Chapter 1:

Darkness.

Warmth.

Pressure. Pain. Fear.

He had no idea what was happening. His mind raced. His lungs burned. All around him, he could feel a crushing squeeze. Rhythmic, insistent, unstoppable.

Noise. Adrenaline. Terror.

His mind was slow to awake, but each thought sparkled with razor-crisp sharpness, neurons fresh and sensitive. I don't want to go! What is happening!?

Pressure. Pressure. Pressure.

The physical pulses were coming faster now, he could feel himself sliding headfirst away from the warmth.

Light. Voices. Cold.

"Kyt'ana! Jie'esh forta!" The muffled shout became crystal clear just as his ears slipped free of the binding crush.

All at once, the pressure was gone. Shaky muscles in his diaphragm stirred and drew in a first choking breath of air. The sensation seared his chest, reminding him of the burn from the chill of running on a winter morning. He wanted to cry out, but couldn't, as his eyes struggled to adapt to the blinding light.

"Lei'eko! Gynta k'ven, k'ven!"

The strange words were incomprehensible, like no language he had ever heard before. Yet he could sense the excitement in their tone, their sheer joy.

Cloth. Warmth. Touch.

A towel was wrapped around him, something in his mind was troubled at the scale of everything. The gentle hands holding him seemed huge, well beyond the size of even a giant - the palm covering his entire back easily as he was turned and swaddled.

Where am I? What is happening?

Love. Love. Love.

The blurry incomprehensible images finally began to resolve. He could see a young woman, her bright blue eyes beaming out of a face marked by the aftermath of an intense ordeal. Sweat was still pouring down her brow and her forehead still wrinkled with exertion. Her hair was plastered across her face, and her cheeks bore the salt-stain tracks of tears... yet she glowed with beauty.

Who are you? Where am I? The thoughts raced through his head, but his mouth refused to obey him. All his muscles seemed sluggish, slow... unprogrammed.

"Kye'jata... a'lo kye'jata..." She mumbled as he was passed into her arms, and she pulled him into her bosom.

…Mother!? Something in his body identified - some deep instinct, perhaps a smell, perhaps her feel, or the rhythm of her heart, which he had heard for the last nine months. But he knew. This strange woman, who was not his mother he had known... was his mother.

What is happening?

Despite his fear and panic, as she drew him to her he relaxed; her love, her protection, and her warmth all felt so perfect, an immense depth.

Safe. Safe. Safe.

"Kyemura a'lei. Kye'jata tara, Janus.." She smiled, leaning down and kissing him.

He relaxed. He needed answers, but something instinctual was telling him to stay quiet. To simply be in this moment, to be loved, and to be warm.

A few more breaths, and a few more moments.

He let the world swirl about him.

Questions could wait.

It felt... right.

He'd just been born.

Again.

***

"Janus."

The woman spoke softly, holding him up to look in her eyes, as he reclined in the bassinet. His mind had calmed now, the panic and adrenaline processing slowly out of his mind. Things seemed to be moving slowly; as if time itself were dripping like honeydrops, slow and languid.

I've... been born again. He thought as he watched the woman slowly stroke his forehead. But... who was I?

Most of his mind felt so fresh, so alien - fresh synaptic pathways that electrochemical potentials had never explored, like fresh ski tracks through powder snow. Yet there was also a part of it that was familiar: ancient and weathered in contrast to the new. It reminded him of plugging an old hard drive into a freshly reformatted computer - all the old systems, files, and structure being carried over to the new operating system.

…And how do I even know what a hard drive is? I'm a newborn... The thought bubbled up along with others as slowly his memories were picked at; electrical arcs jumping out to route through that more ancient part of his being.

"Kyere k'ven, Janus-ka." His mother cooed to him.

That's not my name. My name is Rich. Richard. He thought as the defining title of his identity came back to him.

He was a forty-six-year-old man. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say he'd been a forty-six-year-old man. A computer programmer with thinning brown hair, wiry and lanky... and alone.

That feeling seemed to thrum through his thoughts.

What... what happened?

The question felt unanswerable at this moment, the only memories that he seemed able to draw on were vague notions of his previous self. Physical attributes. Self-image. Emotional state.

Depressed. Sad. Alone.

The new feelings hit the body like a wave, dark emotions roiling through his tiny body with a shudder. He had not been a happy man, it seemed.

"Janus-ka, a'mura kye'jata. Kye'esh kai."" His mother seemed to sense it, and her hands were cradling him, lifting him up and out of the bassinet, pulling him once again up to her body, her grasp strong and yet tender.

Wondrously, the dark emotions were washed away, replaced by a healing wave of what he could only describe in the moment as pure love.

This... this is so... nice… He could feel the war in his brain, as the memories were accessed, painful layer by layer... while at the same time, the fresh neurons reveled in the joyous miracle of pure safety, of a mother's love for her newborn, mitigating whatever traumas had been there before.

Slowly, to the thumping of her heart and the soft hum of her voice whispering a beautiful, incomprehensible song, his eyes dipped closed.

***

Six months passed.

Quickly, and yet not.

