Pain.

Immeasurable pain.

‘Why can’t this just end already?! Just let me die! $*&%@!!!’

Trapped within an abyss of darkness, a lone mind writhed in agony.

‘Still, this is… weird...’

Granted, he never expected getting shot in the head to feel particularly pleasant. The pain came in waves, wracking his consciousness as if it was a piece of wood set afloat on a stormy sea, threatening to be enveloped at any moment However, as he managed to string together some semblance of thought in between the torrential onslaught, he began to notice some odd points about his situation.

‘How am I… not dead? Am I dead? I can still think… But what’s going on with my body?!’

He was pretty sure the gun had been aiming at his head, considering how he was staring straight down the barrel. Why, then, did his whole body hurt so much? It was excruciating, as if every cell in his body was screaming out simultaneously. More than the pain, though, it also felt… off. Somehow. He wouldn’t be able to make a detailed assessment until the torture subsided and he got his bearings, but what little he could make out was extremely disconcerting.

‘I… I can’t seem to move. Did the bullet miss my brain stem? No! Please, NO!!! If you’re going to kill me, at least do it properly! Don’t just leave me here!’

At this point, the thought of having to live for a few more minutes or hours in this torment as he slowly bled out was far more frightening than actually dying. Indeed, he would welcome the reprieve. If he was going out either way, he would much rather not have to suffer pointlessly before doing so.

Suddenly, after what felt like an eternity, he could feel something changing. Unfortunately for him, though, he somehow found himself in even MORE pain. Awesome.

Thankfully, this new pain was short-lived, passing almost as quickly as it came. With it, even a lot of the old pain began to quickly subside. Faced with this unexpected mercy, he immediately felt relief and clarity, but also an overbearing, primal fear of what surely followed, an instinctual terror that seemed to resound throughout the depths of his very being, screaming at him to resist the encroaching call of the void.

‘I-is this… is this really it? Am I really going to die? I… I…’

Even though he welcomed death, and even more so did not regret his final, ultimately fatal, decisions, he was still human, after all. He obviously did not want to die, but there wasn’t much he could do about it at this point. He had failed. He had gambled with his life, and the lives of those who were relying on him, and failed. Nothing could change this fact, and he wasn’t about to turn away from the result of possibly the only decision in his life that held any meaning. Swallowing down all of his bitterness, fear, and sorrow, he tried to resolve himself and peacefully wait for the end.

Only, the end never seemed to actually come, no matter how long he waited.

Honestly, it wasn’t all that peaceful either. Although it was no longer very painful at all, he could now feel his body being jostled around. Maybe they were going to bury him already. Wouldn’t that be something? Occasionally, though, it also seemed like… Yes! Voices! He could hear voices! Oh such sweet symphony!

Before now, he had not dared to entertain the possibility that he might actually survive. While he logically knew that surviving a bullet to the head certainly wasn’t impossible, and was actually a statistical regularity, it wasn’t the sort of chance he was going to get his hopes up over. However, it now looked like he was undeniably recovering to some extent. He knew that he would certainly have serious brain damage regardless, but he could hardly care about that right now. It was simply not important.

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Instead, only one thoughts surged through his mind: what was the situation like outside? Was everyone else still alright? He wasn’t delusional; there was still zero hope of him making it out of this alive. Whether it took one bullet or one hundred, they would inevitably send him to his grave. Still, if by some miracle he could actually catch one of those bastards off guard and drag them into death alongside him, it would be worth it.

As he thought this, a boiling maelstrom of rage and fury, which had previously been drowned under the ocean of his sorrow and remorse, suddenly surged up like a tidal wave, threatening to submerge him. His breathing grew frantic and strained, while his whole body started shaking, convulsing, with such ferocity as if to tear itself apart. The voices suddenly grew louder, sounding panicked and shocked.

Crap. Had he blown his cover already?! He willed himself to calm down, forcefully burying his fury, suppressing it just beneath the surface. Anger would do him no good here, at least not yet. What he needed was to keep a clear head and think this through carefully, since he knew would only get one shot at it. Soon, his body grew completely still, as still as death, while his breath slowed back to a crawl. The only sign that remained of the previous frenzy was a smoldering inferno in his eyes, lurking in the pitch-black abyss behind his eyelids, waiting to explode once more. The voices still had not calmed down, though, and were instead growing louder and even more frantic. Despite this, he figured he shouldn’t wait any longer, lest he lose the opportunity entirely. Now was the time. Slowly, cautiously, ever so slightly, the lids began to crack open.

This proved to be more of a challenge than he expected, as if they were sticky and caked in mud. In fact, his whole body felt like it just emerged from a quagmire. His vision was also incredibly blurry, with the light flooding in and stinging far more than he was expecting. It must have taken him the better part of a minute, but he eventually managed to focus on the things that seemed like faces in front of him.

He immediately came to regret this decision. In stark contrast to being previously starved for information, now his mind summarily failed to even process the data his eyes and other senses were feeding it. As he tried to take in the scene before him, even all his suppressed wrath actually quickly fizzled and died, slowly replaced by a swirling mass of confusion, panic, and terror. A scream struggled to escape in spite of his best efforts to stay unnoticed, but all that managed to come out was a strange, strangled wail. Immediately, all the voices around him came to an abrupt halt, as all of the faces turned to stare straight at him.

Then, they smiled.

It was hard to say whether or not this made them even more terrifying. However, as time continued to pass, nobody took the initiative to attack him. No more bullets came barreling through his skull to banish him back to that pitch-black abyss. No shouts of alarm were raised, only a wave what seemed to be relief and even joy. As alien as it seemed, it slowly became apparent that they meant him no harm. Eventually, after a few minutes of utter shock, and another several minutes of pure disbelief, he finally managed to reboot his systems and start to wrap his head around the only possibility he could think of. He finally realized what had felt so wrong about his body, and ultimately came to a few truly unsettling conclusions:

1. He apparently HAD died.

2. He was NOT dead.

3. He was apparently a baby.

4. He seemed to have been reincarnated.

5. The frightening, demonic faces glaring back at him seemed to be his parents.

6. That “still human” assessment might not have been entirely accurate.