I had been stuck in this place for quite a long time. It began when I was hiking through the Yosemite park on one fine day. I was unfortunately gotten lost and separated from my expedition team.  I was an amateur hiker who had no experience traversing the mountain. That was my first and only time exploring the forest, hence I walked aimless for two days straight trying to find my way out of the wilderness.

On the third day, I was running out of water, food and energy. I decided to take a rest under a gigantic , unusual looking tree in the middle of the jungle. I don't know what attracted me to the tree, but I my instinct told me to get shelter under the big tree.

At that point, waiting to be rescued seemed to be futile. I decided to take out my diary from my bag pack and wrote down a simple heartfelt farewell for my dog and friends, in case anyone find my body in the future. I didn't know how long did I stay under the tree. I was so exhausted and starving, I decided to closed my eyes as the hunger was unbearable for me to endure.

Surprisingly, when I woke up, gone the lush scenery of the thick forest and the faint smell of forest's moist. I found myself laying down on a strange looking street where everything looked as if they were popping out of old black and white film.

I was bewildered with this extraordinary scenery. Where was I? Wasn't I stranded in the middle of forest just now? Did I stepped into historical film set? Was this a prank? There must be hidden camera somewhere along this street right?

However, I was astonished to see my reflection on the street shop's window. I no longer looked like my usual self! The reflection that was staring back at me had red hair and brown eyes! This is totally different than how I usually looked like! I began to scrutinize my own hands. I realized that the shade of my skin is two time lighter than normal. At that moment, I realized that something was wrong! This is more than stepping into a filming set!

I went around like a crazy person asking where was I and what year was this. After roaming the street asking question upon question to the poor passersby, I was confident to conclude that I was somehow thrown into an alternate universe that resemble the 19th century era.

Initially, surviving this place was very difficult. The problem was to fully understand this place. While it may looked like I was sent back to London circa 1880, but it was not exactly OUR 1880s.

If there was alternate universe depicted the 19th century England where the ruler of the great Briton was not the popular Queen Victoria. This, was the place.

This alternate universe was strangely different than the earth . The year was 1880 and the place that I found myself (once again) stranded in, was London. Most of the people speak English language and dressed like one. But there was several differences to be compared to our world.

For example, I discovered the existence of places and countries that did not exist back on Earth in this place. Not only that, several machines and technologies that did not exist back in 1880s but somehow made its way to this world's 1885. Some of the fashion was not of our world's 19th century either. I saw people wearing attire ranging from medieval dresses to Earth's modern time clothes.

However, the most surprising thing was when I uncovered the existence of supernatural subgroups lurking within the underground of the London city.

Just like the ones I had always seen in our fictional show on earth, supernatural entity did exist in this world. Magic and wizard thriving among the people who were the member of this subgroup.

Similar to the fictional story that I had always read on Earth, the existence of this group was not known to the large majority of the normal humans. They were hiding on the plain sight by blending in with the vast majority of the people.

I accidentally stumbled upon this subgroup while I was surviving the street as a novice time traveller. They took care of me as they convinced that I was one of them; those with knowledge of supernatural phenomena.

Incredibly, I fit just nice with these group of people. I found solace among these people who were already an outcast to the majority people in this world and had to keep the secret of supernatural phenomena among themselves .

"telling other people about our ability would do more harm than good to us" said one of them.

Nevertheless,concealing their supernatural ability does not mean these people did not mingle around with normal humans. In fact, they were living covertly among them just like how we've seen in our fictional literary. It was as if I was sucked into one of the fictional story.

Well…this is a story.

This. Is. My story.

A human from earth who traveled to alternate universe and dwell with supernatural phenomena.

The Morpheus was a peculiar antique shop located at one of the many shady alleyways at the east side of London.

The most peculiar thing about the antique shop was the existence itself. This place is an antique shop that is located at the most non-strategic place.  No one who frequent that part of London would have a dime of money to be spent leisurely on useless antiques that has no part in the life of the working class people.

The shop was situated below a tavern where everyone came and go as they like and by a busy and popular pub among the residents near the alleyway.

Despite of it's strange location, no one in the alleyway was bothered to questions the shop's existence.

Moreover, no one had ever wonder on how does the antique shop managed to stay operating despite them rarely seen any customer going in and out of the place. For an antique shop, the place was rather gloomy and filled with what seemed to be cheap or counterfeit antique goods.

It was said that, the most impressive thing in the shop would probably a lifelike mannequin that was displayed on the shop's mirror. The mannequin had never not spooked everyone who had to walked in front of the shop.

The eerie mannequin fits perfectly with the antique shop's equally peculiar owner; Mademoiselle Johanne who originally hailed from France. Well, at least that was what she told other resident about her origin.

