1,000 days ago.

Flames shot up around the overturned bus that made a thunderous noise, and only the desperate screams of people filled the air.

The inside of the crashed bus instantly became hell on earth.

Barely regaining consciousness, I couldn’t tell if this hellish scene before my eyes was reality or a dream.

My head hurt terribly, and when I tried to touch it, my right arm was painful and wouldn’t move. Giving up, I barely managed to raise my left arm to touch it, and it was wet.

Blood was endlessly flowing from my head.

“Kyaah!”

A scream escaped involuntarily, and terror choked my breath.

“What is this? Am I dying? I’ve waited so long for today! I can’t die like this! I want to live!”

With a desperate desire to live, I mustered all my strength and tried to move my body in every direction, but when it wouldn’t budge at all, my fear grew even stronger.

Stay calm. I need to stay calm especially at times like this. That’s the only way to survive.

When my thoughts converged on ‘I must survive somehow,’ I was able to calm down and become more rational.

So I tried once more to move by gathering every ounce of strength I had, but it was no use.

Even the seatbelt wouldn’t unbuckle.

Thinking that everything was over, I collapsed again.

I was simply trapped in fear and panic, desperately thinking only about wanting to live.

“I hate this. Damn it! Why are you doing this to me! How can this be happening! No, no, I’m sorry. Please just let me live. I want to live so badly. Please help me.”

But contrary to my will to live, my consciousness was gradually fading away.

That’s when I heard an unfamiliar voice from a distant place.

“I want to escape. From this wretched fate……”

“Hello…… if anyone’s there, please save me. Please…… help me.”

Barely holding onto my fading consciousness, I sent a desperate plea to the unknown person, but no answer came back.

I couldn’t die so easily, so futilely.

With an intense will to live, I squeezed out all my strength and barely opened my eyes again.

“Save me.”

I voiced my desperate wish that others probably couldn’t hear.

And soon after, a large flame erupted before my eyes, and a massive explosion occurred.

* * *

“Aaaagh!”

I sat up with a terrified, desperate scream.

Trembling all over, I instinctively and frantically touched and examined various parts of my body.

Fortunately, I was perfectly fine without a single injury. Only then did relief come, allowing me to exhale.

Thank goodness. It was a dream. It’s okay. It’s okay.

Though I reassured myself that I was fine, I could still vividly feel the hot sensation of the explosion, making my whole body tremble and giving me goosebumps.

It was an insanely frightening and vivid nightmare that I never wanted to have again.

To escape this nightmare, I crawled into bed and curled up with the blanket pulled over my head.

Burying myself in the cozy blanket made me feel better than before.

The best way to fight nightmares is to go back to sleep. I need to quickly have a good dream to drive this one away.

I tightly closed my eyes trying to fall asleep again, but sleep wouldn’t come easily.

I could still feel my heart pounding like I’d just sprinted a hundred meters at full speed.

To forget the nightmare, I started actively running my positive thinking circuit.

Ah! That’s right. They say having dreams like this means great fortune is coming my way. Am I going to get super-fast promotions?

After things have been so terribly tangled, now only good things are left in my life.

Just thinking like this seemed to make me feel better than before.

That’s when it happened.

“Miss.”

An unfamiliar voice reached my ears.

“Miss!”

Huh? Miss?

Yes, this must be a dream. I was confused whether I was half-asleep or dreaming.

So I ignored the voice and just kept running my positive thinking circuit.

That’s when someone’s hand started gently shaking me.

“Miss. Miss, you need to get up now.”

What is this? I really felt that touch…… But who’s this ‘Miss’? Who is that supposed to be? Besides my mom, who would wake me up?

Suddenly feeling an inexplicable sense of foreboding, I froze in fear under the blanket.

“Our Miss must have been restless and couldn’t sleep well. I felt the same way. Thinking about sending off my Miss whom I raised with my own hands, I couldn’t sleep a wink. But you need to get up now. Someone who has never overslept before…… on a day like today……”

I felt someone’s hand touching me over the blanket again, which startled me into opening my eyes.

At that moment, my only shield, the blanket, disappeared.

Then I saw the face of a woman I had never seen before.

This strange woman who called herself my nanny smiled brightly and lifted me up as if cradling a baby.

I could only stare at the woman called nanny with a bewildered face, my thoughts frozen.

The nanny, finding my condition strange, beckoned with her eyes to two young women standing at the door.

What kind of situation is this?

Unable to understand what was happening before my eyes, I just stared blankly.

That’s when the two young women by the door approached and grabbed my arms from both sides to lift me up.

