I remember now how it felt when you were dead. It felt like a weird weightlessness. I lost any sense of direction and all my senses save for feeling. I could feel movement on occasion, and I would twitch in a rare moment. For a while, I found it weird I was capable of twitching, but I eventually resigned it as whatever mental capabilities I had retained in this silent afterlife to keep me sane as long as possible.
After what could be felt as an eternity, I remember light flooding my vision. I cried aloud as a sudden gust of cold air touched my skin, as the light penetrated my eyes, as my body burned at every touch. Hazy sights danced across my vision soon to be forgotten as my mind felt dull and sluggish. I thrashed about in my pain and suffering, a part of my mind telling me 'I've been sent to hell'. Suddenly something soft and gentle was wrapped around my seemingly frail body. Relief was felt, as my thrashing slowly died down. I kept trying to open my eyes to look upon my surroundings, finding it impossible. I do remember seeing a pair of eyes. Huge and red like a blood moon yet filled with warmth. I was mesmerized by those eyes as I felt the pull of sleep upon me.
For a while I was in a blurry haze, unable to properly recant any occurrences during it. The only thing I could properly remember were those two huge red eyes. I saw them a lot in this time. By the time I could keep my eyes open good and proper and take in my surroundings, I had realized exactly four things. I had been reborn, the person with the red eyes is my new mother, this definitely looks like medieval gothic style architecture, and my mother can use magic.
At first, I thought it was my imagination. It was little things, an item appearing from nowhere. A candle suddenly being lit, a song coming from nowhere lulling me to sleep. Then one night I remember she was jovial as shouting and cheering erupting all through one night outside. People were obviously in some sort of celebration. My mother didn't go out and join the celebration, and instead stayed in the house by my crib, casting illusions. She created visual stories for me to see, warriors dancing across the ceiling slaying great beasts, a prince charming saving the princess. She created wonders unlike any I'd seen before. I laid in the crib silent as a mouse my eyes following ever scene with rapt attention. I studied every detail.
The night ended as eventually did so many others. Different wonders I could never have imagined in my old life, one that already felt distant like a dreamless sleep provided. My mother carried me everywhere with her. I saw different people and heard many different conversations in a language I couldn't understand. Some looked like the dwarfs and elves of Tolkien works, others looked like beasts and lizards with the scales and hides, and others looked like a strange hodgepodge of creature and man, though none of their features were telling which ones.
I was displayed like some sort of symbol, paraded around in my mother's warm arms. She always had a smile on her face when she looked at me even as time passed and I found more control over my facilities. In consequence, however, I found my memories of my old life slowly slipping away. It wasn't much in retrospect. Faces, names, places I had heard of once or twice. Minor things, that nonetheless felt disconcerting in some way for a short moment before even my worry would slip away without a care. I couldn't be bothered to miss my old home, my old life.
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I had to keep so many false pretenses up just to seem 'normal'. Had to do certain things just to seem 'correct'. I couldn't do this or that or the other if society dictated it. Thus I had hidden from the world in my ignorance behind screens and under bedsheets thinking myself unattached to it all. Part of me found this occurrence, being reborn, in my life to be a miracle to change myself, one I often imagined. A chance to do it right, better, proper. It was these thoughts I held in my late teens of such cynicism that I realize was wrong. Could I truly change from my depraved sloth filled ways? Though I was merely a young babe could I really become some sort of hero at my new life's end? Could I be like so many protagonists of fantasy works who change in a day?
The answer I held to myself was no, it was an illogical notion without sufficient external pressure. Even then though changes wouldn't be in any way immediate. It would likely take days or weeks for those new views to take proper root in my mentality. Even then would such change be those I dreamed? I never could stand the sight of blood and death as it gave me nausea beyond measure. I was incapable of taking action whether verbal or physical and hated both confrontation and decision-making. Thus I questioned whether it was plausible my mentality could take this one-eighty. As I had nothing but time between eating from my mother's breast and sleeping in my soft crib I had the ability to properly ponder this. I realized I would likely go into a permanent 'flight' mentality. Fleeing before any damage could be dealt. It saddened me that would be the likely scenario, but one cannot ever escape their base nature without some sort of 'divine intervention' of a kind, and mine was that of a caged rat.
It was during these early months of my new life which I spent in a philosophical debate with myself that strange things began occurring. Lines of text would suddenly dot my vision for a brief millisecond, unreadable. They would dance around my vision, scattered without uniform or coherence. A letter here, a number there, a sentence in a strange shape. The only thing that was certain was, it was in English. At times I could catch a word or two, never more. There were long stretches between when these would occur at first, just long enough to make myself believe I was losing my sanity over being reborn subconsciously, however, these strange sights were increasing as time passed.
Upon guessing what I assumed was nearly a year of my new life, as I developed enough strength to crawl, these disorganized occurrences began taking more of a shape, like text boxes yet written by a two-year-old. Even then the words didn't stay long enough for me to read in any way though I did make interesting connections.
Firstly, the words only appeared when someone spoke, and secondly only when it was directed at me or I was already connected to the current conversation. What this meant couldn't be certain. However, magic was a thing in this mysterious realm, thus could it be some sort of innate talent? I had hardly seen beyond the walls of this home, and even then I hardly had seen any of it as most of my time still was spent sleeping.
Of course, I could ponder on more of this later, as right now I could use an afternoon nap. Thus I closed my tiny eyes and quickly fell into the realm of sloth.