You could have sworn your bed wasn't hard and stiff and that you had fallen asleep in the comfortable silence of your bedroom. Were that the case, why did it feel like the exact opposite? Your bed felt like the hard, abrasive cobblestone streets you used to scrape your knees on as a kid and you were cold, freezing even. As much as you would have liked to ignore that in favor of a few extra minutes comatose, what you couldn't ignore was the hustle and bustle going on around you. Quarantine was still in effect, you should not have been able to hear footsteps near your head, let alone feel the weak kick of what you guessed was a child.

You opened your eyes in a sudden jolt of pain, coming face to wall with the exterior of what looked like an old English bakery. You were definitely taken aback but you turned your torso in favor of telling off whoever just assaulted you.

Your eyes came to a stop on a little soot covered, dirty blonde child. You were confused, the child definitely did not look like one of the pampered little booger eaters that normally ran around where you lived, he was covered head to toe in dirt and ash and even stranger were his clothes. It was like you had woken up on the set of some 1800s old English show and the little boy was a disgruntled, extra in commoner's attire.

Your confusion remained as you scanned your new surroundings, not only the child but the majority of the people who were walking around had the same dirty, old look about them. You sat there, stunned, not even bothering to question outwardly where you were, sure you wouldn't like the answer.

A high pitched and aged-beyond-its-years voice cut through your daze, "Oi, move it! Y'can't just be layin' about in front'a people's shops, y'hear? The ol' man in th'bakery hired me ta' get rid o' you lot! Says y'make the business bad." You turned your gaze back to the little boy you suspected was the one who kicked you awake. His chest was puffed and his hands were on his hips, you assumed in an attempt to look tough. You were having none of it.

"Who do you think you are, you little gremlin? Didn't your parents ever teach you some common human decency?" you scoffed, grumpy and offended, "There's absolutely no need to boot someone in the back, why didn't you try to wake me up with your words you cockroach? Where are your parents? Shouldn't they know not to let their kid run off on their own? And in a pandemic no less, I don't want your grubby little germs!" You stood up, utilizing your superior height to intimidate, "Where am I anyway?" The question appeared to fall on deaf ears as the little boy stared at you puzzled.

"You don't talk like y'from 'round' ere." He paused, looking down at his feet with a little hand coming up to his chin in thought, "What's a gremlin?" he questioned, mostly to himself.

You were, for lack of an old English word, shook. Maybe flabbergasted would suit? Whatever, you didn't have time to question what word you would use to describe your feeling towards the situation. You snapped your fingers in an attempt to grab the child's attention, "Hey, kid, mind answering my question? Where am I?"

He looked back up at you, a look of annoyance painting his dirt covered features, "Y'in front'a th'bakery ya idgit!"

You sighed, a look of incredulous anger on your face, "I've gathered that, I meant where am I as in what city am I in? How did I get here? And why do you look like a character straight out of an eighteen hundreds movie?" you finished, looking down and noticing that you too looked like you were cosplaying some poor little English child.

Before you could ask more, the kid replied, "Yer' in London, an' how am I s'pose t'know how y'got 'ere? An' I 'unno what a movie is but I look like this 'cause it is th' eighteen hundreds!" you stared at the child shocked, there was no way this runt was so good at acting that he could keep up his character when he was not on camera. Against all your reasoning, you actually started to believe him and believe you had woken up in the past.

You were given no more time to question, the boy pushed at your back and forced you away from the front of the shop, his shorter stature making it hard for him to move you without a struggle. Once he rid you from the bakery's shop front, he dusted his hands off, fitting in a quick "an' don't come back!" before running back and kicking some other people sleeping on the sidewalk.

You had to be in a dream, surely. What other explanation could help you make sense of the situation? You performed the usual ritual you had seen people in cinema do when they believed they were in a dream, pinching your arm and concluding it was a stupid thing to do. You were awake, your dreams had never been so coherent and lifelike.

Panic had begun to set in, you clutched at your rag like clothing and tried to ground yourself, grasping at any scrap of memory you could muster to try and figure out how in the hell you ended up there. You took stock of your surroundings, the cobble of the street, the old, ornate wood and masonry cladding of the buildings around you, the black smog settled into the clouds above you. All of it pointed to old England, at least what you could remember of it from the media you had consumed.

Your eyes darted everywhere and caught on a sign that almost made your eyes fall out. "Undertaker" it read, bordered in a tacky gold and topped with a crooked skull. You could not believe it, you had seen that shop before and you were sure you knew where.

You crossed the street, finding it hard to ignore the disgusted stares cast upon you by the noble class strolling along the footpath. Your head began to pound, you couldn't believe what you were seeing, you were sure it was a sign from Black Butler, in fact you were positive. You shut your eyes, thinking back to the episode when Sebastian and Ciel needed to get information from the undertaker and you as the viewer saw the view of his shopfront.

