CHAPTER 1
It’s been three months since I found myself in the body of this child. It seems I’ve been somewhat reborn into this new life, but I’ve been able to retain my memories from my previous life. The science is unknown—obviously because the theory of rebirth has only been speculation—could it be that one’s mind is transferred into a different world after death? That I cannot answer as this is new to me as well. I wasn’t only able to retain my memories but my consciousness as well. The only thing that changed was the body I was in.
So far, this life is somewhat different from what I’m used. The absence of chaos is an entirely new thing I don’t know how to feel about it. In my previous life I never knew my parents, the earliest memory I had from that life was being led down the cold dark hallways of the sanctuary, that was the day my life of servitude to the god of death began. In the Sanctuary of the Ashen rose. An organisation hidden in the shadows, tasked with eliminating corrupt figures from the world—basically we existed to prevent the next Hitler. I began my training at the sanctuary at the age of five, I was the youngest recruit, apparently my parents sold me off to them to pay off the debt they owed the sanctuary—at least that’s what I was told. The environment there wasn’t at all friendly towards me as I made a name for myself very early at the age of fifteen, I was hailed as the next big thing. Faceless—the name they called me—as I refused to take on an identity, yes, I lived a nameless man and I died a nameless man, I never asked for the fame—it came with a harrowing price within the organisation—but I was just that good at my job. I guess none of that matters now seeing as I’m a Twenty-four year-old man in the body of a baby now.
From my situation all I know is I died three months ago and have been reborn as a child to a couple I assume to be in their early twenties—probably newlywed—in what I assume to be an alternate world, a world somewhat primitive to my previous life. The language they speak, the strange clothing they wear, lack of technology even the food they ate, it was like something out of an epic fantasy novel and the most fascinating thing about this world was the existence of magic—yes Magic—the people in this world can do what we with all our technology couldn’t.
My parents—Grandall and Petra HeartField—seemed to both have magic abilities as I’ve seen Grandall lift things into the air without having to carry them with his hands and I’ve watched Petra cut herself numerous times—she’s quite clumsy with a knife—but has been able to heal her wounds almost instantly. I have no idea how the mechanics work but at this age that’s to be expected.
After living the life I’ve lived most people would feel at ease to finally know what a normal life feels like, but I can’t help but feel unsettled. This was my new reality. The opposite of the life I lived. Having two parents who love and dote on me at every second of the day—disgusting—living in what I assume to be in the countryside as it’s been quiet since I was born here. In essence to the average person who craves this peace and quiet fantasy land I was living all right but the one thing that left me deeply troubled is what my purpose was in this world. Why was I reborn with my memories and previous thought process? Maybe this was some sort of cruel joke. How was I supposed to live out this gift in the form of reincarnation if I still harbour the ideologies from my previous life—would they even be of any use in this world.
“Honey, what do we do….. he never smiles, he doesn’t even like eating.”
“I don’t know, you think we got a defective baby?”
“Does he not love us?”
“Hush darling! He does love us. He’s still a baby. He doesn’t understand!”
“Breda Shaw has a baby and he’s not like ours. He’s giggling, eating and I heard last week he called her mama! I want him to call me mama.”
“Our baby is just three months old. He can’t speak. Breda had her child last year.”
“Why doesn’t he act like a normal baby! He doesn’t even cry. We’ve only heard him cry twice!”
Oh, I forgot to mention they were here, whispering to each other not knowing I could understand their every word—strangely I understood the language they spoke—Petra has spent the last couple of hours trying to breastfeed me but I refuse to put my mouth on those tits. Another drawback of having my old thought functions follow me into this life. Not that I wasn’t hungry, I simply found being a baby to be a very degrading life form and to put myself in a position of vulnerability was simply impossible to do. Then again, I contradict myself as being in this body alone was the most vulnerable state I could ever be in, her cradling me wouldn’t be any less degrading. She broke out in wails and Grandall pulled her into his embrace, wailing with her—what a pathetic bunch.
“Bbgbshs.” I let put the only form of speech I could muster with my undeveloped voice box—gibberish—and spread my hand out to Petra, telling them I was ready to be fed and I instantly grabbed their attention. I watched as their face quickly beamed with joy and stars filled their eyes.
“HE’S SO CUTE!”
