RTBW CH 01

Chapter 1 

I was eight years old when I suddenly remembered something I’d completely forgotten.

“There’s a dog in the old storage shed!”
“It’s not a dog—it’s a person! They said he bit someone, so they locked him up.”
“No, it’s definitely a dog! I heard it growling! And there’s not just one—there are two!”
“Idiot, dogs go woof-woof. That sounds like a wolf.”
“A w-wolf?!”

Normally, I wouldn’t have cared about the stupid stories the other kids at the orphanage told.
But this time, their whispering made a chill run down my back.

*“The children locked away in the orphanage’s storage shed—those abandoned ‘beast children’—turned out to be the Grand Duke’s lost twins.
The head of the orphanage abused them constantly, and the trauma from that time made them grow into monsters—the villain and the villainess of the novel.

One became the dark mastermind, and the other, a wicked woman.
Ironically, the mastermind’s beloved and the wicked woman’s most hated rival were the same person—the heroine.”*

***

“I used to hate those two characters so much,” I muttered.
Why was I remembering this story now?
Why was I realizing now that I had been reborn into that novel—as one of the orphanage children, number 8?!

It was like a forgotten book suddenly opened in my mind, and the memories flooded in all at once.

Those two kids, locked up in the orphanage shed and treated like animals…
I remembered every bit of it.
Even the name of that hellish place—Sandra Orphanage—and its cruel director, Ceryl Sandra.

And that was exactly where I was right now.

“No way. No way, right? I’m just overreacting?”

I tried to laugh it off.
But how could there be another orphanage named Sandra, with a director called Ceryl Sandra, in the same country?
Impossible.

I slammed my book shut and ran to the group of children whispering under the tree.
They jumped when I appeared out of nowhere.

“Aisha! You came?”
“Yeah. What were you just talking about? A wolf in the orphanage?”
“Uh-huh!”
“Where?”
“See? Even Aisha’s curious!”

One annoying boy puffed out his chest proudly.

“Enough—just tell me where it is.”
“Okay, okay. But you’re small and weak, so I’ll take you there myself—”

I kicked him square in the shin.

“Ow!”
“Idiot. I’m not weak. Say that again and you’ll regret it!”

He shrank back immediately.

“Fine, fine… It’s in the old storage shed on the way to the forest.”

A few kids shook their heads.

“She’s so scary…”

I ignored them and started running.
I couldn’t waste time—terror was already crawling up my spine.

“This can’t be happening. It can’t be the same story. I don’t want to die!”

***

I’ve always had a good memory. Ever since I opened my eyes as a baby, I could remember everything.
Even the moment my parents abandoned me—clear as day.

But this place, Sandra Orphanage, had always felt strangely familiar to me.
I used to think it was just because I’d lived here my whole life.
Now I knew the truth: it was familiar because this was the novel’s orphanage.

“Damn it. No wonder everything looked familiar.”

No matter how much I tried to deny it, the memories were too detailed, too exact.
As I ran toward the shed, everything I remembered blended with what I saw until I couldn’t tell which was which.

“Damn… it really is the same story. Of all the novels in the world—it had to be this one.”

In the novel, the twins were important characters.
The Grand Duke’s wife, the Duchess, could not have children. Rumors said the problem was with the Grand Duke himself.

Then, one day, a nameless woman became pregnant with his child.
The novel described it clearly:

*“The Duchess kidnapped the woman.
When the twins were born ten months later, she was horrified—because they looked exactly like the Grand Duke.
‘Monsters! These things must die! My son must be the heir!’

The Duchess began to lose her mind.”*

She later became pregnant herself, five years after her marriage, which made her even more unstable.
When her own child was born just months apart from the twins, her jealousy turned into cruelty.

Terrified that her husband might discover them, she secretly sent the twins far away—to Sandra Orphanage—with a huge donation and strict orders never to let them out.

She had wanted to kill them, but the twins—children of the Grand Duke’s blood, known as beast-bloods—wouldn’t die.
No matter how much they were starved or poisoned, they survived.

So the Duchess sent them here, hoping the Grand Duke would never find them.

But when the twins turned seven, he did.

And he burned the entire orphanage to the ground—killing everyone else inside.

There was no way I could let that happen now that I knew.

I clenched my small fists and ran faster.

***

At last, I reached the storage shed.
No one guarded it, but thick chains were wrapped around the doors, secured with five heavy locks.

“Suspicious. Way too suspicious.”

I rubbed my temple with my chubby little hand.

“Could it really be true? Are they actually inside?”

I’d been hoping I was wrong—that this wasn’t the same world, that this was all just coincidence.
But everything matched the story perfectly.

“Damn it. There’s no choice—I have to check.”

I crept around the building.

Then, from inside, came the sound of a wolf’s growl.

“Awoooooo!”

As if warning me not to come any closer.

But telling someone not to look only makes them more curious.

“I have to see with my own eyes.”

Who knew? Maybe this world just happened to have the same names and places. Maybe there really were dogs locked up here.
Maybe my so-called “memories” were just bits and pieces of a book I’d read as a kid.

Even though I knew that wasn’t true, I still clung to the hope as I crouched and peeked through a small hole near the bottom of the door—a gap just big enough for a child to crawl through.

“Guess I should thank the director for once,” I muttered.

If the director had been feeding me properly, I wouldn’t have been thin enough to fit inside.

Because of the constant hunger, I slipped through easily.

“Huff… made it.”

Standing up in the dim shed, I gasped.

“So this is… where they’ve been living.”

The ceiling was high, but only a tiny window let in light.
The air was thick with dust, and piles of broken things cluttered the floor.

Then, I heard it—
a low growl from the dark corner, and a pair of eyes glinting.

Something moved toward me on all fours, cautious and feral.

A chill ran up my spine.
This wasn’t human. It felt like a wild beast.

Every instinct screamed danger, but I didn’t move.

I looked straight at the figure crawling toward me—
a child who growled like an animal.

The light from the small window revealed tangled hair down to the waist, nails long enough to scratch stone, and a body wrapped in scraps of burlap.

It was pitiful, filthy… and terrifying.

A child who had been turned into a beast.