"Come on in dearie, you'll catch yer death'a cold out there," called out a familiar giddy voice, a choppy giggle following suit.

You pushed the doors open immediately, wanting to confirm your assumptions. Sure enough, stood before you next to a particularly plain looking coffin was the undertaker. Quite literally the undertaker from Black Butler. His long silver hair cascaded in stiff, somewhat matted streams down his dusty black garment.

"It's you..." you mustered out, the words tumbling from your lips, "you're the undertaker from Black Butler!" You pointed accusingly at the inhuman man in front of you, earning a dopey head tilt in return.

"Why, whateva do y'mean dearie? I mean, y'rite about me bein' an undertaker n' all but I ain't much sure about whatcha mean by from Black Butla." A long, spindly finger came up to tap on his chin, overgrown nails reaching past his up curled lips.

You paused, a million questions threatening to spill but you settled on answering his first, "Black Butler, you know, the anime and manga series? The one with Sebastian and Ciel?" You looked pleadingly at the man before you, hoping for answers.

"Anime and manga, aye? I dunno 'bout those things but those names y'mentioned are quite farmiliar. Regula' customers a' mine they are." His lips stretched wide around his teeth, appearing to almost split his face in half. It took you aback a little, on screen and in a cartoon form, his smile was comical but seeing it in person, that cheery disposition was almost frightening.

You saw your chance to garner more information and pressed forward with that, "Yes! Yes Sebastian and Ciel, they're the main characters in the story. Sebastian is a demon acting like a butler for Ciel after his parents died." you sputter, afraid you'd stutter if you went on for much longer without a breath. "And you, you're a grim reaper, you were basically fired and now you're working as an undertaker and informant."

His face splitting smile fell, replaced with more of a glower, striking green eyes pierced through his disheveled bangs. "Y'shouldn't be going around accusing people of things like that." He walked over to the front doors and when he passed you, the smell of stale dog biscuits and what you can only describe as rotting meat filled your senses and made your eyes water. "Get out, before I lose me tempa'."

You realized your chance for information slipping and you grasped at straws, "No wait, please, I-I promise I'm telling the truth, I know all of this stuff because I've seen it all before! It's a story I've seen before, and you're one of the characters in the story!" You angled yourself to grip his robes, hoping beyond hope that the man would listen. "Please believe me, I don't know what happened but for some reason I woke up in the story and now... Now I don't know, I'm confused. My world isn't anything like this, we don't have demons and grim reapers, and I don't live in the 19th century, the year in my world is 2020." Grip loosened, your hand fell at your side and you gazed imploringly at the character.

His hand, wrapped around the knob of his door, became slack and fell away altogether. A cursory glance was set upon you before his eyes disappeared again completely behind a silver curtain of hair. With his grin set back in place he replied, "Aight, dearie, I'll spare you tha curtesy and assume y'tellin' the truth."

You felt relieved, but something in his tone made you think he was hiding the desire to kill you... Or something. Regardless, you let slip a sigh of relief, eyes tracking the reaper as he made his way back over to a coffin rested on the floor. From a shelf behind him he pulled down a clear jar full of bone shaped dog treats and sat down on the coffin.

You shuffled on your feet, feeling the cold settle into your bones, ignorable up to that moment but that probably had something to do with the adrenaline. Now that you were just standing there, awaiting the next move, you realized you were freezing. "Come, sit" you heard the reaper beckon. You did as he said and sat on the coffin next to him.

"I reckon I ought t' believe you,'' he punctuated his sentence with the crunch of a biscuit, "You seem quite odd, like y'aint from around 'ere. Y'don't speak like anyone I've met and from what I can tell, you believe y'are tellin' the truth." another crunch.

His smile never once faltered, it made you feel a lot more frightened than you thought a smile could. You waited for him to say something else, "Y'say you don't know how y'got 'ere aye?"

"Yeah, I don't know, I just woke up on the street outside. But before that I remember going to bed and-" you halted, the sudden realization hitting you like a train. "that meme! Oh my god, it was that stupid meme!"

"God, you say?" the reaper questioned, chuckling. He waved a treat in the air before chucking it fully into his mouth. "So, what else 'bout this story do ya know?" he managed around the treat.

With thoughts racing, you tried to answer to the best of your ability, vaguely explaining the plot of the anime, with some details of the manga peppered in from what you remembered of it. It was easier to remember the anime, since you had just watched it during quarantine. You began to shiver, the chill still not out of the air, and that was when the obvious became apparent. There was no aircon in the 19th century.

The undertaker handed you a rough, thin blanket from one of the shelves behind him, "What a fine story y'ave there. 'Fraid none of what you 'ave just said has happened though." Another crunch.