My eyes snap open suddenly, as if something had forcibly ejected me from the strange dream I've been having. I spend several minutes struggling to remember it, but the details refuse to stick in my brain, draining away like water.

It's then that I realize I'm staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling. Sitting up with a yelp, I look around the room. It's more or less a normal bedroom, at least from my perspective – another person might have found the three whole shelves stuffed with anime, manga, and plush toys to be quite unusual, but for me, it just reminds me of my own collection.

The colour scheme is a mix of pink and red, from the diamond-patterned quilt that was covering me as I slept, to the pink curtains with a pale red bunny pattern that shield the room from the morning sun. I can spot all the usual things one might expect to find in a girl's bedroom. A dresser, covered in random anime merchandise and cute hair ornaments, complete with a mirror. A door left ajar that clearly leads into a walk-in closet. A desk bearing a state-of-the-art computer and what looks to be a compact video camera, as well as a smartphone. An end-table next to the bed that holds a lamp nestled amidst an army of plush toys. A basket in the corner to hold dirty laundry. A waste-paper basket next to the desk. A projector screen coiled up in the perfect position for watching movies from the bed. The projector itself is fixed to the ceiling, almost directly above my pillow.

Actually, the most startling thing about the room is how neat it is. Sure, nearly every surface is covered in stuff, but it's all neatly arranged, and the floor is completely clean. For me, whose floor is normally strewn with books and clothes, the sight of such a clean floor comes as a bit of a shock. I blink several times, looking around, then pinch my cheek to make sure I'm not dreaming. Right… of course I'm not.

Just then, the door suddenly opens to admit a woman I don't recognize. She's a beauty with flowing blonde hair, though it's a little untidy at the moment, and dressed casually in a blouse and jeans. The woman look at me with worried eyes and speaks.

"Ashley dear, are you alright? I thought I heard a squeal from your room, so I came running…"

Ashley? But that's not my name… my name is… I blink when it doesn't immediately come to mind. What was it again? Not Ashley… Chelsea? That might be it… frowning slightly, I rack my brain, trying to remember what I was even doing before waking up here. I'm pretty sure I had been up late, playing some game… what was it again… oh yes, Magia Record!

While I'm lost in thought trying to figure out what the hell's going on here, the woman approaches me and grabs my shoulders.

"Ashley dear, speak to me!" the woman repeats. "Is something wrong?"

Ashley, huh… so is that really my name now? I blink at the woman and quickly shake my head.

"N-no, I'm fine, sorry," I say. "I was just… spacing out, you know?"

Even my own voice sounds wrong, a sort of twinkling soprano rather than the husky contralto I remember.

"When you say fine…" the woman says slowly. "The fever's finally gone down?"

I tilt my head. "Huh? Fever?"

"Don't tell me you've forgotten!" the woman says. "You had a nasty case of the covid! We were beginning to fear the worst!"

I blink. "I… I was sick? I don't remember…"

"Well, it's no wonder," the woman says. "You were either delirious or out cold for most of it. Are you sure you feel fine? You were burning up just a few hours ago…"

"I feel totally fine," I reply. "Really!"

The woman places a hand on my forehead.

"Yeah, you do feel pretty normal… I should grab the thermometer just to make sure, but compared to yesterday… ah, if you're really feeling better, I should let you take a shower and get dressed, shouldn't I? I'll go start preparing some lunch."

"Yeah… thanks a lot, Mom," I say, the last word slipping out before I realize. Is that from the real Ashley's memories? "I'll be down once I've cleaned up."

"Don't push yourself too hard though," Ashley's mother says. "After all, you were bedridden for over a month. You might be feeling a bit weak."

"I'll be careful," I said.

"Please do."

With that, Ashley's mother leaves the room, leaving me to my thoughts once more. What had I been doing before I woke up as Ashley? I've already remembered the name of the game I was playing, but that's it so far. I close my eyes and knead at my temples as I rack my brain, trying to dredge up every little memory I can. I had been playing through the final arc of the main story quest… had I beaten it? I can't quite remember. I can also vaguely remember playing some side quests and spending an exorbitant sum on the gacha in an attempt to get the limited-edition magical girl from the ongoing event, but luck had been against me. Even when I had finally gotten the guaranteed 4✭ magical girl on my 100th pull, it hadn't been the event-exclusive girl but just another duplicate of Ashley Taylor, who I'd maxed out long ago.

Huh? Wait a second… Ashley Taylor? Surely it was only coincidence that my name now is also Ashley… but just in case, I sweep my legs out of bed and lurch over to the dresser to peer into the mirror. As Ashley's mother had warned me, my body feels pretty weak, but I manage to avoid falling over. The face that stares back at me in the mirror bears quite a close resemblance to Ashley's mother, round with a small nose and amber eyes, blonde hair tumbling over my shoulders to waist level, with several streaks dyed in bright pink and cyan. More pertinently, although it gives something of a different impression in real life than it does on a cartoon character, it matches the description of Ashley Taylor perfectly.

