Slowly coming into consciousness, I tried to move my body, but it felt heavy and painful.

Wait.

This didn't feel right.

The last thing I remembered was reading the results on the mass spectrometer and wondering how wrong they were. Not wrong like a miscalibration. Wrong like the machine had looked at my compound and decided to lie.

I remembered reaching for the shutoff valve when the fume hood had suddenly turned white.

Then I slipped.

I had been working on this project for so long that I'd lost track of the last time I properly slept. So, it made sense that my body felt heavy, but what was with the pain?

Did I fall and hit my body?

And why can't I open my eyes?

I tried moving again, but a wave of pain washed over my entire body. I tried once more, then again, but it was fruitless.

Eventually, I gave up and tried to rest.

The golden glow of morning sunlight woke me.

Out of habit, I reached for my alarm clock, wondering why it hasn't gone off.

Instead, I heard the loud clang of a silver cup hitting the floor.

I froze.

I had accidentally knocked it over.

Okay, that didn't make sense.

I don't have a silver cup on my desk. I know that because I could be what people considered thorough.

My bed was also in the wrong position.

I snapped my eyes open.

The sight that greeted me was the strangest thing I'd ever seen.

This wasn't my room.

And when I looked down at my hands, they weren't my hands either.

One thought rang loudly in my head.

THIS IS NOT MY ROOM!

Where was I?

What is this place?

Had I been kidnapped?

The room looked like it belonged in an old, building. I had a thousand questions and not a single answer.

I tried standing up and almost lost my balance. My head spun, and then memories that weren't mine came flooding in.

I steadied myself and inspected my surroundings again, this time more carefully.

The room was tiny, about the size of an average bathroom. The walls looked like they were almost falling apart, with cracks running through them. I could have sworn I saw a rat disappear behind an old, rundown table.

It was the only piece of furniture in the room besides the old bedframe beside me.

Beside it was the silver cup I'd knocked down earlier.

In one corner sat a sack containing what appeared to be clothing. Beside it was a heap of clothes that looked almost abandoned.

Speaking of clothes...

What was I wearing?

I looked myself up and down and realised I was poorly dressed. I looked like one of the maids from those cliché olden-day movies.

I chuckled.

My imaginations can be wild.

This was a dream.

My mind had simply gone all out.

What I couldn't understand was why everything felt so real.

The pain I'd felt earlier.

The silver cup hitting the floor.

The strange room.

The unfamiliar body.

Everything felt real.

What if this wasn't a dream?

If it wasn't, then was I delirious? Was I hallucinating? Was my mind playing tricks on me?

I paced around the room, trying to come up with the most reasonable explanation for this bizarre situation.

Or am I in a reality show?

Were there hidden cameras everywhere?

Were they trying to capture the person with the best reaction to such a senseless setting?

I frantically searched the room for signs of hidden cameras. I shifted the table and found a hole underneath it.

So that's where the rat disappeared to.

I lifted the almost weightless bed. I noticed it had little to no padding, and the frame creaked as I dropped it back down.

I went over to the corner where the clothes were kept.

Those three things were practically the only things in the room.

I searched carefully, but there was nothing.

I walked around, inspecting the roof, but there was nowhere to hook a camera.

Or was it a pinhole camera?

I searched thoroughly, almost obsessively, but there was nothing that could give me a reasonable explanation as to why I'd gone from standing in my laboratory to waking up in this bizarre place.

I hadn't grown up sheltered. I knew how tough life could get.

But this?

This was nothing like anything I'd faced before.

I'd never had to live somewhere with a roof that looked like it might collapse at any moment.

There were no cameras.

So it was either a dream or an experiment.

Another wave of dizziness washed over me, almost making me lose my balance.

I sat on the bed to steady myself.

It came again.

The memories.

They were hazy, and the voices sounded like they were fading away, but I could make out a few scenes.

I didn't recognise any of them.

I'd never been to those places. I wouldn't even know where to locate them on a map.

The voices continued fading, but one word remained.

It sounded like a name.

I couldn't make it out clearly.

I thought it started with a V or something like that.

A nasty headache began building behind my eyes, and the unfamiliar smell of the place only made it worse.

Then my eyes caught something shining in the heap of clothes.

A locket.

I must have uncovered it while searching for the hidden cameras.

I picked it up and inspected it.

It was made of gold.

When I opened it, I found strange scribblings on the inside that looked like symbols.

There was no picture.

Just symbols.

And I had absolutely no idea what they meant.

I had never in my life been this clueless about my whereabouts—or reality in general.

I'd always believed in science.

Science explained everything, from the smallest details of life to the origins of existence. I'd studied ancient symbols before, but these were unlike anything I'd ever seen.

I studied the locket, but it only added to my confusion.

First, I'd woken up in a strange place.

Then I'd received memories that weren't mine.

And now a golden locket with a strange inscription had appeared.

It was almost like I was in one of those bad trash-TV dramas where the female lead gets transmigrated into another body.

I chuckled at how insane that sounded.

Those things weren't real.

And a scientist like me should know better.

But the more I tried to make sense of what was happening, the harder my head began to ache.

I sat on the bed, medallion still in hand, while my mind ran through calculations, theories and every possible reasonable explanation for how I'd ended up here.

I could only come up with two outcomes.

Hallucination.

Or experiment.

The headache ruled out the dream theory.

My mind raced, desperately searching for any clue that could explain how I'd ended up here.

Why me?

Who brought me here?

I know I'm a genius. I wasn't ashamed to admit it.

Maybe that's why they picked me.

But this was a violation of human rights, and when I get out, I'm suing whoever brought me here without my consent.

For now, though, I needed an escape plan.

Operation Escape in One Piece was officially in action.