Too shocked to grasp the situation, I just went “Uh uh uh!” as I was dragged along.

When they opened the door connected to the room, a bathroom with a circular marble tub in the center appeared, and my mouth fell open in shock because it was larger than my entire house.

The subtle fragrance of freesias filling one side of the bathroom, which was bigger than my house, unconsciously made me relax.

Also, rose petals floated on the warm water in the tub, from which steam was rising.

What is this? Where on earth am I?

My thoughts stopped, and I just stood there blankly.

That alone was difficult enough.

But then suddenly I felt a chilling sensation all over my body. Coming to my senses, I realized the strings of the nightgown I was wearing had been untied and it had fallen to my feet.

“Kyaa! Wh-what…… are you doing? A-are you…… perverts?”

Hearing my scream, the nanny who was outside rushed in with a surprised face.

The two young women who had undressed me looked at me with even more surprised faces, then suddenly knelt on the floor and began apologizing.

“Miss, we’re sorry. Were you startled by our rough handling?”

“We apologize. Our touch was not gentle enough…… we were careless.”

The nanny spoke to the young maids with an angry face.

“I told you to be extra careful, and yet you make a mistake on a day like today!”

Their posture as they continued to apologize, with foreheads touching the floor, looked unfamiliar and frightening, so I struggled to say to them,

“I-it’s okay. N-nanny? Please stop. Please…… both of you get up now. Why are you making me uncomfortable like this?”

Just then, I felt a chill from the wind coming through the open door and sneezed while shivering.

Only then did I realize I was standing n*ked while making a fuss, and I sat down in embarrassment.

The nanny quickly covered me with a soft shower towel and knelt before me, which startled me again.

“Miss, I apologize. On a day like today, it would be terrible if you caught a cold, but I was thoughtless and entered without closing the door. Please punish me.”

“N-no…… I don’t mean……”

I was truly at a loss in this awkward situation.

Why are you all doing this? To me.

Where on earth is this? Who am I?

Why do they keep calling me ‘Miss’…

Why do they keep rushing to kneel first! Can’t we just talk normally?

Whatever the custom might be, stopping them was the urgent priority.

“Please get up. It’s okay. I’m really, truly, completely fine. Please stand up.”

Only then did the nanny and the two young maids rise and say in unison,

“Thank you, Miss!”

“Hurry with the Miss’s preparations. We’ve wasted too much time.”

However, when the two young maids hesitated to touch me, perhaps because of what had just happened, the nanny said,

“Please enter the tub, Miss.”

“What?”

“We must hurry.”

Not understanding the current situation or why they were doing this, I asked with sincere seriousness,

“Do we have to bathe together?”

“What are you saying, Miss? You’ve never acted like this before……”

The nanny sighed and approached with a resigned look to grab my shoulders, while the two young maids simultaneously grabbed my legs.

“I apologize, Miss. But if we delay any longer, there will be serious consequences.”

“W-wait, what are you doing!”

I screamed and struggled, but my body ended up in the large tub anyway.

I want to think about what’s going on here, but there’s no time!

Seriously!

Why am I n*ked in front of strange women taking a bath!

I should first think about why this situation is happening, but just dealing with what’s in front of me is overwhelming enough that I can’t engage in such deep, three-dimensional thinking right now.

The only thing I could do was cover my body in embarrassment.

One of the young maids put rose petals and sparkling white powder into the tub, while the other began massaging and combing my hair.

Everything except me seemed to be going according to plan, and the nanny said with a satisfied expression,

“Prepare everything without any issues.”

As the nanny was about to close the bathroom door and leave, I urgently called out to her.

“Um…… wait a moment!”

“Yes, Miss, do you need something else?”

Escaping from the maid who was combing my hair, I curled up and asked with a tired face,

“Why…… why are you doing this to me?”

The nanny looked at me with an incredulous expression and laughed.

“Why are YOU doing this to ME, Miss? Are you treating even me, your nanny, like a stranger now that you’re getting married? Even I feel hurt by such jokes. At times like this, you’re just like a baby, our dear Miss……”

Suddenly, the woman called nanny began to cry, and the two young maids started comforting her.

“Madam Mariam…… why are you crying on a day like today?”

“Please calm down. It’s a happy day.”

What is this cringe-worthy chaos party where they’re crying and comforting each other?

As I continued to observe this incomprehensible situation, my head started to hurt and irritation welled up, making me snap.

“So what exactly IS ‘a day like today’?”

The three women in the bathroom made astonished expressions before bursting into laughter simultaneously.

“What day? It’s your wedding day, Miss!”