Elise was a normal person who after finishing high school didn't know what she wanted to do with her life. She tried a few different jobs, office work, kindergarten teacher, working in a café. Nothing felt right. She was quite good at picking up new things and was working diligently all her life. She may not have found her life's calling quite yet, but she was still happy. She was quite the adrenaline junkie. Skiing down mountains, bungee jumping, skydiving, mountain biking, that is when she felt the most alive. Not to mention hiking without knowing where she was going beforehand, that was the best feeling. She also had a few good friends and her her family was always supportive of her endeavors.
One evening in the middle of winter she had a falling out with her father. She stormed out the door of the apartment building and slammed the door shut. Maybe she slammed the door a bit too hard, because the next thing she knew, an icicle hit her in the head. She only realized it was an icicle when she was looking at herself from above. 'Is this what an out-of-body experience is? I won't die from this right?' She thought to herself before she felt herself scatter apart. It was a weird feeling.
Everything was now dark, but she could still think. 'I need to apologize to Dad when I wake up' She thought. At this point, she didn't even remember what she was so mad about. It wasn't about anything important. Shouldn't she be fully unconscious? This took forever and was starting to get boring.
After what felt like forever she started to sense some small white strings, what are those? And how did she see them? She didn't see them with her eyes, it was like she gained a new sense. She saw it flowing all around her. A while later she sensed five balls of light settle in her chest. The light balls had different colors but all of them seemed to disappear inside the blue light. It felt like the blue light was scanning her.
Time flew by and Elise lost sense of time. It felt a bit like she was sleeping, but knowing that she was dreaming. Time felt weird, slow and fast at the same time. She learned that she could make the white strings come to her so she started playing with them. When they touched her body they seemed to disappear into it. 'This must be the shittiest lucid dream ever'
The white strings became very few after she sucked them all up and she became very, very bored again. After a while a whole bunch of white strings appeared again, it was a whole stream. 'Huh, so if I take most of them, then a lot more appears' She then started her new game in the shitty lucid dream, collecting as many white strings as possible before new ones appear.
After what felt like an eternity later she started to hear muffled voices. 'Yees, I'm regaining consciousness, finally. I have to tell Bilo about this absurd dream' But she was wrong. She continued hearing muffled noises but she still couldn't wake up. Her brother, Bilo, would be laughing at her bad luck. She hoped he would laugh at least! If he didn't laugh at her, it would mean that she got seriously hurt! Elise hoped that she just passed out for a tiny bit and would quickly wake up again, right outside the door, hopefully. She knew that dreams could feel long even when you were just out for a second. At least she had read so on the internet!
As time went by Elise pondered. This seriously felt like forever, but she also felt weirdly comfortable. It wasn't exactly boring anymore, she just felt a weird sleepy feeling. She hoped she wasn't in a coma! She was probably in the hospital by now. She heard someone talking but she couldn't make out what they said.
Suddenly she felt completely squashed. There was an immense pressure building up around her. She tried to scream but it wasn't possible. This continued for hours before she was finally able to open her eyes. 'At least I regained consciousness, but what the fuck was that?!' She shouted in her mind, unable to actually do so. Then It felt like big hands were grabbing her and flinging her around. Everything was blurry so she couldn't see anything. She felt that she was wrapped in a blanket, the fabric was rough and it hurt a bit. Everything becomes too much and she starts crying 'What are these doctors doing to me?!' Elise trashes around and tries to get a hold of herself. And then she hears it. "Congratulations it's a beautiful baby girl" Somehow everything starts to make sense.
After a rough few days Elise, or Arya as she is called now, is lying in a crib with a blank expression. 'This has to be a dream... It has to... There is no way...' Her new parents were talking in a different language than she was used to, she didn't understand how she even understood what they were saying. It shouldn't be possible. And she had died and somehow been reborn as Arya. She didn't even get a chance to apologize to her dad before she died. Tears welled up in her eyes and she started to cry out loudly. At least she was a baby so it wasn't weird to her new parents that she was crying all the time. 'Silver linings and all that.' She thought with a bitter laugh. Elise was always a positive person but now it all came crashing down. Nothing was ok. Arya kept crying until she passed out.
A month had now passed by and Arya had started to come to terms with her new situation. She was still incredibly sad over the loss of her last life, but she was doing a little bit better. She pushed the thoughts of her old family to the back of her head and tried to focus. She still saw the weird white strings all around her, but nowhere near as much as inside... the stomach of her new mother. And if she focused inside herself she saw the blue light in the center of her chest. That was not all that was weird, all the white strings she collected were circulating inside her body. At first, she thought it was circulating inside her bloodstream, but it seemed like the strings had their own network.
She has also learned that this is not the world she is used to, everything seems medieval. Maybe she had gone back in time somehow? That thought shattered when she saw a nurse checking up on her. She didn't know what she expected of the nurse, but she did not expect her to chant some kind of spell and see green healing magic push into her skin. Arya was speechless. She just stared at the nurse with big eyes. 'I know it was weird that I somehow knew the weird language they were speaking, but magic? What?' The nurse just smiled at my mother. "Everything seems alright with Arya, I was very worried after she sucked up all your mana when she was in your stomach, if your husband hadn't brought you to me in time I'm afraid of thinking about what could have happened!" The nurse said with a sigh. "I have never seen anything like that, usually babies only collect a tiny bit of their mother's mana, nothing like this!" The nurse continued. "I'm just happy my dear Arya is okey" Arya's mom said and chuckled. "Well I'm leaving, tell me if anything happens" The nurse sighed again and went to the door. "Goodbye Jennifer, I'm always thankful" Her mom said to the nurse and bowed lightly. The nurse didn't answer and closed the door after she left.
