the fate that wasn't mine

THE END I ALREADY KNEW

I knew exactly how Melissa Ashford was going to die.

It was a strange thing to know about someone I had never met, especially because, in my world, Melissa Ashford had never been a real person. She was a character in a fantasy game, one of those characters who appeared insignificant at first but somehow managed to become impossible to forget. Players hated her, talked about her, argued about her choices, and, eventually, watched her fall.

I had spent countless hours inside that game.

I knew its kingdoms and their histories. I knew which noble families secretly supported the crown and which ones were waiting for the right opportunity to betray it. I knew where magical creatures appeared, which quests unlocked hidden areas, which characters had alternate endings, and which seemingly meaningless decisions could change an entire storyline several chapters later.

I knew the world almost as well as I knew my own.

But there was one thing I knew better than anything else.

Melissa Ashford died at fourteen.

Not fifteen.

Not sixteen.

Fourteen.

Her death was one of the few events the game refused to let you change. No matter which choices you made, no matter how carefully you played, no matter how many times you restarted the story and tried a different path, Melissa always reached the same ending.

She was the daughter of Duke Ashford, one of the most powerful nobles in the kingdom. She was born with an extraordinary amount of mana and possessed an intelligence that made even adults underestimate her at their own risk. She was proud, stubborn, fiercely independent, and, at times, cruel.

The game gave players plenty of reasons to dislike her.

Melissa constantly opposed the heroine, a talented young mage admired throughout the kingdom for her kindness and unusual magical abilities. What began as a rivalry slowly became something darker. Melissa grew more isolated, more bitter, more reckless. Every mistake she made pushed her further toward the role the story had prepared for her.

The villainess.

The arrogant noble girl who could not stand watching someone else become more loved than she was.

The girl who had everything and still chose jealousy.

The girl who eventually stood against the heroine.

And the girl who died at fourteen.

I had never completely believed that ending.

Not because Melissa was innocent. She wasn’t. She made terrible decisions. She hurt people. She allowed her anger to control her, and by the end of the original story, she had become someone even I struggled to defend.

But I always wondered what would have happened if she had been given more time.

What if someone had reached her before she became cruel?

What if someone had listened to her?

What if she had been given one chance to choose differently?

Fourteen seemed impossibly young for a story to decide that a person was beyond saving.

I thought about it often.

But I never imagined that I would one day be given the chance to find out.

That day had started like any other.

I was walking home, my phone in one hand, barely paying attention to the world around me. I remember thinking about the game. There had been a new version released, and I was already planning which route I wanted to explore first.

I remember the afternoon light.

I remember the sound of traffic.

I remember looking down at my screen.

Then I heard something.

A sudden noise.

A flash of light.

And then—

Nothing.

There was no dramatic final thought. No beautiful farewell. No moment of understanding where everything suddenly made sense.

Just darkness.

Then, somehow, I opened my eyes.

The first thing I noticed was the ceiling.

It was enormous.

For several seconds, I simply stared at it, confused. White fabric hung around me, embroidered with delicate silver patterns that caught the light whenever they moved. The bed beneath me was so large that I could have rolled across it several times without reaching the other side.

This wasn’t my room.

I slowly pushed myself upright.

Something felt wrong.

My body felt... different.

Smaller.

I looked down.

My hands were resting on the blankets.

They were tiny.

My fingers were thin, my wrists narrow, my arms much shorter than they should have been.

I froze.

“No.”

The voice that came out was not mine.

It was small.

Soft.

A child’s voice.

My heart began pounding.

I threw the blankets aside and stumbled toward the enormous mirror across the room. My legs were short enough that I nearly tripped over the edge of the carpet, but I barely noticed.

I reached the mirror.

And stopped.

A little girl was staring back at me.

Long blonde hair fell around her shoulders, so pale beneath the morning light that it almost looked silver. Her skin was impossibly fair, and her wide pale-blue eyes were fixed on mine.

I knew that face.

I had seen it countless times.

On loading screens.

In character illustrations.

In battles.

In cutscenes.

I had watched those eyes turn cold with anger.

I had watched that face become one of the most hated in the game.

I had watched her die.

My breath caught.

“No…”

I stepped closer to the mirror.

The girl did the same.

I lifted one trembling hand.

She lifted hers.

Seven years.

The thought arrived before I could even fully understand it.

Seven years.

A door opened behind me.

I spun around.