*(Where am I? Why is it so dark? What is this? Why do I feel so light?)*
I tried to move, but I did not feel having anything to move with. I had no body, No hands, no feet, no eyes too?
But yet I could see.
What I felt of my own form was just something... a presence,
and I was shaking. Badly. Getting worse by the second.
Hck! Ugh!
Everything was dark. And in the darkness, tiny white dots drifted away in every direction. I watched them go. That was the only thing I could do.
From a distance, two blue lights appeared.
They moved toward me slowly. No hurry. They stopped a short distance away and stopped there.
*(Who is there?
Anyone?
Please help me.
I'm so scared of this place.)*
The voice came, and I could hear it.
"Rise and shine,my dear."
The voice came again through me.
"Rise and shine. ———
——Not that I wish to imply you have been sleeping too long."
I would have frowned if I had a face.
Who is this?
Why is he talking to me like we have met before?
"No one is more deserving of rest. ———
—And all that effort,——
——every last bit of it, would have gone to waste until..."
"Well——
Let us say your hour has come again."
*(What? What effort?
What hour are you talking about?)*
Do my words even reach whoever this was?
The lights slowly changed. Pupils formed at their centers, glowing cyan. They were eyes. Then a second pair appeared beside the first, facing a different direction entirely. Then more pairs, opening one after another, each one turning somewhere new. They multiplied outward in every direction, at all angles, and vanished. The only thing that remained was that pair of eyes in front of me, glowing.
And behind them, slowly, bodies appeared. Floating. Dozens of them, maybe more, impossible to count. From what I saw: different ages, different sizes. Children. Toddlers. Infants. Young men. Elders. Every one of them floated limply.
I assumed they were dead,
because many of them were mangled and gory and even missing body parts.
"I have kept my eyes———
—— on you longer than I should have allowed myself."
*(What the hell are you talking about?)*
A pause.
"Ah...————
—— I think that's more than enough———for now"
When he said that My form began to tremble even worse.
hkkkkkk
"So wake up. And smell the ashes."
(h-Huh?)
I shook so badly I felt like I was going to pop.
Hckkkkk! Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
I felt myself coming apart, whiteness filled my whole surroundings
----------------------------------------------------------
What is this unbearable Heat. Why's it so HOT!!
*(Hot hot hot hot it's hottttttt—)*
In the moment I opened my eyes
Light and orange, moving, too close. Something in me screamed *move*
before I'd processed why and I jerked backward and sat down hard on something cold and flat.
I blinked.
It's a Fire..... A hearth fire.... ???? Right in front of me??!!
I breathed the hot air through a nose that felt weird and funny...
*(What just — where — what.)*
I looked down and down and at my
at my hands.
They look Tiny and Chubby.... Round at the knuckles
I turned them over and Turned them back. Five fingers each.
But the size was completely,and fundamentally wrong.
*(Wha..... Is this even real)*
I looked up. And around myself
It was a room.
Stone walls.
Wooden furniture.
few windows on the wall grey light coming through them.
Woodsmoke in the air and something cooking and the sound of birds outside.
Everything looked like it had been built a long time ago and maintained just well enough to not fall over.
And it was — it was actually kind of beautiful?
The way the light came through the windows and hit the stone floor.
Likes wow...The texture of everything is actually beautifully real.
But....
*(Where am I?.)*
I heard A sound in that moment
I turned my head towards it
It was a woman. Standing across the room, staring at me.
Black hair, blue eyes, young — could be roughly my age , and she is also pretty in a completely ordinary way.
She was saying something. Words I didn't recognize at all it was out of my knowledge and vocabulary and Sounds that had no anchor in my mind
*"Xxxx xxxxx xxx?"*
She said those funny words again, I
Could just at her.
*(Who's she?)*
She said something else, And Pressed a hand over her mouth as if worried or something.
"Xxxx ,xxxx"
Man this is so awkward I can't do anything besides keep staring at her hehe....
She took a step toward me and for whatever the reason was I flinched back.
(obvious to me it's because I suck at having a proper interaction with females).
my back hit the leg of a chair.