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The mom looked at her daughter lovingly "I wonder what sort of skills you will get in the future, my dear daughter" She kissed her forehead and put her back in the crib.
Arya was lost in thought, she had hurt her mother without knowing it. 'So those white treads are probably mana, huh? I wonder if the blue light also is mana' She thought and started to study the blue light closer, but couldn't tell anything new, so she gave up on that after a while. But does this mean she also could use magic? She did have mana after all. And if games and novels are anything to go by mana is what makes magic possible. She should probably collect as much as possible. It wasn't like she had anything better to do as a baby.
Later Arya was lying on a carpet. She was trying to do something, anything, with the blue light in her chest. Suddenly a big blue window showed up in front of her
----- Status Page -----
Level 11 (80%)
Health: 30/30
Stamina: 18/20
Mana: 540/540
Stats:
Strength: 1
Dexterity: 1
Constitution: 3
Spirit: 36
Intelligence: 18
Passive skills:
Active skills:
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Arya was dumbfounded. Was this a video game? Did others have a status page? Why was she level 11? And were you not supposed to get something for leveling? She also wondered why the skill level of
She noticed that strength and dexterity were at 1. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't moved that much, mostly playing with mana. She should probably move more, and so she did.
She spent most of her stamina every day. Moving her arms and legs, trying to turn to the sides and trying to crawl. The crawling part didn't work out yet, she was probably not old enough.
Arya was in her mother's lap. They had a visitor today so father was also home early and sat next to her mom on a couch. Her dad usually left for work before sunrise and came home after dark. The visitor called her parents by their names, so she finally learned them. Her mom's name was Tinala and her father's name was James. Her mother had dark pink hair and pink eyes. Her father had blonde hair and light blue eyes. "Oh your daughter is so lovely, I hope James doesn't let you do all the baby work! A mom needs her rest." The visitor said. "Mother! You know I would help if I had the opportunity, but I have to work most days..." Her dad said. 'Oh that must be my grandmother then' She took a better look at her grandmother. She didn't look that old. She had blonde hair and blue eyes like my father, she also looked wiser. "Honey, it's ok, I'm thankful that you make the money we need while I take care of little Arya" Her mother said and kissed her husband. "Hmpf, you do need to spend more time with her, if you don't she won't know you're her father!" Her grandmother said. "Don't worry Jane, I will make sure he spends his spare time with our little Arya for some quality time" Tinala said with a smile.
After her grandmother's visit, her father was around a little bit more. While her father was home, her mother sometimes went out to work. She still didn't know what kind of work her parents did.
Time went by and Arya spent her time playing with mana, moving her limbs, and saying 'Mama' and 'Dada' when her parents kept saying it and pointing at each other. At first, her dad was very worried about holding her, but he has gotten used to it by now. Her mom's arms are the most comfortable though.
After a few months of this routine, Arya figured out that she could move things with mana. Only small things that don't weigh much are possible, but this means that she's not stuck in the crib anymore! Right?
----- Status Page -----
Level 18 (80%)
Health: 120/120
Stamina: 68/110
Mana: 591/770
Stats:
Strength: 5
Dexterity: 6
Constitution: 6
Spirit: 59
Intelligence: 18
Passive skills:
Active skills:
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The new skill she used to move things with mana was called telekinesis. She also concluded that the status window doesn't give you anything, it just shows you what you have. She wasn't completely sure, but she thought it made sense. But now it was time for adventure! Her parents were asleep so she was now ready to explore the house. The first obstacle is getting out of the crib. It was not possible to use telekinesis on herself, and she wasn't able to stand on mana either. She had to do this on her own.
Arya used the bars on the crib to slowly stand up. It was difficult to stand on her small legs, her head felt so heavy. With much difficulty, she managed to get one of her legs over the bars. She slid down the other side. She was still pretty high up, so she had to be careful. Arya squatted down and held on to the bottom of the bars with both her hands, she let her feet down slowly but couldn't touch the floor. She was now dangling by her hands! It couldn't be too far down now, she just had to let go. She fell on her ass, but she accomplished it! She overcame the first obstacle! Arya knew that it sounded stupid to be so happy over something so simple, but she felt like she was going insane. Perhaps she actually was? That would explain some things. She had to stay positive, just thinking about her old life brought pain to her heart. Well now was not the time to contemplate life, time to explore!
Since the door to the bedroom was open, she could easily leave the room. She took one glance towards her sleeping parents. 'If they wake up they will probably freak out when they don't see me in the crib... Oh well, if I hear them wake up I could just scream so they find me, Yup!' She continued out the door. She was crawling on the floor so her knees hurt a bit after a while.
In the house, there were 3 rooms that she knew about. The bedroom, the small kitchen and the living room. There was no bathroom inside the house, her parents went outside when they needed to go, so she thought that there must be an outhouse or something. There was one more room in the house but the door was always closed so she had never seen what was in there. Her mom went in there sometimes, but she never brought Arya in there. This just made Arya even more curious!
Arya is now in front of the door. She tried to push the door open but it seemed like she somehow had to turn the doorknob to open the door. She focuses hard on her mana and tries to grip the doorknob and turn it. After a while of trying she gave up for today. Her stamina was almost empty. She knew she needed to get back to the room, but she was just too sleepy... Her eyes closed involuntarily and she fell asleep on the floor.