"N-no way…" I whisper out loud. "Have I… have I really become Ashley Taylor!? But why? How? Is this one of those reborn in another world scenarios? But I don't even remember dying… but I guess sometimes you just go to sleep and wake up in another world, so maybe it's like that?"

Panicking a little, I look around for a calendar or something, but there's no such thing in the room. Finally my eyes fall on the smartphone laying on the desk, resting on its charging station. I lurch over to the desk and sit in the spinning chair to examine the phone. Apart from the colour scheme, it looks almost identical to my own phone that I had played Magia Record on. I poke the home button with my fingernail, but of course it's locked with a fingerprint, so I press it again firmly with my thumb and it unlocks. Even the layout of the home screen is pretty similar to my own phone, though there are some differences, most notably the lack of a Magia Record app.

"Calendar, calendar," I mutter. "Here we go… so it's Friday, the twenty-sixth of November… and…"

I blink, thoroughly startled by the year, which is a little more than twenty-five years into the future, relative to the year I remember before I woke up here. The Madoka anime never specified a specific year, but was implied to be near-future. I suppose this more or less confirms that.

I close the calendar app and start checking out other apps. Between maps and weather, I confirm I'm in California rather than Vancouver, where I'd lived until just now. By exploring the bookmarks in the web app, I discover the video blog that Ashley had been keeping. I choose a random video and watch as the face and voice that are now apparently mine wax on about cute fashion and plush toys.

"All of this fits what I know about Ashley Taylor," I mutter. "Comes from California, interested in kawaii culture, keeps a v-log, not to mention the blonde hair with pink highlights… the eyes are a different colour, but that's pretty minor… could be chalked up to artistic license since red's not a natural colour… either that or she wears coloured contacts…"

Leaving the phone on the desk, I knead at my forehead again. My name in my previous life had been Chelsea, right? Or… was that even true? According something I once read on the Internet, Ashley Taylor had originally been called Chelsea Moran in an early draft of the character, right? Maybe I had only remembered that, rather than my actual name…

"Oh, what the hell, I guess it doesn't matter!" I sigh. "I'm Ashley now, so I guess I gotta make the best of it. Wish I knew exactly how old I was though…"

I lift my hands up in front of my face, but there's no sign of a ring on any of my fingers, nor a mark on any of my fingernails. If I'm truly in the world of Magia Record, that's proof that I'm not a magical girl, at least not yet. On top of that, my body is clearly that of a teenager.

"Before the student exchange to Japan, I guess?" I muse. "So… probably no older than seventeen… which means I've regressed about eight years… and considering the feel of this body, I don't think I could be any younger than fifteen…"

Suddenly standing up, I lean on the desk until I feel able to walk, then slowly make my way to the door. As I exit the bedroom into an upstairs hallway, memories that aren't mine flow into my head, and I turn and make my way straight to the bathroom to shower. Although this isn't the body I'm used to, it feels pretty comfortable, so I suspect it's not too drastically different from my previous body in its proportions.

"Come to think of it," I mutter as I slather shampoo into my hair. "If this is before Ashley goes to Kamihama… wouldn't that mean Walpurgisnacht is going to attack Kamihama in less than six months? Or… no, it'll probably attack Mitakihara, like in the original anime… but to put it another way, that means I have almost six months of advance warning… although, I don't even know if magical girls and witches even exist in this world…"

I ponder the idea as I get myself all squeaky clean, and the more I think about it, the more I feel it might be worth a try. In my previous life, I had been a huge fan of the Madoka franchise ever since first watching it around age thirteen, and over the years since, I had consumed every bit of Madoka-related media I could find, including all the official manga adaptations and spin-offs, the official games, and even a large quantity of fan works. If I could help to lead this world to the beautiful ending I vaguely remember from Magia Record, that would be pretty satisfying… thought I'll have to jog my memory a bit more. Given my experience with the franchise, I figure that, if anyone can do it, it would be me. I probably know more about the mechanics of magical girls than anyone, with the possible exception of Kyubey.

Finally clean, I get out of the shower, wrapping the towel around myself as I return to my bedroom to get dressed. The clothes in Ashley's closet are quite different from what I normally wear, so I spend a minute or two going through and looking at everything. Finally, I pick things that feel like the sort of thing the real Ashley Taylor might have worn together. Since my body is still pretty weak, it takes a bit longer than I expected, but I manage to get everything on without problems.