No one in the area really believed that she was some rich widow from France. If she really was, she would not be living among them at that downtrodden part of London. So does everybody though. But no one dare to point out about that matter in front of her.

The mysterious old widow was not exactly what she was always described by the residents of the area. She was not a wrinkled middle age woman. In fact she appeared to be quite young and no more than 30 years old.

She was also unexpectedly better known as a popular clairvoyant and offered tarot reading service as part of the shop's service. Hence, most of her local customer from around the area, were girls frequented the shop for card reading. While her clairvoyant status is debatable, but her card reading was usually accurate

She also stayed in the tavern that was located at the upper floor of the building . In fact, her room was actually directly connected to the shop, hence she did not have to encountered other people while on her way going to her own shop.

As long as she was minding her own business, no one would bat an eyelashes to whatever it is she was doing.

However, little did the people know, the antique shop was always frequented by the other being. Yes. Most of the Mademoiselle's customer was not ordinary human such as them. In fact, the name 'antique' itself was only a part of what the shop was about.

Most of the time, these ordinary people would not realized that they were entities that visited the shop from time to time.

They would always pretending to be potential antique buyers or blending in with the human females who would always come for card reading.

The truth is, the shop was one of the most important parts of the Underworld Association that lurked silently among the ordinary human.

The Underworld Associate - like it's name - was used to refer to creatures who originally hailed from the Underworld. A place that was situated between the human world and the heavenly world.

It was a unique place where creatures that did not fit in the human and heavenly world settled in. Unlike the human who had no ideas about the existence of the underworld and the heavenly world, the creatures of underworld knew about the human's existence and frequently visited the earth through hidden portals that scattered all over the world.

At times , the Underworld's creature would decide to settled in the human and blending with the human as one of them.

However, the option to choose for the underworld's creature has long gone almost a thousand year ago. The underworld were no longer a place that they could call home as it was destroyed during the great war between the powerful clans that once dominated the underworld.

Nowadays, apart from the magical forest that was under the sovereignty of the King of the fairies, the underworld was covered by a barren land that could barely be called as home. Only a handful of creatures such as the trolls was able to adapt to the cruel changes.

Most of the underworlds creature slowly moving to the human world as the god and goddess from the heavenly world would never accept them.

It was easier to sneak around the oblivious humans instead of fighting the gods. Therefore, they have no other choice than going through the hidden portals to move into the human world. While most of them began to familiarize themselves with the humans, new problem arose.

The portals that has been connecting these two worlds mysteriously disappeared one by one. This is a devastating news dreaded by the underworld's creatures as loosing the portals means they no longer be able to visit their former home!

No one knows when and how did these portals ceased to exist! After a while, there were only few of them left in the world. Hence, the underworld associate decided to carefully preserved these few portals away from the human's eyes.

And one of these portals was actually located in the antique shop!

Yes!

The antique shop that was operated by the self-proclaimed clairvoyant - Mademoiselle Johanne - was a only camouflage set up by the people of underworld associate in effort to preserve one of their last connection to their home.

For the past centuries, various mademoiselles were assigned to be the guardian of the portal that would be the medium that transport the underworld associate across the two worlds And The Morpheus was only one of the few still functioning portals that exist till this date!

There were several more functioning hidden portals that was carefully supervise by Underworld Associate.

Nevertheless, the Morpheus had always been the most popular choice by the Underworld Associate to visit whenever they felt like crossing between the two world. Therefore, The Morpheus had - actually- always been a merry and chaotic place!

The alleyway was bustling with people going back and forth trying to make ends meet for their daily food.

Whilst other people were free to walk across the cobbled pavement, here she was stuck in a dusty shop overlooked by everyone who passed through her every single day.

She longed to be able to move freely as any other people in this world. But she was restricted from doing so. If she was to take a stroll on the street, the humans would be running toward the opposite while screaming at the top of their lungs!

She let out a huge sigh. It's been a long time since she was able to walk. Her body was so stiff right now, she was not sure if she could walk right.

Her days were usually as dull as the shop itself. But lately, a certain someone had unexpectedly caught her attention.

While most of the people who passed through her would not bat an eyelashes to take some time to appreciate her existence on the mirror display, this particular guy did actually stopped for a while and boldly admired her from the pave walkway.

Roux had never been appreciated by anyone before. Most of the time, she would hear the humans saying that she was scary to looked at.

But this man was different. He stopped and gazed at her lovingly. The next day, he did the same thing! After a week, he came to watch her in the morning, during the lunch and before he went back to his house at night.

Roux felt so flattered!

She enjoyed his 'company' even though they had never interact with each other. She was worried that she would freak him out if he knew that she was a living mannequin.

