I woke up to a sudden spike of pain on my left wrist. As I opened my eyes, golden light streamed out of a burned mark, in the shape of a bracelet, and formed a bubble around me. It was curious, but the pain in my head and arm made it hard to focus, so I laid back down and began giggling.

----------------------------------------

I was coming back from a bar, somewhat tipsy, but still far from drunk. A rarity, the sky was clear and stars were visible. The fresh night air and the view lightened my spirits, so I hummed and felt great. Until a bunch of drunk dudes cat called me... Who am I kidding? It's always hilarious when it happens. How people keep mistaking a chubby dude with a real stocky build for an attractive chick, is something I think I will never understand.

I waved back at them and yelled, "Sorry dears!! I don't swing that way!". Oh, these lack a sense of humour. I just said I don't swing their way, what's with the "gay" calls? Do they still think I'm a chick? No, there are no "lesbos" in their calls, and there is some "dude this, dude that".

Maybe it would be fun to get into a fight? I was never good at those, but the adrenaline is kind of exciting. One day I'm gonna get seriously hurt from this habit. If I at least had the drive to practice any martial arts.

Maybe I was a little drunker than I thought, I honestly can't remember much from the fight.

Anyway, my mind cleared up as I was sharing some vodka with the dudes, and they shared a joint with me. They gave me some advice to dress different, so I wouldn't look so gay... but I have perfectly normal clothes. I haven't worn anything tighter or floaty since I gained weight. Curious. These sorts of people are always so curious, I don't understand them at all. They're kinda fun in small doses.

Lost in my thoughts, I didn't notice the sidewalk turned into stairs and I began flying. It was fun.

----------------------------------------

No longer in pain, I got up and looked over myself. My clothes changes, I was wearing a simple blue and white dress and my hands were small, soft and chubby. My body was small, soft and chubby.

I looked around, beyond the golden bubble around me, there was a lot of dead bodies, a forest and a broken carriage.

"It was fun, my life that is." My voice came out childlike and kind of lost. "I'm too conscious to still be dreaming if I was dreaming."

The dead bodies were making me somewhat unsettled, so I focused on myself. Yep, just me, myself and I. Did I possess a child? Am I replacing an innocent creature and robbing -I patted myself - of her life? Maybe I should focus on the bodies, they're less unpleasant than... Fuck.

I sat down and felt a weird, cold shape under me. I tried to pull it from underneath myself, but it was too heavy, so I sat next to it. It looked like a war pick, I think that's what they are called. The pointy end had some blood, brain and bright blonde hair on it. Blonde just like my hair was now. I began touching my head and found a long, bald spot at the back, where it hurt the most earlier.

I did not steal the body of a child. I got the body of a dead girl, a body that somehow recovered from a fucking hole in its head. I looked at the golden bubble and massaged the bald spot on my head.

"I know I'm..." No, still not used to my voice. I know I tend to be rather detached from everything, but I do get afraid and panic sometimes. Maybe the light is... healing my panic? Healing does that in some stories, right? Then what about the bodies? Still making me shake. The guilt over possibly stealing a child's body also didn't dissipate yet.

"I'm in a different, magical world." ... and nothing. I guess I'm a little sad? Some people will miss me.

Is it magic? Well, I am surrounded by dead horses, knightly and nobility like people, as well as some medieval-looking hobos. I guess that should rule out some super high tech.. and how would high tech even explain an adult man waking up in the body of a small girl in a different world? If magic in this world is some sort nano-bots mumbo-jumbo I'm jumping of a tall tree, maybe I will get another rein.. possession?

For now, I should figure out how a child is going to survive in the middle of nowhere. The first step would probably require me to get out of the bubble? I reached out my chubby little hand towards the golden light and it suddenly expanded. When the light abated, the road was clear of bodies, and partial circles of burned-out grass extended at the sides of the road. Weirdly enough, all of the clothes, weapons and various broken objects were untouched.

Not feeling like getting shocked for now, I clumsily walked towards the carriage. People needed to eat, and they stored their stuff in carriages. Pulling myself up the steps, I flailed and sat on my ass. I got up and circled the carriage to the side leaning towards the ground. Trying to pull myself inside still had me falling on my butt a couple of times, but I got in. Obviously, it was empty. People don't keep the luggage in the sitting part.

I slid back out, flew over the steps... but this time I had a tiny, light and very flexible body of a child, so I only dirtied my clothes. As I picked myself up, I noticed the luggage boxes that must have fallen from the roof, whenever the carriage got damaged.

No one saw me, so there was no point in getting embarrassed over missing them. "This is a very stressful situation, full of new experiences!", with those words to wave away the little bit of shame, I waddled towards my treasures.