I nearly cringed following their outburst and was scooped and cradled in Petra’s arms as she pushed her left tit into my mouth—definitely not the way to properly feed a baby but she let her excitement to feed her child get over her sense of reasoning, clumsy woman—and I fed. While into my feeding session I felt my eyelids get heavier and heavier. This was another reason I hated feeding. This body was still that of a child Afterall, this was how I functioned, and I hated it.
I can’t wait to grow up.
***
One Year Later………….
Nothing like growing up. It’s only been a year since I was born into this doty eyed family, and I’ve waited tirelessly for this day to come—I was getting older—It’s just one year I know that but it’s still something I’m glad is happening.
I—unlike most babies—had already learned how to walk when I was six months old and my speech was coming in nicely, all these are not normal for a baby so they’re probably as a result of me having all my memories from my past life with me oh well, I’m not complaining.
Since I’ve been reborn, I’ve come to understand a few new things about this world, one of which I’m learning of just now, something changes in your body the older you get. I started feeling this way yesterday, it started off as a tingling sensation on my palms but now it’s spread all over my body, weighing down on me, I could literally feel the air solidify around my skin, it was a very strange feeling, but it felt almost normal to me, like my body knew this was going to happen.
I sat in my cradle and looked at Petra as she flipped through mountains of books and scrolls on her worktable not far across the room from me. She worked as a spell keeper at the local library and after being on maternity leave for a year her workload had piled up and Grandall worked on the fields outside, he was a big local farmer, you could hear the winds he conjured to harvest the grains he planted whistling outside—It was quite terrifying to listen to. As far as I could tell this family was well off and judging from the standard of the house we lived in—from what I see when I follow Petra outside—we weren’t dirt poor as most people in this town.
I plopped back down in the cradle and sighed. Today was my birthday but I got no birthday wishes. I guess birthdays are not a thing in this world—something I was particularly happy about because it had a semblance to my previous life. I never knew my birthday, so I never got birthday wishes from anyone. Sure, I was jealous of the others who I worked with that knew their birthdays but the older I grew the less importance birthdays seemed to me, so I stopped caring.
Knock knock knock
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Someone was at the door.
I heard Petra get up from her chair to open the door and as soon as the door swung open a blood curdling scream jolted me off my pillow. What was that?
“Aunt Petra!” I turned to find a blue haired girl hugging Petra and standing behind her at the door was a woman who looked to be the same age as Petra and looked like an older version of the child hugging Petra. She had sandbags under her eyes and wore a weary smile—she looked like she could drop anytime.
“Hello Petra.” The woman spoke softly.
“Olivia…. It’s so good to see you”
So, this was Olivia?
I’ve heard Grandall and Petra call her name multiple times. She was apparently Petra’s childhood friend who lived in town. Petra had talked several times about taking us to see her, but she always gets preoccupied by something and ends up cancelling.
“W-what brings you here?” Petra asked flustered and glancing at her work desk—it was obvious she was eager to get back to work.
“Oh, don’t be like that!” the tired looking lady sounded like she mustered up all the courage inside her just to say that line, pitiful. “We came here to see your little Ard on his birthday. Letty here was particularly impatient.”
I was Ard.
So, birthdays were a thing, that would mean………
There was silence from Petra, I could only see the back of her head, but I could tell her expression had sunken upon realizing she had forgotten my birthday.
“EEK!” she screamed so loudly it rocked the house and I heard the whistling coming from outside the field stop and some seconds later Grandall burst into the house with a rake in his hands, ready to fight.
“Darling. What’s going on?”
Petra turned around to him and tears welled in her eyes. “Our little Ard! Today’s his birthday.”
“You forgot the day your son was born?!”
Olivia, please shut up. I rolled my eyes.
Grandall froze and his jaw fell. Soon after tears welled up in his eyes and both he and Petra came kneeling by my cradle.
“WE’RE SORRY!” they picked me up from my cradle and wailed, begging for forgiveness from an infant—I hate these people.
I don’t care about birthdays doesn’t mean I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation, but I also understood the circumstances leading to this point. Ever since they had me, they’ve done nothing but take care of me so naturally I wouldn’t be mad over something like this. If anything, it’d be awkward for an infant to show signs of understanding in this situation, so I did what every baby does—play dumb—I grabbed Petra’s hair and giggled, fiddling with it. They have stopped sobbing at this point and watched me with awe in their eyes. This was one of the charms of being a baby, everything I did was perceived as cute, I just might be playing the role of a dumb baby too seriously.
