When I opened my eyes, I noticed a woman staring at me, and another older-looking woman was poking my left cheek with a finger, her eyes filled with concern.
Hello? It was my first question.
I blinked as I only made a gurgling sound.
Then I spoke again. Why couldn't I speak?
For some reason, all I could manage to muster was a slurpy hiccup when I tried to talk, which was then followed by the two women beaming down at me as if I had performed an unexpected circus trick.
The situation wasn't right. Making women laugh was never this simple job.
But I couldn't focus on that thought any longer because a sudden heaviness settled right around my shoulders. It was as though I were caught in a gravity bubble. Everything about me demanded an ungodly amount of effort just to move. I could feel my muscles efforts.
What about my fingers? I could feel them with my neural connection.
Ah! There they were, but why did they look… so little and chubby?
The skin gleamed as though it were baby-soft, looking too smooth to belong to my once rough, unclipped fingers.
Then I turned sideways to look around. My head bobbed weakly as I struggled to keep it raised. That was when the first lady—the younger one—swooped a gentle hand underneath my scalp to support my head. A smile and signs of crying were visible on her face. Thank you very much, stranger!
But wait a second… Why did I look like a damned baby? I was very confused by the situation I was in. After some thought and an examination of my surroundings, I realized I really was a baby.
Another person present at the time was an old man. He had the same look scientists have in movies when they observe an interesting creature they want to dissect. He tried to take me from the woman's arms, but she reacted the same way a fierce tigress would.
They were talking in a language I couldn't understand. I believe the younger woman was cursing at him. The older woman intervened just in time and took the old man away, though he didn't want to go. He left with a depressed face.
The strange woman was muttering something, but I couldn't understand her. Happiness was visible on her face, though she looked tired. Then she started to feed me. It was perplexing, but I automatically started to eat as I felt very hungry, slowly closing my eyes until I fell asleep.
…..
It took some time for me to adjust to my new circumstances.
I was a baby now, and I had made peace with it. The "great" thing about this whole situation was that I couldn't stop shitting and pissing myself.
Not so great.
When I tried to sync my cries with the times I needed to either piss or eat, the stranger who became my new mother didn't take the hints. Maybe it was because I was her firstborn, as I didn't see any other children to learn and gain experience in handling a baby. So, I was often left with the stench of my little poo-poo in a crib that looked anything but modern. It was a wooden thing, mostly, and I spent most of my time there when my new mother and the other caretakers were out.
Using my senses and knowledge, I deduced that—similar to stories in manga, comics, and novels—I had been reincarnated. Cast off into a different world and turned into a baby. It was probably because of that paranormal occurrence—the way it occurred and my death. Wasn't it supposed to be a truck? What did it mean to be killed by something bigger than a truck? Would I become an extra genius or powerful? Was I in a coma in a hospital? No. I didn't think so. Based on my memory and understanding, I was 100% sure I had reincarnated.
Well, at least I wasn't dead.
I didn't know how to feel about that. I had feared the day I would die until the passing of my father. Death often became an excuse I found comfort in whenever things got hard. Even when my circumstances turned positive for a short time, I would think about killing myself to be free; only meditation and exercise helped me face those moments.
Never once did I consider there would be a life after death, however. That was news to me. This whole thing felt so alien that I couldn't believe it, but deep down, I knew for sure this was real.
My mother in my previous life had died in childbirth, so there was an awkwardness to this. I mostly choked on the breast milk, which was truly an experience. I didn't mind the taste, but I tried very hard not to cringe each time I had to plaster my face to her breasts. It felt wrong. It probably looked wrong. But I could finally experience a mother's love in this life. In my past life, I had always wished my mom were alive; as a child, I became upset and jealous when I saw other children with their mothers.
I also had a father here, which brought back memories of my father from my past life. He arrived later—I don't know how many days had passed in this world, but I guessed about a week and a half in Earth time. He was tall and muscular in a manly way, with a well-defined body that clearly showed an authoritative demeanor. He had a well-maintained beard, which caused me irritation when my cheeks rubbed against his, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. He also started to sing a song with a joyful face—the complete opposite of his serious personality.
My new mother didn't use magic. There were no glowing lights or ethereal glimmers of spellwork. Nothing, so far, seemed particularly magical to me, which was a bummer.
One thing that grated on my nerves was that I couldn't understand the woman. She spoke to me as if she were aware of those parental videos that told expecting women to speak to their babies to establish a bond. It was a good thing that she tried, as it suggested she was being careful, but she still left me on my own pretty much all the time.
And hey, one crucial thing about being a baby again: I couldn't keep myself awake at all. So, I slept a lot.
...
Days gone by, I have a vague memory of what happened after I fell from the cliff and golden lightning struck me, but most memories of the time spent in the womb of my mother remain intact. With this knowledge I was able to form a credible hypothesis regarding my circumstances.
I remember half of my time in a dormant-like state; despite that, I could feel my surroundings and distinctly perceived them because of that. I was able to retain the gathered information clearly, and the other half of the time, I could affect it before I went into deep slumber.
Within that dark, fluid sanctuary, I had been a silent observer of my own creation.
At first I didn't have a sense of anything; then slowly with time, a sensation of increasing in numbers came. I watched as my cells divided from two to four, then eight, and beyond, building the architecture of my existence, which divided into layers that I was unfamiliar with. Then came familiar and similar sensations that I am now able to understand with my knowledge of past life. Thanks to the fear of mathematics, because of which I chose biology and studied other subjects with special interest in the human body, a passion was born from a dream of becoming a doctor that had been crushed by my family's lack of resources. Now, I became a silent scholar of my own anatomy.
A tube-like structure is formed, which later develops into the brain and spinal cord. A heart-like structure, which begins to beat, as well as bud-like features form. I sensed the rapid development of the brain, spinal cord, and sensory organs (eyes, ears). Also, I felt the strange, heavy transition of my memories being etched into a new biological brain. Similar to compressing data into a zip file or any other format and transferring it from one computer to another. I felt the data transfer through my synaptic pathways.
The face, eyes, and ears were taking shape; the heart was forming 4 chambers; major organ system formations were developing; and limbs were developing from bud-like structures. I felt the literal hardening of my bones, transitioning from soft matter into a solid skeleton, and I could track the surge of bio-electricity as it crackled through my developing nerves like miniature bolts of the lightning that had killed me. I could feel all of these changes.
To map the limits of my fluid sanctuary, I would stretch and kick, testing the walls of my prison. Opening eyes is not much help in that situation. I could hear sounds outside of the womb but not clearly. Taste also became active; most of them were unpleasant memories. I felt pressure on me from my surroundings as well as my own pressure on my surroundings and perceived my own movements. I could even track the rush of blood through my veins and also gain some understanding to track bio-currents in my body.
As my body neared completion and the space grew tight, my consciousness finally surrendered to a heavy, protective sleep—a deep-sea dive into the subconscious that didn't end until I was born in this world and took my first breath.
The most interesting as well as puzzling part of this whole experience was the feeling and sensation that defied every medical and science textbook I had ever read. That remained almost the whole time when I was in the womb, which is still a mystery. It was a sensation of being "filled" by something external, an ethereal pressure that remains a riddle. I tried to understand and study it, but all efforts resulted in nothing. Even when the sensation increased sometimes. I also felt another type of mysterious sensation a few times, which originated within me and gave me an impression of a seed that wants to grow but is dormant. Which seems to have some connection to that ethereal pressure. Both are still mysteries.
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