I sat there with my heart going absolutely insane in a chest that was also felt — too small.
and I could feel the cold stone floor through what appeared to be a —
I looked down.
*(Is this a nappy....?)*
*(I'M WEARING A NAPPY?!.)*
*(My legs.... They are chubby and small too.)*
Look at My feet they have fat little creases on them.
I tilted my head back to the woman with my eyes wide.
Somewhere in the back of my head a whole sentence was forming
*excuse me, who are you, where exactly is this place, what country are we in*, and what actually emerged from my mouth was.....
"Awa — bwah—depwah"
I clasped both hands over my mouth immediately.
The woman crossed the room fast and had me off the floor easily like I weighed nothing.....
She Held me against her chest before I'd have single clue about my voice and speech.
And took one of my hands and turned it over, checking it.
*"Xxx xxxx xxxx xxx—"*
Her voice was soft. Saying something over and over in that language I didn't know.
This is getting weirder by the moment....
I sat in her arms completely rigid, staring at the wall over her shoulder with a slightly frown on my face.
*(Okay.)*
*(Okay.)*
*(Okay.)*
*(OOooookAYYYY)*
I took a deep breath and tried to think — what was the most recent thing I could still remember?
*(Oh I think I got it)*
*(I was at home. In my room.
Then the couch.
I reached for my lighter and then——— )*
*(Ow....
Really......?)*
I remembered screaming in pain and then everything went black but why——
——why something that happened moments ago feels like a memory from a very long time ago?
*(...does that mean that I have ——)*
That throught came through very calmly...
I buried my face in my hands and shook my head.
*(NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NONO.
Dead people don't feel anything.
This is a dream.
Obviously a dream.
this is just my brain doing something with that. It's just a Stress response.
The pain is a dream as well)*
But Even so....
This was an extremely convincing dream.
It's fine. I just have to wait it out
She shifted me to her other side and pressed me against her shoulder, still talking softly.
*(Wow...haha...heh, This is very embarrassing...
To be this close to a woman my age.)*
But What caught my attention was that this woman smelled nice.
familiar in a way that made absolutely no sense given I had never met this woman in my life.
She pulled back slightly and looked at my face.
Said something that ended like a question.
She was holding me like she knew me. Like this was completely normal.
Like I was her —
*(oh.)*
I caught my self smiling and laughing at my own situation
My escapist brain has watched one too many isekai shows It's officially given up on reality and cooked up its own.
I'm dreaming that I've killed myself in a fire and then been reincarnated As a baby In what looks like a medieval fantasy world of swords and magic .
I looked around the room again.
*(Wow...my brain really went all out on this one.)*
I looked at my little hands and closed my eyes tight and slowly Opened them again.
*(Hm... I'm Still here)*
And At that moment The door swung open,
And I turned my head too look what is up
There I saw A silhouette in the doorway.
Dark against the grey light outside.
tall, broad at the shoulders, completely backlit so I couldn't make out anything except the shape and —
—Two eyes.
Blue and Catching the light from
somewhere I couldn't identify.
Something moved in the back of my head.
A feeling with no name attached to it. when a word sits on the tip of your tongue and won't come or trying to remember a dream that keeps dissolving the moment you reach for it.
It was like I knew those eyes from somewhere , I was almost certain I knew those eyes.
BUT From where?!.
The man shape moved into the room.
The light hit him and the blue slowly changed to green, just ordinary green eyes catching the light wrong in the way and the rest of him came into focus.
Young.
Mid twenties maybe.
Dark brown hair,
a goatee,
fit in the easy way of someone who does physical work rather than gym work.
He looked completely unbothered by existence in the way that people look when they are in their own home on an ordinary morning.
He crossed to the woman without a word.
And kissed her.
On HER LIPS.
My eyes widened at the sight
*(OoOoO this is a spectacular dream.)*
I mean——
——I wasn't scandalized exactly.
where I was from this was not standard morning behavior in front of company.
Or in front of anyone.
People kept that category of thing relatively private.
This man had opinions about that convention apparently.
He pulled back, said something to her, she replied with the same tone,
and then he turned and looked at me.