***
Petra and Olivia settled down in the kitchen baking a cake for me—as it turns out the party must happen. Grandall, although clueless in the kitchen decided to help them as an assist boy and thought it would be a good idea to leave me here with this, this slobbering thing. You could feel it restraining itself from lunging itself at me carelessly never minding the fact that I was still a baby.
This creature went by the name of Letty, Olivia’s five year old child. A splitting image of her mother, aqua blue hair, brown eyes just in a toddler’s body—I wonder if I would look anything like Petra or Grandall.
I despise toddlers, their dangerous curiosity and the knack they have to put themselves in reckless situations is something I can’t fathom. I’m glad I have all a more advanced reasoning.
The slobbering child made her way towards me, she had this wooden carved toy in her hand outstretched towards me, delivering it to me almost like a peace offering. I looked down at it and for the love of the gods I wouldn’t dear touch the germ-infested toy—it had spit running down it, Olivia is a very careless mother. I ignored the child and slowly got up to my feet when a book Petra left on the floor caught my eye. I walked towards it and opened it up, I noticed the toddler hanging over my shoulder and she gasped.
“Magic……”
Now this piqued my interest.
I turned to look at her with an expression that told her to keep going, whether she understood I would never know but she continued.
“Mommy said magic is bad right now. You can’t read either.” She reached for the book, to take it away from me but I abruptly stopped her by placing my hand on the book. She looked shocked by my response, and I mustered all the strength to push her hands away from the book.
The words on the cover of the book read the Grimoire of flames, how I knew that I don’t know, the language seemed to just translate itself in my head. I flipped it open, and Letty let out a gasp.
“Drop it drop it! it’s too dangerous.” She whined and I blissfully ignored the child. Like I needed some child telling me what I can and can’t do.
For the most part I couldn’t understand a single thing. The words written in the book didn’t seem to translate as they were written in a different script than the ones I could easily understand. Letty on the other hand stopped fussing around when she realized I couldn’t understand, and a cheeky smile formed on her face. I misread this girl, she’s smarter than I gave her credit for. She could read it.
“What am I so worried about babies can’t read.” She said with a proud huff. “Mommy taught me how to read it, I can even do a little magic myself.” She bought her index finger to my face and a cinder of flames sparked into the air.
Fascinating. At five years old children can use magic. I looked down at my small hands and back at Letty and opened my lips to speak. “Teach…… me.”
She looked taken aback—anyone would—hearing me speak so fluently. The first time I spoke Grandall nearly fainted as I’m developing faster than any child, they were so shocked to the point they took me to the citadel to get me checked out and the medical mages at the citadel called me a wonder after their tests, they simply don’t know I’ve been reborn with my thought process and memories from my previous life intact.
“Y-You talk!”
“Of course I can.” A little bit too much like how I normally speak. I better tone it down a bit.
Letty couldn’t believe her ears. I could tell from the look on her face—she was a brilliant child to notice these things weren’t normal for a baby my age.
She reluctantly picked the book and dropped it in her lap and as if all the shock she had experienced a while ago vanished. I could see the glitter in her eyes as she scanned those pages. She was very excited to learn magic.
“First thing you should do is close your eyes” she said, eyes not leaving the book, I was confused for a second. Was she talking to me or reading the instructions out loud? Until she looked at me and blinked her eyes. I closed my eyes and suddenly the image of the cinder she had conjured up sparked in my mind. The strange feeling, I had in my body earlier this morning intensified, as scripts from the book appeared in my mind and I heard a shriek.
“Ah!!!!”
Letty screamed and I opened my eyes, bright orange filled my vision, around me was a ring of raging flames, and I saw Letty in the arms of her mother, whimpering and Petra standing there looking at me in disbelief.
“Um… honey!” she called out to Grandall who just walked in from the back door cradling chopped timber under his arms.
“What’s going on, I heard screaming again and—” and as soon as he saw the scene, he dropped them. Eyes filled with utter disbelief.
“T-that spell….” Olivia said, voice quivering and she wiped her eyes still unable to process what she was seeing. “That’s not the type of spell a child, a baby at that could do. Can babies even use magic?”
“I-I know.” Petra said in the same tone as her friend.
Judging from their looks and tone as they spoke, I just pulled off a spell way above the standard level.
“Letty, honey are you sure Ard did this?” Olivia asked.
Letty, was terrified but she nodded.
“Impossible…”
I looked at the flames flickering in my face and got up to my feet and they slowly started to subside until there was nothing but a ring of ash around me and their jaws dropped further.
What did I do this time?