Quickly, in that every day was filled with exhausting effort. The mere connection and control over a muscle, let alone the coordination of multiple muscles in tune with one another, was so draining that he would pass out for hours. In his sleep, his dreams would be vivid and active: his new mind tearing voraciously at the databank of his strangely out-of-place memories, accessing more and more of his previous life's skills, thoughts, and recollections. Yet these dreams seemed to pass in a blink. To him, it seemed as if the moment after his eyes closed, they would be opening again, effectively making his days half as long.

Not quickly, in that it felt like every day seemed tenfold in duration, every moment suffused with extra time. He remembered from his previous life reading that infants experienced time much slower than adults. It had seemed true when he read it: he remembered how a school year in his teens seemed to last much longer than a year in his thirties.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

And now he was experiencing it firsthand.

"Janus? Do you want some berries?"

He was startled out of his introspection, looking up with his piercing blue eyes as his left hand clutched the leg of the kitchen chair.

He'd quickly picked up the language, at first by word association. As time passed, his agile newborn mind seemed to easily comprehend and even leap ahead in grammatical concepts. There was no comparison in the ability of this fresh mind to grasp language against the more rigid mind of an adult. As Richard, he had balked at trying to learn foreign languages. Now, he barely heard alien words more than a handful of times, yet the phrases’ meanings were revealed to him quickly, as naturally as if they were in English.

His mother grinned and smiled at him. With a grin, she picked him up and rubbed her nose against his to make him giggle.

Her name was Rose, and she was beautiful. He was her first child at the young age of twenty-four, though from conversations he’d overheard, both she and his father seemed to consider that a late start. Her hair was a beautiful golden blonde-brown mix, falling in light curls down to her upper back. Rich brown eyes and a light dusting of freckles adorned her gorgeous face.

She was quite simply the most beautiful human he could imagine.

He sighed as he laughed for her.

He wasn't sure if he thought she was so perfect because she was his mother; perhaps it was some instinctive newborn trait. Or perhaps, she truly was that beautiful. He liked to think it was a mixture of both, he didn't really care.

"I know my boy loves his blueberries, doesn't he?" She grinned, as she put one in his mouth and he suckled on it, happily. "Oh Janus, you're going to be talking any day now. I can feel it! You're so clever, aren't you? Already standing at your age!"

"Ga ma, na ee!" He giggled back, trying to reply to her but failing.

Why is coordinating my lips, tongue, and throat so hard? I don't remember it being that way...

His mother's eyes brightened as he babbled at her, flashing with excitement. "Yes! That's my clever boy, yes you are!" She smiled, nuzzling his nose again.

Janus rolled his eyes, a skill he had managed to remaster in the past week, to his delight. But his mother simply chuckled at him, kissing him on the head and setting him back onto the highbacked kitchen chair so he could watch her work on their dinner.

"Aaa maa!" He tried again, frustrated. It's like trying to play a musical instrument for the first time. Janus grumbled as his mother turned back to the kitchen counter and began to hum the tune to one of Janus's favorite songs. Rose was a singer and had been since her youth. Her talent shone through easily, filling the home with warmth.

Mom's voice is so beautiful. Janus sighed, looking up at his mom. He grinned, as he took note of how quickly his thinking had adapted to her.

'My mom...'

There had been times in the past few months he had experienced waves of panic, as the crisis of his identity had descended upon him. When it happened, he felt like a strange alien parasite inhabiting a shell, completely out of place in his new body. The name Janus would seem like a nametag someone had hung on him. He wanted to scream that his actual name was Richard, that he had a different mother, a different family, a different life.

But he had learned how to cope with that panic, and it happened less frequently now.

The love of his new parents and his body's reaction to that love always seemed to smooth the gap.

He sighed as his worries were carried away by the lilting notes of his mother's voice. I'm Janus, with a sub-routine of Richard. Or I'm Richard, with the new functionality of Janus. I'm both. I'm one. And it's OK.

It was becoming easier and easier, the two parts integrating with each passing day.

His mother's humming became softer as she flipped a page in her cookbook, studying the next page for the duck roast she had been spending most of the day preparing. The clear light from the overhead ceiling lamp shone down, illuminating the pages.

Janus frowned.

THAT still doesn't make sense, though.

His eyes fixed on the large, leather-bound tome. It was one of several incongruities he'd started noticing around the home, as his eyes became sharper and his awareness more concrete.

He hadn't quite explored everywhere around his new house yet, though at some point he'd been carried into practically every room. It was a comely house, with five bedrooms and two bathrooms on two stories. It reminded him of the colonial manor houses he'd seen in period documentaries. At first, he had thought this world was pre-industrial, something equivalent to the 1700s from his own time. The way his parents dressed seemed to suggest the same: his mother wore lovely dresses of varying complexity, and his father dressed in breeches with stockings.

Of course, a paper cookbook wouldn't have surprised him to see in that period... but recessed LED lighting would.

Janus's eyes glanced over the lights as they beamed down with their steady glow. They glanced over at the fridge in the corner, with its wooden facade. There were some other useful implements too: a gas stovetop, an electric oven.