He took me from her arm to his and Before I had processed that this was happening he had me against his chest and his face was coming toward mine and —
*(Ow ow ow stop it man)*
Spikey Beard. Everywhere. Against both my cheeks in alternating rapid kisses that felt like being scrubbed with a sandpaper.
I pushed both hands against his face with everything my arms had.
*(Goddamn you, GET OFF MY FACE!)*
He pulled back slightly, completely unbothered, and said something to the woman that from his tone was almost certainly self satisfied.
He held me against his chest and turned toward the wall and stopped Infront of a mirror.
when I looked.
A baby looked back.
Green eyes. Dark brown hair. Round cheeks with the particular softness of something that had never experienced outside.
Probably not even a year old.
*(Is.....is that me?.)*
*(Ha...I look like a — like a European kid.)*
I raised one hand slowly. The baby raised one hand.
I opened my mouth. The baby opened its mouth.
I moved my head side to side. The baby moved its head side to side.
The man said something above me,
apparently finding this very amusing.
"Xxxx, xxxx"
The woman had set things on the table by the time he carried me over.
He sat with me propped against his arm and she sat across from us.
it didn't take much time of watching them exist near each other to understand the situation.
*(Aha.... So that's how it is)*
This guy is supposedly my father.
These 2 are couples and probably married.
The meal came and went. Whatever she'd cooked was delicious and I was hungrier than I'd expected and somewhere between the second and third spoonful I stopped thinking about anything.
By the end I was full, I mean
Heavier than full.
The weight of a meal sitting in a small body that apparently ran entirely on sleep and food with nothing in between.
*(I'll figure this out after——bwah....,——aftera nap if course.)*
Funny how I feel sleepy in my own dream....
The man stood, said something, kissed the woman, then turned and pressed his lips into my cheek one more time before heading to the door.
It didn't take moments when somewhere beyond the walls i could hear a sound. Getting louder by the moment
Heavy and big Something large moving on the ground with serious weight behind each step.
And underneath it another sound, lower, the kind of sound that comes from a throat of something predator
I went completely still, While The woman didn't even look up. She cleared the table with the unbothered efficiency of someone who had heard that sound every morning of her adult life.
*(what the hell was that?!)*
She picked me up, settled me against her chest, and began to rock slowly. Which is again—
—very awkward for someone my age.....
She kept rocking me till My eyes got heavy.
*(Yeah.... ye...eah I'll figure it out,)*
Bwah.....
*(After the nap. I'll figure everything out after the—)*
Eyes closed and fell asleep.
---------------------
When I opened my eyes slowly , it was dark and very familiar I was on the—
THE COUCH.
My couch, My living room.
the sound of the street outside, the smell of my apartment.
The cigarette slipped from my mouth as I jolted and I caught it just before it hit my chest.
I sat there breathing.
"...heh So it was a dream after all."
I looked at the lighter in my hand, And Put the cigarette back between my lips.
Though Something felt very wrong.
But I clicked the lighter anyway.
*Tick*
And everything came apart.
heat and light in every direction at once.
I was screaming and the screaming had no end to it—
"MOM , DAD SOMEONE HELP ME HELPPP PLEASEEEE —GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
Screaming uselessly, I felt every muscle melting.
Fire entering my lung each Time I was breathing.
a transition happened in a blink of an eye.
One second I was burning Alive and the other second I wasn't,
But the damage had already been done., And it lingered.
I was in a complete dark place with no light except for—
Two blue lights.
they were staring at me.
A voice came that direction
"Rise and shine"
A pause then
"rise and——
——smell the ashes"
I opened my eyes in an instant with a sharp panic scream, childish voice.
I was laying on something soft I sat and looked around myself.
It was the same middle age architecture.
I checked myself.
My hands were small.
I touched my face, no facial hair.
*(WHY AM I BABY AGAIN!!????)*
The door burst open revealing the same woman.
Her face worried, She crossed the room and picked me up and began to rock me in her arms.
lookinf up and around, and at my own hands, things were getting more realistic and more weird by time....
*(WHAT THE HECK IS GOING IN HERE!!)*