny it, the more real it felt. The weight of the nightgown. The chill of the floor. The distant sound of birds outside—birds that were probably preparing to sing harmoniously the moment Maryann woke up.

 I’d truly entered the world of the book. As the hated villainess.

 DING!

 The sound chimed in my head like a notification, and suddenly words appeared in my vision—floating, translucent, like some kind of augmented reality display.

 SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE.

 HOST CONFIRMED: BEATRICE CRUELTON.

 PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE FINAL CHAPTER.

 CURRENT ODDS OF SURVIVAL: 0.3%.

 Oh, great. Even the universe thought I was screwed.

 ASSESSMENT: YOU ARE SCREWED.

 I barked out a laugh. At least it was honest.

 PROPOSED SOLUTION: THE HATRED POINT ECONOMY.

 TUTORIAL BEGINNING IN: 3… 2… 1…

 Before the countdown could reach zero, the bedroom doors slammed open.

 “Lady Cruelton,” a cold male voice said, “His Grace has summoned you.”

 The system text flashed violently red.

 WARNING: THIS EVENT DIRECTLY LEADS TO YOUR CANONICAL DEATH.

 I swallowed.

 So the story had already started without me.