I had been dreaming of Her, the one that during my lifetime was named Cecily. It had been of the time I had contracted a particularly bad bacterial infection while we had been visiting Geneva. I remember that during those days, we hadn’t been all that close.
She and I had merely partnered up with the intent of solving the problem of the Alcubierre Drive. Nothing else had interested either of us back then, but we each recognized two heads were better than one.
But, that visit to Geneva had been the turning point. It was the first time I had felt Cecily’s warmth. During the time I had interacted with her she had always been this cool intellectual who was the only person who was able to directly
challenge me. Yet, during the time when I fell ill, I had been greeted with a clumsy girl who tried to feed ‘healthy foods’ to a person who was currently going to pray to the porcelain god every five minutes or so. Despite her unskilled handling of the situation, I felt it, the warmth she held in her heart as someone who would help others in need as best she could…….even if it was no help at all.
The dream ended when we shared our first kiss under the shadow of the Atlas experiment of the LHC, which had been on our second visit to Geneva a year later.
Now though, I was awake. In a new body, one that was much smaller and had things attached to it that would’ve suggested I had some weird fetish in my previous life. I also had been greeted with a fever and a resounding headache.
It wasn’t all bad though, a woman with the same attachments to her body had greeted me with a relieved smile and hot broth. With it, a torrent of foreign memories flew through my mind. I came to the realization that I had been reincarnated. The memories that flew through my head were the memories that my current self had built up since his birth.
It felt weird to say the least. I essentially held the memories of the entirety of my life as the man named Thomas; yet my current life was now that of a small child, one with cat ears no less! But that was the current situation of things, unsurprisingly my previous life’s personality had completely overwritten the personality of the boy.
Err…..maybe not overwritten, more so fused. I still felt the unbelievably intense love that was held for the woman who was taking care of me.
Correction, love for my mother who was taking care of me.
One thing had changed though, instead of generally having a sense of fear towards all the human that my young self had
met thus far…….I felt nothing more than contempt and disgust.
I thought to myself, ‘Really, Kaufmann was right. The humans here are really shitty.’
…………
Wait ….who’s Kaufmann!? I never once met a person by that name!
I tried to wrack my brain for a memory of who this person was, but all I came up with was the color blue.
I continued to lay in the hard cot that I had awoken in with only my thoughts for company. My mother had to leave me given that she was a slave and was expected to work, despite the fact that her son had been on death’s door just a day or so ago.
My eyes narrowed. On earth I had been a relatively understanding individual, meaning I accepted most of what I saw in the world even if it didn’t sit quite right with me.
However…..
Slavery was one of the things I could never accept.
In my mind taking a person and forcing them from birth to serve your every whim, while barely providing them the
necessities for survival….even worse retaining the right to forcibly break apart families and loved ones.
It was enough to make my blood boil, I could feel painful pricks coming from my hand. I didn’t mind them, I was
angry….that was until my head started to throb again!
Ok! Must calm down!
BREATHE IN!
*ssssuuuhhhh*
BREATHE OUT!
*pppphhhhaaa*
Good! All better.
My ears twitched as I picked up something….ah yeah, my new ears are able to hear minute noises such as heartbeats. The one I currently heard was faint from the distance but it seemed…..excitable, almost like a little rodent.
I didn’t bother raising my head as I looked in the direction the heartbeat was coming from. Through a crack in the door I could see an eye and some delicate features. The eye widened and then whoever it was ran away.
Ah wait; there is one person in my memories who would match that description……Claura. She was the daughter of the Bakers.
Ah!
A small smile had unconsciously flitted across my lips! Claura had always been nice to me I recall. But she was shy of almost everyone though so we have never really interacted. I recall overhearing her mother despairing of whether she would ever make any friends.
While I was on that thought tangent, the memories of all past interactions with the bakers family swept across my vision. Though now they held somewhat of a detached feeling. It truly is a weird feeling overwriting the personality of you current self with the personality of your past self.
But then again the personalities were very similar, I suppose that’s a given since they are both me.
….ugh reincarnation is a complicated topic. Setting up an experiment to prove that energy has mass is easier.
Anyways! Back to the family of bakers I was currently enslaved by. It seemed they treated me relatively kindly, though
there was an odd part to the…………….
I.WILL.KILL.THAT.BASTARD!
The entirety of my being quivered in rage, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stick up as my claws dug into my palms
again. My canines had already pierced my lip as my pupils contracted. My heart beat approached an absurd rate as I felt
adrenaline pumping through my body.
If I had had a tail it would be bristling, but I didn’t.
BECAUSE.OF.HIM
That disgusting waste of life, a being that no longer has a right to exist within this world; a creature that should be hunted down, gimped, then lynched.
The Bastard that I had the unfortunate occasion of sharing genes with….ugh the mere thought begged me to rip my body apart to remove his essence.
The one I refer to is the man who ….. RAPED.MY.MOTHER
That insufferable creature; just recalling the other instance when I’ve seen him makes my skin crawl. The only thing that is holding me back right now is the simple fact that not once have I ever detected lust on him, in fact my memories show his expression to be almost apologetic.
There’s a possibility that he’s actually……………….
God damn this brain of mine!
It’s rationalizing the bastard who raped my mother!
For now, I won’t make him a priority. But I believe if….given the chance….I can do it.
