I Stole The Villain’s Dragon Egg

Chapter One: Goodbye

If life were a movie, Jessica’s story would have been panned by critics for being too depressing to be realistic.

No single human being should have been able to possess that much bad luck without being cursed by an ancient, spiteful deity.

Jessica was behind the counter of the convenience store, clutching a warm coffee. It was the only thing keeping her upright. She had just finished her third shift of the day. 

Between the morning spent at a cafe and the afternoon scrubbing office floors, Jessica was currently more caffeine than person.

Living in a leaky apartment in a neighborhood where the stray cats looked like they were struggling too, there was no other choice.

After her mother passed and her father vanished into a war that didn't even send back a medal, Jess had learned that the world didn't have room for her tears. 

Her foster years had been spent dodging secret alcoholics who treated her like a punching bag. 

When they eventually tried to sell her to a debt collector to cover their gin habits, Jess had jumped out of a second-story window and never looked back. 

She had worked herself to the bone ever since, living on expired donuts and pure spite.

But recently, she thought she’d finally caught a break. She had Ryan…

Ryan was her boyfriend of two years, a charming, smooth-talking aspiring day-trader who swore he was going to pull them both out of the gutter. 

Jess had poured her meager savings into his "investments," believing they were building a future together.

The door jingled, snapping her out of her daze. It wasn't a customer. It was Ryan, soaking wet from the rain, looking exhausted.

"Jess, thank god you're working," Ryan gasped, rushing to the counter. "I need your phone. Right now. And whatever cash is in the register."

Jess blinked, her sleep-deprived brain struggled to process. "What? Ryan, I can't touch the register. And why do you need my phone?"

"I messed up, okay? The crypto account…it got flagged. The loan sharks are downstairs at my place. I need to transfer the funds to an unlinked device to clear the debt, or they're going to break my legs!" 

He reached over the counter, his fingers clawed for her phone, which was plugged into the wall charging.

On the screen, an open app displayed The Twisted Story…a web novel Jess had been obsessively reading during her grueling subway commutes. 

She had just paid her last five dollars for the final premium chapters to see the execution of Neria Virethorn, a miserable villainess she utterly despised.

"Ryan, stop!" Jess grabbed his wrist. "That account has my rent money in it. You promised you wouldn't touch it!"

Ryan’s facial expression hardened into something icy like snow. "Your rent money? Jess, look around. You're a convenience store clerk. You're a survivor. You'll figure it out. I actually have a future."

“What???”

“By the way, you’ve been really disgusting lately. You’re so lazy and can’t even look after your looks. That’s why, once this is over-I’m breaking up with you!”

Jess’s eyebrows went up as fast as some F1 racer. “Wh-what did you just say?”

“Monica has been working two jobs and still has time to look beautiful for me, and you?”

“Who the fuck is Monica??” There was this hot blood coming to her head.

But without answering, with a brutal shove, Ryan slammed Jess back into the cigarette racks. 

He ripped her phone from the charging cord, tearing the digital copy of The Twisted Story away from her eyes, and bolted out into the rain.

"Ryan!" Jess screamed.

Adrenaline, fueled by pure, unadulterated betrayal, rushed through her veins. 

Cheap sneakers slapped against the wet asphalt, Jess burst out of the store. 

Surprisingly, she was incredibly fast when she was angry. Years of running from foster parents had given her good lungs.

She gained on him, dodging through the main intersection. Ryan glanced back, his eyes widened in shock as he realised she was right on his heels.

"Stop! Give it back, you narcissistic jerk!"

Jess saw the green light for pedestrians and lunged forward, her fingers were just inches away from Ryan’s jacket. She wanted her phone, wanted her money, but most of all, Jessica wanted answers.

Because of her laser focus on Ryan, Jess didn't see the black-and-white police cruiser speeding toward the intersection with its lights off. 

Ryan did. With a quick look of calculation, he took a half-step back and shoved Jess directly into the traffic lane to secure his escape.

The irony hit her a split second before the bumper did.

There was a long thud, a moment of strange silence, and then a very hard landing. 

As the world blurred, Jess looked up at the neon city lights. 

Ryan didn't even look back; he disappeared into the subway stairwell, clutching her phone.

‘Of course,’ Jess thought, her final spark of consciousness started to vanish. ‘I get killed by the police while my cheating boyfriend robs me blind. The universe really does have a twisted sense of humor.’

As her vision began to fray at the edges, the cold asphalt felt surprisingly like a bed. For the first time in twenty-four years, Jessica didn't have to worry about the morning shift or the hole in her shoe that let the rain in.

But the regret was a suffocating, bitter poison in her chest. 

She didn't regret jumping out of that foster home window, but she deeply regretted letting her guard down for a man who used her as a human shield. 

Jessica map-read her entire life and realised she’d never really lived—she had only survived.

As her heartbeat slowed to a crawl, a strange phenomenon occurred.

Because her phone was still actively running the premium, data-linked epilogue of The Twisted Story just inches away in Ryan's hand, the final psychic imprint of her dying mind locked onto the open application. 

Her intense and long rage toward her betrayal perfectly showed the final thoughts of the novel’s executed villainess, 

Neria Virethorn, who had also been discarded by the man she loved.

The details of the book began to play like a movie behind her eyelids, pulled into the vacuum of her dying consciousness. 

Jess saw the dragon eggs, the crystal chandeliers of the high-magic palace, and the cold, terrifying face of her favourite male lead aka the villain, Sebastian Blackmoor.

The story was forced into her mind with a weird, magnetic clarity. 

That digital data of the novel became a literal life raft, pulling her soul out of her broken, dying body before it could cross into the void.

‘If there is a next world... I’m never letting anyone use me again,’ a fierce, silent vow gathered in her mind.

With a final, useless breath, Jessica closed her eyes on the cold city streets.

“Goodbye…”