My treasure boxes had locks.

Welp, guess I will try to search through the fancy clothes. Close to where I woke up, laid a blue dress with a green cloak like thing and a set of fancied up yellow tunic and dark green pants. The cloak had some inner pockets, filling them some coins and daggers, but no keys. The male set of clothing had nothing on it, but close to it, lying by some hobo rags was a pouch. A very fancy, red pouch with gold decorations.

I opened the pouch and spilt its contents on the ground. Coins of various shapes, sizes and material, gems... a lot of coins and gems, a couple times more than should fit in the pouch. Still, no keys. Looking down at the clothes, I got an idea.

I straightened out the fancy pants and laid next to them, my legs sticking slightly lower than them, to mimic standing next to an adult. My head came up a little short of the hips, so I guessed my body must have been four or five years old.

With that little bit of knowledge about myself, I grabbed a spear laying a little closer to the biggest concentration of clothes and dragged it to the front of the carriage. I propped the stick, pointy end forward - the pointy end had a pointy protrusion on a side, against the side of the carriage, and slowly pushed it higher and higher.

Once it was as high as I could get it, I pushed it to the side, so it hit the place the coachman would sit on. Hopefully, it was the butler or someone like that. I began trying to snag the clothes laying there. I got lucky and when the spear was falling off, it caught on the pants, which in turn pulled down the rest of the outfit.

The set hit the ground with some clinking. Around the neck area was a chain, with keys hanging on it. I snagged it and trawled towards the boxes. Children are meant to have adults bring them stuff, not crawl all over a battle site dragging stuff around, I was tired.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

I think people would keep food where it's easiest to reach, right? That would have been the front boxes, which I happened to be closest to. After fumbling with the keys a bit, I unlocked the chest, and couldn't lift the lid. The chest a little further from the road, was more banged up, so maybe it was made from lighter material. Bingo! The chest had cheese, some jerky and bags of grains.

Even further from the road, were some non-chested bags and smaller non-chested bags that had corks. I did not miss them earlier, I simply wanted to open chests. Yes me, I'm telling you the truth. Hey, me? What are drink bags called?

The first drink bag smelled like alcohol so I threw it aside. The second also smelled like alcohol, the third too. The fourth didn't smell, so I took a sip and behold, I turned wine into water. I corked it and sat next to the food chest and began munching.

"Let's recap," my voice chirped between bites, "I died from falling, reincarnated... sort of, as a she-toddler, got healed by a light that later removed bodies and burned grass, but didn't affect food or various... crafted objects."

I ate and drank more, thinking of nothing, kinda enjoying the fresh smell of nature. The food was way too salty so I washed it down with extra water and decided to finish filling myself up later.

"Right, so I found a fancy pouch of holding." Against my better judgment, I munched on some more cheese. "This world is like, totally magic." I bit off some salted meat, spat it out and cleaned it with some alcohol then ate the rest of the strip. I imagined looking into a mirror, to give myself a disappointed look and threw away the wine... bag. I drank a few gulps of water.

"I want a cigarette." Damn, that's one way to make sure I never touch them again. This voice asking for tobacco? Yep, nope, never.

"Th-i-i-s i-s s-so S-s-s-t-t-uuu-pi-d-d!!" I just laughed. I mean.. bloody hell? This is a magical world, I could die to some beast today, and I would still die with a huge fucking, stupid grin on my face.

I won't feel that way after a week without water or food, just curled up in some ditch. Break time over, let's try and figure out which direction to go in and how I'm supposed to get any supplies with this tiny bo... pouch of holding. Oh, and it wouldn't sit well with me, to let this body die like that. Let's try to at least grow up before I die to something stupid.

I waddled back to the maybe-parents clothes, dragging a bag of cheese and a water-bag behind myself.

Observation number one; you can't put things bigger than the hole in the pouch in it; observation number two; you can put food in it; and finally, observation number three; you need to think about what you want to grab inside the pouch, or you are going to have a little panic attack that the pouch ate your food.

Observation number four, you can squeeze the water bag in the pouch, but pulling it out is a pain. You can just get the tip out of the pouch and drink like that. We, that is myself and I, already discovered, you don't need to think about anything, to just pour the contents of the pouch out of it. If there is something that can clog the exit though, it will.

Since the pouch looked fancy anyway, I put all the coins and gems back in it too. Then I got all the food and water I managed to reach in the chest and around it, leaving most of it. I spent a short while, just half hanging on the edge of the chest, my head and arms inside, waving above the food. So close, yet so far.