I probably will. Things like that need to die.
*sssuuuhhh*
*ppphhhhaaaaa*
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I calmed myself again. I need to remain calm from now on. After all it’ll be necessary to accomplish my current priority.
What is it you ask?
Simple, before this life I bled red, white, and blue. There is only one priority for me right now. That is freedom!
…………………………….
That being said, I know relatively little about this world. Before the accident, I was an undereducated, enslaved five year old from the feline clan.
Not even a full feline………..calm down me!
I climbed out of the cot. My brain was still addled so I had to catch myself against the wall.
Ugh….this is as bad as a hangover.
While I was at it, I took a good look at my hands. It’s quite an odd sensation being able to retract your own finger nails. My fingers were that of a human however, unlike my mother’s. Hers were thicker and less dexterous than a human’s.
It seemed I got the best of both worlds?
My nose gave an involuntary twitch I smelt something delicious………SOURDOUGH!
Memories of San Francisco flooded through my mind. Oh how I missed there bread whenever I had to do business on the East coast!
I concentrated and regained my footing, though the headache remained as I walked out of the room.
Nothing, not even a headache or slavery, would stop me from sourdough!
………………….
Sunlight greeted me as I walked out of the hut that was composed of only the room that I slept in. Across from me stood the Bakery, to my left stood the shop front with the family’s home above it. The layout was quite simple. A house facing the street with a small backyard to hold the kitchen and slave quarters, the fact that the slave quarters wasn’t beside the kitchen baffled me. I’d rather risk this shithole of a hut I lived in burning down than freezing to death.
If my current memories served me correctly, it should be around the time my mom was busy cleaning the kitchen. The morning baking had already been completed and now was the time that she would clean while the owner inventoried. After this the baker’s wife and my mother would go to market to buy any necessary ingredients that had spoiled or that they were low on.
My shoulders slumped, there was no way I could get sourdough now!
However, I'm out now and I should probably try not to raise suspicion. If I did, that could become something that required more effort than it's worth!
Right now.......if memory served....... my job was too…….chop firewood.
I actually laughed a little at this and shook my head
“Dad...it seems like no matter what, I always end up chopping wood when I’m aggravated.”
I felt a few tears stream down my face as I went to grab the axe. I recalled how when I was younger and living on my parents’ farm it had typically been my job to help dad collect firewood and split it. Even in the modern era my parents had
insisted on using a woodstove, saying gas heating was bad for the environment.
My heart ached a bit, I missed them so much. Not only had I died before them, I wasn’t even on the same world as them anymore.
I quickly set up the first log, hoping that chopping would whack out this pain.
As I looked down at the first victim of my frustrations; I felt it happening again, something that started when I was young. I liked to call in ‘perfect model’, but really all it was, was an application of my imagination. However by now it had been
trained so that it was almost like second nature to me.
I watched as an imaginary line traced from the axe head to the wood, showing me where the head would hit. On the top on log was a lightly shaded area indicating a margin of error in the strike due to my swing.
I repositioned the axe in my hands and waited until the margin of error was at its smallest point. The axe glinted off the winter sun as it cut down almost perfectly dead center.
The result was as expected, the log split cleanly in two. I admired the strength that must be inherent of the Beast Race as I set up the first half of the log that would be broken under the axe. I re-readied my stance and took aim, I concentrated again hoping to have another clean cut.
Material: Wood
Density: 710 kg/m^3
Heat per kilo: .014 Btu/kg
Uses: Construction material, heating(fuel), weapon, crafting material
………
What the hell!?
My margin of error widened until it even encompassed me. The axe dropped out of my hands and fell behind me. I could only stare in confusion as ‘Perfect Model’ not only didn’t deactivate but highlighted patterns in the wood and imperfections, each time displaying a zoomed in picture of the area it had highlighted. As it did this, information kept trickling into my brain; the information ranged from supposed age of the tree the log had come from to making comparisons with trees that had existed on earth.
I blinked my eyes a few times and the images went away as if they had never been there. I looked over towards the kitchen, the fragmented instincts of the little boy I had once been telling me to run to mommy. After all, I was confused and just a little scared that I was going insane.
There it goes again!
‘Perfect Model’ reactivated and began detailing the structure of the kitchen as well as the materials and a running list of materials used in the construction began to filter through my head.
What the hell is going on!? What is this?
I’m nearly certain that I’m insane now. However, the information I’m being fed isn’t wrong; I new a little of construction since it had been one of my summer jobs before college. Also all the physics based information so far seemed to check out….
Could it be!? ‘Perfect Model’ has become an awakened power since I’ve reincarnated!
No, that’s wrong. First of all ‘Perfect Model’ was just a strong mental visualization of an action I was about to take so I could expend the least amount of effort possible doing the task, my energy is important after all!
This however, is quite different. I’m constantly being fed information about my surroundings that no normal person would pick up on, even things that no one should be able to observe with the naked eye. If I had to compare it to anything, it’s like the common identification skill seen in RPGs.
However that seems wrong as well…..darnit! Think me! What is going on
Ah….it just popped in my head! Of course, whatever this crazy thing is once I focus on it, it’ll identify itself! It seems that it is something granted to me based off of the weight of my soul? It also appears to run off of my mana pool…….
I didn’t even know I had one of those!
Its name is…. “Grand Archive”
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