So he’d thought that, perhaps it was some strange cultural niche he’d been born into. Something where the culture, fashion, and morals of the past were mixed with the technology of the future.

And yet, with all those seeming modern conveniences...

No outlets. No TVs. No computers or tablets or phones. It doesn't make any sense.

He had no idea when or where to place himself. Certainly, the language spoken was unlike anything he had ever heard before. And it wasn't just objects that seemed out of place.

"Hello ma'am, how is the young Master today?" Ellena asked as she entered the room, glancing at him.

Speak of the devil, Janus thought, returning her glance.

Ellena was the home's maid. Or servant. Or maybe even its slave. Janus wasn't sure, knowing only that the older woman seemed to be completely devoted in service to his mother and father, without having ever seen any indication of commercial exchange or payment.

Maybe she's paid in room and board? Janus mused.

"Gah ma ah," Janus mumbled, in answer to Ellena's question.

Ellena looked down at him coldly, not surprised that he had tried to answer her. The woman had often tried to tell Rose that Janus was a strange child, in as delicate a way as possible so as not to offend.

She suspects me.

"He's doing well, as always." Rose laughed, "Ellena, does one really need to tie the roast with string simply to hold the Sylk'esh? It seems so..."

There was a clatter and noise as the mallet Rose had been using slipped from the edge of the table. Both women's eyes went wide, their hands moving too slowly as it fell three feet to slam into Janus's toe, smacking into it painfully before it continued its trajectory to the floor.

Ahhh... ouch!!! Janus grimaced, clenching his teeth and exhaling.

His toe throbbed as he reached down to try to rub the painful sensation out of his foot. But before he could even reach it, he'd been swept up into his mother's arms.

"Janus!" She shouted, her voice worried, almost scared. "Ellena, could you please fetch a towel? Are you alright?" She held him up close, her hand rubbing his toe, as her hands deftly probed it for signs of fracture or break.

Ellena blinked, shaking her head slightly, "...even after that he still doesn't cry..." she muttered to herself.

Crap, I guess a baby would be crying, wouldn't he? Janus glanced at Ellena, before quickly looking away, hoping not to attract even more attention.

His mother sighed in relief as she realized his toe was intact, before holding him away from her, looking at his eyes. "Are you alright, sweetie?" She asked again, concern and fear still shining in her expression. Her love for him felt palpable as if he could reach out and touch it. She was a first-time mother, so she still tended to treat him like he was made of porcelain.

"What's happened? I heard a shout." His father's voice boomed from behind him as he swept into the room, his black hair messy and blue eyes searching for danger.

"It's Janus. The mallet fell and-" His mother began, but Janus's father, Elias, waved his hand and strode over, gently taking Janus from Rose and putting him back onto the chair.

"Is he OK?" He asked, his left hand stroking Janus's brow as his right embraced his wife's shoulders. "Nothing fell off him, did it?" He grinned, pretending to check. “No missing toes?”

Typical of Elias... of dad... Janus forced himself to use the fatherly title. It still felt strange compared to using ‘mom’ for Rose, ...he’s always quick to joke.

Janus grinned. He liked Elias.

"There see? My boy's tough... didn't even shed a tear!" Elias laughed, snatching Janus out of range from his mother's grasp and up onto his shoulders.

"I'm not sure, it was so heavy and it landed right on his toe and—"

"Rose, he's fine." Elias chuckled, reaching up to tickle Janus's chin. "Come on, Janus, let's get you some air away from all this womanly hand-wringing!"

Janus grinned down at his father as they strode toward the front door. He'd only been outside a couple of times, so he had only a vague notion of the surrounding countryside. Both times there had always been a haze hanging low in the sky, obscuring him from seeing more than a few miles in each direction - and he could only ever see what seemed to be fields of corn.

"Outside air is bad before his first lyn'taklo day!" Ellena scolded, following behind.

His what day? Janus thought idly as his father grasped the heavy wrought iron doorknob. Birthday, perhaps?

Another word to add to the lexicon.

"You don't think I know what's best for my son, Ellena?" Elias asked, grinning back, "Janus will be perfectly fine, he's a strong and healthy boy!"

He cast open the door, revealing the brilliant twilight and purple sky of an early summer evening. Janus gasped and then sighed as a cool breeze washed over his face, he could see much farther from atop his father's broad shoulders.

Wow... Janus thought, looking up, and blinking.

His eyes widened. His mouth fell open.

For the first time, shock stretched his young eyes.

Where he'd expected to see the familiar shrinking horizon, there was something else, Something wrong.

Far off in the distance, the horizon shrank... and bent UP. Curling up and inwards as it rapidly narrowed into a long, thin, ribbon. Squares of light and dark dotted the landscape in a regular pattern. The darkness around him made those patches of light stand out in stark contrast, like a full moon against the night sky, revealing grasslands, clouds, oceans, and mountains before the ribbon became too thin to discern any detail... and it vanished finally in the atmospheric distortion.

Janus would have fallen off his father's shoulders if Elias hadn't been quick to grip his little feet as he looked up and up.

A ringworld. He was on a ringworld.

And that's when Janus spoke his first word.

"W-what?"

***