But today was a little bit different. The wretched mademoiselle was loitering around the shop thus risking their little 'date' to be exposed by the mademoiselle.

Roux hated the woman so much! Even though she was currently her master, Roux had never been able to get along with this woman nor did Roux was willing to . Especially when she was the one who responsible to turned her into a mannequin in the first place!

Roux still remembered her past life when she was just like any other human. She lived in a small cottage not far from outside of London with her parents and little siblings. The were just a family of peasant with nothing much to their name except for being hardworking to earn a living by working at a farm.

As the oldest in the family, she was assigned by her parents to look after her four younger sisters when they were out working at the farm. Looking after her sisters had been her daily routine until the day where a tragedy occurred and ultimately changed their family's life forever!

On a fateful day, one of her younger sister had passed away in her sleep while Roux had been taking care of her.

Their parents came back to find Roux and the other sisters were crying on the bedside after finding her younger sister lifeless body.

Burying a daughter's body was difficult for parents who worked hard to ensure that their children had enough to eat. But loosing another child in a span of one week was utterly unbearable for her parents.

One week after the death of her first younger sister, the youngest baby in the family was found drowning at the river not far from their house. The tragic incident happen while she was under Roux's care.

With a heavy heart, her family - one again- had to bury the baby in the family just beside her older sister's grave who had passed away just one week before.

Life continued as usual for Roux's family until another unfortunate incident struck one more time. This time, a stranger broke into her house and stabbed one of her remaining two sisters with their kitchen knife!

Roux had to ran toward to their neighbour's house to get help but when they arrived back at her house, her sister was already dead.

Mourning her dead sisters was painful to the family. However, since then, their parents became hughly protective toward Roux and her remaining sister.

Her mother stopped going to the farm and decided to stay at their house to look after her daughters herself. Fortunately, nothing bad happen to them while their mother was at home with them.

However, not long after that, she had to go back to the farm with her husband as the land owner refused to pay the husband to work for two people. Therefore, with a heavy heart her mother had to leave both Roux and her surviving sister alone at their home.

As if being cued by some supernatural power, the last tragedy struck their family household for the last time. An intruder had snuck into their little cottage and tried to strangle her sister to death while Roux went to their neighbour's house looking to borrow some salt.

She and the neighbour who accompanied her back to her house, rushed to untie the rope that was used to bound her sister's limbs. Luckily, her sister was still breathing and was successfully resurrected by her neighbour after being given first aid.

Realizing that there was unknown footsteps leaving her house from the back door, Roux decided to follow the trail as she convinced that it was the clue left by the murderer. She asked the permission of their adult neighbour to go for a walk after ensuring that her sister was well and alive.

The footsteps brought her to the village's river. At the very end of the river, a strange looking a red haired woman was standing while holding a tobacco pipe in her hand. She was looking at her intently as if daring Roux to come and question her involvement in their family's predicament.

Roux immediately prowled at the direction of the woman.

"Are you the one who had been killing my sisters?" she asked.

"No" the woman gave a short nonchalant replied.

"You are lying! What do you want from me? What do you want from my family?"

"I want nothing from a teenager like you! Now, get off"

"I won't!" Roux was adamant.

"Alright. Now kid, let me help you. Do you want to know how to stop the bad incidents from happening in the future?"

"Huh?"

"Do you want to know?"

"Yes!"

"But there is a price that I don't think you can afford"

"I will. I will pay with my life if I could put an end to this prolonged misery !"

The woman than flashed a smug smirk at her. She bent down and began to whisper things at her ear.

Little did she knew, she was trading her entire life for her family. After the strange meeting, Roux could not remember anything other than waking up at the shop and realizing that her body had changed.

It was difficult for her to adapt with this new body of her. It was stiff and restricting. However, years went by and Roux no longer bother by it.

Roux kept on looking between her master who was sipping tea at her usual spot and the people walking  outside of the shop.

She didn't want the mademoiselle to know that she had an admirer who kept on looking at her. She should do something to hide his existence from her!

The Mademoiselle seemed to felt her anxiety as she looked up from her tea cup.

"What's the matter Roux? You seemed different today?���

"Nothing mademoiselle"

"Hmmmm" the woman seemed sceptical with her answers. She lifted one of her eyebrow skeptically. However, she decided to drop the topic as she was lazy to probe further.

Roux was relief when the mademoiselle decided to forgo the whole conversation and continued to sip her tea.

However, her relief did not last when she saw her admirer was walking happily toward the shop.

'oh no! What should I do?!'

As usual, he stopped for a while to gaze lovingly at Roux. However, he was distracted when he realized the mademoiselle was glaring at him through the mirror!