With a sigh, I extracted myself, as I felt a need, an urge you shouldn't fight against. Long story short, Marlin Monroe pooped. Also, keeping your dress up is a pain, and slav squat keeps your feet clean and position stable. Oh, and even though you sit above flat ground, it still feels like something is tickling your backside, so you almost flop into the attack zone, afraid that there are creepy crawlies where they shouldn't be.

A quick cleaning with wine and an empty food bag later, I was back to the clothes piles. First, I moved to collect the various daggers hidden on the dress, but the 4th one I picked up, suddenly made the pouch heavier. I removed it and tried with different daggers, some stones from the road, and it seemed I simply reached some sort of weight limit for the pouch.

I decided to keep it at the weight limit, this body would tire out easily enough as is. On that note, I really needed a nap. Later. The daggers would do to cut food, or do some digging or something, but to protect myself I'd either need to figure out magic by the end of the day... right... or find some sort of crossbow that had something that would let even me load it... or.. I don't know.. anything. Maybe a broken spear, so I could actually lift it without the need of a support and brace it against aggressive rabbits, or whatever tiny monster creature this world had, that was weak enough I'd survive it.

So... the sunlight was quite pleasant. There was a soft zefir going through the trees, some bugs making countryside noises. Damn, the sky was that shade of blue, that all the art kids have a phase for.

Alright, back to work. There was a crossbow near me, but it was as large as me. That's a nope. Some broken bows, but even whole, they'd be less dangerous than my teeth. Perfectly normal teeth. Was there something not... human-normal about me? Normal blonde hair, normal teeth, Mediterranean olive skin, rather than some magical greenish olive skin, no claws. Oh, I have pointy ears. I run-waddled up to an armour, very simple in design, but somewhat reflective.

After polishing it a bit, I managed to get a somewhat blurry reflection of my face. I had some green shade of eyes and maybe slit pupils... really hard to tell with such shitty mirror. With how rich the owners of the carriage appeared, they probably had some mirrors in the coffers, but most of them were too heavy for me to open. Maybe I will still check later if I can get in somehow.

I walked through the various clothes and armour, poking everything, there were some smaller crossbows, but they required adults arm strength to pull, no cranks or levers... I'd probably need a crank with multiple gears between the crank and the lever pulling the string, anyway.

Finally behind the other rags, was a rag-pile with golden rings, chains and other such things. As I got near it, the spot my left arm got burned in earlier, began tingling a little. I raised one eyebrow in curiosity and began waving my arm over the pile.

It tingled the most, over a rather large signet ring, with a green and yellow gem in it. As I wondered what that ring could be, and reached out to poke it, I saw letters form above the precious thing.

Poison Wand

Truly informative. I stood up and looked back on the mess of clothes. It seemed like most of them, weren't really cut anywhere. I looked again, at the rags with rings and there was a crossbow bolt somewhat where the head would be.

"Did... this mage poison everyone?", I knew exactly nothing about magic, so who knows, but it was fun to think this entire mess was caused by some idiot making a dumb mistake... as he was dying. Eh, funny is funny, the dead here don't care about the truth, do they? Also, I'm a child, I can be childish.

I decided to leave the ring. Children shouldn't play with guns, and my mental age wouldn't help me treat responsibly, something I understood absolutely nothing about. What if I will poison myself? Why am I lying to myself? Poison just doesn't sound cool. Give me fire or lightning, and I'd forget the word "consequences" exists.

I was supposed to check the boxes, but I had short legs and anywhere safe was probably very far away. I couldn't wield any helpful weapons, I knew nothing about magic - even if there was something besides the poison wand for it - and I needed to sleep and I was just tired of this place.

The right side was a forest, the left side was a forest. Behind me was the road the carriage got through safely, ahead was something. I waddled to where I left the pouch, took a few steps back and dragged a random sword closer to the fancy clothes. Then I dragged the green cloak thing over to the sword and got very uneven cuts on the sleeves and mid part of the cloth. Such prepared, I put the thing on and finally grabbed the pouch.

After some deliberation, I hang it from my neck, under the dress. I pulled out one of the coins. A tiny bronze coin, on one side, was some face, on the other some sort of squiggle. Face for maybe safety, squiggle for something.

I threw the coin up and it landed on the ground, face down. Towards something it was. I walked to the side of the road, to remain in the shadow of trees, as the sun was nearing its zenith, and trudged on. My legs were hurting and I was sleepy, but I wanted to at least reach far enough, I wouldn't see the carriage anymore.

To distract myself, I decided to do the one thing, all reincarnators should start with, just in case.

"Status"

Name: Madeline ... ... ... Age: 3 ......... ....

Before I read any more, I fell asleep. I think I fell backwards, but I was just so tired.