It had been two days since Lisa woke up in this strange world. During this time, she had managed to gather only a few pieces of information. First, she had no idea where she was. Second, she didn't know anyone. And third, she was in pain.
She had gone through phases of despair and fear, crying and lamenting, and now all she felt was a sort of numbness. That, and the almost constant pain in her tongue.
Lisa was in a forest, or at least it seemed like one. Towering trees surrounded her, and the sound of birds and insects echoed everywhere. However, the trees were larger than any she had ever seen, and the birds seemed unfamiliar. Occasionally, she caught sight of an enormous shadow passing overhead, only to realize it was a bird the size of a human flying high in the sky. Everything about this place was strange and unsettling.
If the oddness of the environment wasn't enough to scare her, her situation certainly was. Lisa was trapped in a cage, being carried to some unknown destination by a group of men.
The men were strange as well. At first glance, nothing seemed too unusual aside from their extraordinary good looks. They had well-defined physiques, model-like faces, and even their voices sounded inexplicably appealing. The strangest part, however, was how most of them wore nothing but animal pelts wrapped around their waists like skirts.
But it didn't take long for her to notice some animalistic features in them.
In open fields, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. However, the moment they entered this bizarre forest, parts of them began to change. Most of them developed animal ears. Initially, Lisa was startled. The ears seemed feline in nature, twitching at the slightest sound. They changed direction multiple times after one of them detected something unusual. She thought they might be tiger ears when, shortly after, most of them also developed striped tails. They spent the majority of their time in this hybrid form, part human, part animal.
Lisa wanted to scream, to question, even to curse them, demanding to know where she was and what was going on. But she couldn't speak.
Because she had no tongue.
That was the first thing she noticed: the constant pain where her tongue used to be. It was the primary reason for her tears. She had tried more than once to make a sound, but it was impossible.
Her biggest fear after this discovery was falling asleep and accidentally swallowing what remained of her tongue. This fear only made her cry harder.
Everything felt like a nightmare. She gestured, pointed, and even screamed at the men around her. But they ignored her, as if she didn't exist.
The first one who bothered to speak to her gave her a disdainful look.
"Don't try to enchant me, woman. I'm already mated." After saying that, he showed her his arms.
Red spirals of lines ran up both his forearms. What this was supposed to mean, Lisa had no idea. Shortly afterward, another man with similar markings pulled him away.
"Don't talk to her," said an older man with slightly graying hair, reprimanding the younger one, who lowered his eyes submissively.
Lisa hadn't noticed it before, but upon closer inspection, all of them had the same markings on their arms.
And so they continued. Now, on the second day, one of them pushed her toward a river.
"Drink water, woman. You won't get another chance like this."
Lisa, despite wanting to scream and refuse just to prove she couldn't be controlled, drank the water. The truth was, she was dying of thirst.
But when she saw her reflection in the water, she almost wished she had chosen to stay thirsty.
Her face was no longer her own.
At 25 years old, Lisa had a mature face, free of childlike features, with long blonde hair. Now, a stranger stared back at her. A woman who didn't look older than 20, with green eyes and a small, round face. Her hair was dirty and disheveled, cut short as if hacked with a dull knife. Her face was filthy. But none of that could hide the beauty of the face she now wore.
Lisa touched the unfamiliar face.
What the hell is this?
Several things she had previously overlooked started to make sense. How she felt lighter. How her skin tone was slightly darker. Any excuses she had given herself to explain these changes felt hollow in the face of the reality she now confronted.
This body wasn't hers.
Once again, Lisa cried. She couldn't believe what was happening to her.
What kind of nightmare was this?
But apparently, things could get worse.
"She's crying again," one of the men behind her said, sounding anxious.
Another clicked his tongue in disdain.
"After everything that's happened, I hope she cries. It's all a result of the crimes she committed."
Lisa turned, furious.
What crimes had she committed? What had she done to deserve this punishment?
Of course, she couldn't voice any of this, not without a tongue.
But the man she was glaring at—the same older one who had scolded the younger for speaking to her earlier, didn't need words to interpret her expression.
"What? Are you angry?" he asked. "Three of my mate's males died in the clan war you started. She's grieving."
He ran his hand over the stripes circling his forearm with a pained expression before lifting his eyes to hers in anger.
"This is your fault," he continued. "If it weren't for you, my female wouldn't have to suffer."
War? Clans? Males?
Although Lisa heard and understood the words, none of it made any sense to her. And unfortunately, she couldn't voice any of her questions.
So she did the only thing she could to vent her anger.
She grabbed a large rock from beside her and hurled it at the man with all her strength.
The rock bounced harmlessly off his chest, not even leaving a mark. But that seemed enough to enrage him.
What happened next was insane.
One moment, the man was glaring at her in anger. The next, a giant tiger lunged at her, roaring inches from her face.
Lisa screamed, fear making her stumble back and fall into the river.
The water engulfed her, and when she emerged, gasping and trembling, several men were restraining the tiger.
"It's not worth it, Rufus. She's going to be sold, and without a tongue, she'll face a fate worse than death," one of the men spoke to the tiger, as if expecting the feline, at least three times larger than a normal tiger, to understand.
To cap off her disastrous day, the tiger shifted, its muscles contorting and transforming back into the man she had been arguing with moments earlier.
"You," he pointed at her, "Lisa, the war-bringer, will pay for your crimes."
He spat on the ground.
"I wish nothing but the worst for you. If it were up to me, I'd hand you over to the ferals."
And it was that word, among everything else that had happened, that made Lisa finally understand what was happening to her.
Lisa.
The strange forest, the men who could transform into animals at will, her severed tongue, her altered face.
And now her name.
Lisa was the antagonist of the romance novel "Beauty and Power" that she had read before.
She seemed to be in the body of the villain who shared her name.
The realization was enough to make her laugh. The sound came out cracked, choked, and hollow due to her mutilated tongue.
The men (no, the males) looked at her as if she had lost her mind.
If all of this were real, part of her almost preferred madness.