Le Château
1
Arrival

i woke up cold and sore, and assumed that I'd somehow managed to fall out of bed without hitting my head on my bedside table during the night. Muttering a curse under my breath, I reached up and over my head to feel around on said table for my glasses, only to find that, not only were my glasses not there, my bedside table wasn't, either. It took a few seconds for my sleep-baffled brain to process that information and come to the logical conclusion: I'd slept-walked somehow.

Fine, then; I'd go back to my room and go to sleep.

Annoyed, I opened my eyes to a big blur, and realised that there was more blur than normal. A lot more blur. By squinting and peering around, I managed to eventually ascertain that I was nowhere near my room, or even my home. I stumbled towards a big, pale green blur and glared suspiciously at it as it came into focus.

It was depicting a battle of sorts; my hand traced along some of the lines as I wondered at its familiarity, then I found the giant 'M' in the centre of it. I did know this 'blur'; it had spent a month as my computer desktop.

I had either somehow wound up on a discarded Matrix: Reloaded set, or I was in the Merovingian's château.

I desperately prayed it was the former.

I heard a door starting to open and flung myself out of the line of sight, my breath coming in short, ragged gasps. My prayers had not been answered. I had somehow landed in the château, home of most of my favourite characters from the Matrix Trilogy. This was a very bad thing, as they all happened to be highly dangerous and probably weren't too fond of humans.

Despite my joking claims to the contrary, I am quite human.

Frightened, I curled up in my little nook and waited to find out if the Matrix fanon about the werewolves being able to smell fear was true.

This was not to be, as it was not werewolves who found me.

No, it wasn't the Twins either; if they had found me, the odds are pretty good that I'd be six feet under. The program who discovered me was a white-clad Asian man with longish dark hair – about the same length as mine, if I remember Reloaded correctly – the program I'd named 'Tiger' for fanfiction purposes. Of course, to my eyes at the time, he was pretty much a blur of white.

I didn't hear him coming. One minute, I was trying to calm myself down, hiding my face against my knees; the next I'd been hauled to my feet by a strong – and painful – grip on my hair. I was unable to keep from crying out in pain and fear as my hair was released and the grip found my neck. I experienced a mind-shattering, brain-numbing fear when I realised my captor was wearing white, then I noticed that my feet were still touching the ground – barely. Had the person grabbing my neck been one of the Twins, my feet would have been dangling off the ground.

"Another human," my captor said in a curious tone, examining my frightened face. He grinned dangerously; perhaps fortunately, my highly impaired vision was unable to confirm my theory that he was a vampire. His grip on my neck tightened as he added, "No doubt another so-called fangirl of the Twins. I suppose they'd prefer to deal with you themselves."

Blinding panic got my voice working. "No, please!" I begged him. "Don't take me to them!"

"Oho, what have we here?" he asked, sounding extremely amused. "Could it be that a fangirl exists who properly fears the Twins?" I nodded rapidly, and he let me rest my full weight on the floor, though still holding me against the wall by my neck. "You don't think they'll rescue you from the mean, nasty ol' Frenchman?"

This time I shook my head; why would the Twins rescue me? As far as I was concerned, if I ever met the Twins, only one thing would cross their minds when they saw me: prey. "There's hope for you yet, girlie," he said, seeming to smirk as he added, "although your arrival here indicates fangirlism for at least one resident of the Château… so, who is it? Or should that be 'who are they'?"

I hesitated, and all humour left his tone as he easily cut off my air intake. "I could easily kill you, brat," he hissed, "so I suggest you answer me." He allowed me breath again, and I sucked in air gratefully. "Now… who is it you fangirl?"

I was dead.

Frightened, I quietly answered, "You, Abel, the program who had the Tommy gun, and… and the Merovingian." I had a good feeling that mentioning Seraph, whom I fangirled above all others, would get me killed.

A dark blur on his face rose; I assumed he was raising an eyebrow. "Me."

I nodded.

"Do you even know my name?"

"No," I replied, shaking, my tone tinged with old frustration. "I've looked everywhere for yours and Seth's names; meanwhile, though, I… gave you names…."

His face moved closer to mine, bringing it into focus for the first time. He looked amused again. "You gave me a name. Fair enough."

Before I knew what was happening, he'd dealt me a sharp blow to the head, knocking me unconscious.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my attempt to do a self-insert the right way. Please keep in mind that this version of myself is me as I was when I was eighteen years old. Therefore, this me has no knowledge of anything we've learned from the Matrix Online.