However, I stop short of donning mismatched stockings. Somehow, it always feels wrong to wear mismatched stockings. It's not rational, I know, but I just can't help it. Since I'm not planning to go anywhere, I decide to skip the stockings for now. I discover a blowdryer in one of the dresser drawers, so I use that on my hair and then brush it until all the tangles are out. I decide not to bother tying it up today.

Finally, I head downstairs to join Ashley's mother for lunch. Or… perhaps I should start thinking of her as my mother… it's not like I'll ever get to go back to my world, right? I guess I'll try to think of this woman as Mom.

"You sure look energetic today, dear," Mom says as they sit down to eat. "It's hard to believe you were bedridden with a hundred-plus-degree fever just a few hours ago… it's almost like a miracle for you to recover so suddenly."

"Do you think miracles exist, Mom?" I ask.

"Oh, I don't know," Mom shrugs. "Maybe they do, maybe they don't."

"Um, so… where's Dad?" I ask.

"Where do you think?" Mom retorts. "It's a weekday, so obviously he's at work."

"Oh… right, of course," I say. "I guess I uh… kinda lost track of time while sick…"

I did see it was Friday on the phone though. And then forgot all over again while showering.

"Right, I'm sorry dear," Mom says. "Of course you would. I'm just glad you're all better."

After lunch, I decide to go up to my room and take a look at Ashley's anime and manga collection. Try as I might, I can't find a single thing that's even slightly related to the Madoka franchise. I suppose it's only natural, given that I seem to have landed right inside it, but it's still a little disappointing. Apart from the lack of my favourite though, I spot many familiar titles in a variety of genres. One particular title, however, catches my interest.

"Phantom Thief Magical Kirin?" I read out loud. "Now, why does that sound familiar…?"

Regardless of how familiar the title sounds though, I'm certain I haven't read it, so I pluck out the first volume and settle down to read on my bed.

By the time Mom comes to call me for dinner, I'm halfway through volume six, and enjoying every page. With a sigh, I grab a bookmark from my end table and slip it into the volume, heading downstairs to join my family.

As expected, a man is now present, and he greets me with worry and relief, much as Mom treated me. That means he must be Dad. We chat a little about frivolous things over dinner, though it's my parents who carry the conversation. Wanting to get back to my manga, I wolf down the food and get ready to jump up and leave the table as soon as I'm done, but it's at that moment that Dad suddenly clears his throat.

"Ashley, before you go back to your room," he begins, "we have to talk. I said I'd think about your plan, remember?"

I tilt my head. "Uhh… what plan?"

"Don't tell me you've forgotten," Dad says sternly. "I mean your plan to study abroad as an exchange student in Japan."

I blink. Right, Ashley wanted to do that so badly that she even made a wish to ensure she could do it.

"O-oh, that plan! Right, I remember…"

"I know we've been pretty open to letting you travel," Dad says. "But this is quite different from all your previous trips, where either we accompanied you or you were only gone for a few weeks. I thought long and hard about it, but… I'm sorry. I can't let you do this one."

"R-right…" I said. "I kinda had a feeling…"

Perhaps the real Ashley would have been hugely disappointed and responded with a protest, but I'm not the real Ashley anymore, even if I seem to have some of that girl's memories. That's not to say I'm disappointed, mind you – I am, I really am. It just means I express my disappointment differently than Ashley might have.

"You… you're not mad?" Dad says, hesitantly.

"Mad…" I muse. "I wouldn't say that, exactly… I'm a little mad… probably… Dad, just… why?"

"It's for your own good," he says.

I make a pouty face for a moment, then leap up and run back upstairs to my room, flopping on my bed. To my surprise, I find I'm crying a little. It's not as if I was personally invested in that trip, after all – it was the real Ashley Taylor who wanted to go. Still, I can't say I'm uninterested, either, and it was fun contemplating how I could interfere with the plot.

I'm not sure how long it is before I suddenly sit up, as if sensing a presence in the room. I look around and blink. Perched right on my desk is a small white creature, like a cross between a cat and a rabbit, with unnaturally round red eyes and mysteriously floating golden rings on those appendages that seem to pass for ears. There's no doubt about it. Unlike Ashley Taylor's face in the mirror, this creature looks exactly like it did in the anime, which only serves to make enhance the creepy factor – seeing a cartoon animal in real life is a little jarring.

I stare at the incubator for several long seconds before the word bursts out of my mouth.

"Cuuuuute!"

The creature tilts its head at me. Ah, it may be a little creepy, but it really is quite cute too… but I can't let that get to me. After all, that cute demeanour is just a façade to get people to let their guard down…

"Hello, Ashley Taylor," it says, choosing to ignore my introductory comment. "My name is Cube."

I blink. Why is it Cube and not Kyubey? No, wait… it was called Cube in Tart Magica too, right? So maybe they adapt to the local language…

"I am in need of your assistance," Cube continues. "Make a contract with me and become a magical girl."