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Brightness and loud noises! Nauseating brightness and noises all around! I opened my eyes and could only see white. I struggled to focus my eyes, but again only white. I then remembered how life was cruel, and fear set in as I guessed the last seizure left me somewhat blind.
What a joke! Seems like you lived, but now you can’t really see or hear…
I would’ve rather died.
I closed my eyes and fell into absolute despair. My transformation into a useless, lonely, and empty shell was now complete. I wailed! I screamed my hate towards this cruel world! I heard gibberish respond to my cries, but now my parents’ sweet words couldn’t comfort me. So, I cried and sobbed myself to sleep.
Incomprehensible noises woke me up. Again, I could only see a blinding white. As the reality of my situation once again grasped me I sobbed. As if reacting to my cries, a blurred shadow approached me. A blurred silhouette resembling a person stood before my eyes.
Maybe you did die! Could this be some sort of purgatory?
I saw the shadow reach out for me. An unexpected sense of kindness caressed my body, and even more surprisingly I felt my body being lifted. Gibberish resounded but this time it had a caring tone. My cheek felt a familiar warmth as it was pressed into what appeared to be the shoulder area of the silhouette. I instinctively remembered my mother and recovered my peaceful state of mind. I was placed near the chest area of the shadow and something took over me. I escaped into this heartwarming feeling for several minutes.
Ah this isn’t so bad after all. Now that you’ve settled your mind, don’t you feel there is some strange feeling? Something you haven’t felt for years?
The haunting pain in my chest was gone, but that was expected since I had died. I failed to pin down what the strange feeling was. The blurred shadow started to separate from me and with it the warmth in me. As anxiety started to come over me, I impulsively reached out for the shadow even though I knew it was impossible to move my arms. The once forgotten feeling of movement in my arms was there once again! I froze while trying to make sense of what just happened. The silhouette was now gone, only white remained. I tried moving my arms again before the feeling of movement was completely gone. A pair of small blurry shadows covered the white. I ordered my arms to move and the white returned. I had successfully covered my useless eyes!
Do you keep your body when you die? Does it become healthy? But you can’t really see well, so that is probably not the case…
I couldn’t make sense of it. Drowsiness took over and in a few seconds I lost consciousness. I woke up and experimented moving other parts of my body.
I’m actually able to move my limbs! Even the fingers! I can’t stand up though… I wonder how much time I’ll have to spend in this strange place? What’s going to happen to me?
I had forgotten how to consciously move my own body. I spent every waking moment working on removing the clumsy feeling from controlling my limbs. I only stopped because weariness never seemed to abandon my body. Every now and then I could feel a strange coolness by my buttock, sometimes it would also be raspy. Inevitably, for some reason shame followed it. I was reminded of my time in the chair and would simply start crying in misery, until the shadows came and caressed me. I continued like this for what would probably be several days.
Hmm, don’t you think that lately the blur from the different shadows has decreased? May be you only injured your eyesight and its recovering… well you’ve never been lucky so I wouldn’t count on it…
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I realized that it wasn’t only one shadow. There difference in size told me there were three of them. Each passing day also added distinct human features to them. I would suddenly realize they had eyes, then mouth, and so on. However, was it my eyesight that improved, or had the shadows morphed into something I could recognize? That question haunted my mind. However, the white surrounding everything had become less white as it gave way to some kind of background. Also, the blur from my arms disappeared each passing day. I stared at them for a few minutes, small, chubby arms and legs. They looked just like baby arms.
Baby arms? Baby arms! WHAT THE HELL?! What is going on? No, wait, just calm yourself.
I stopped my mind from racing all over the place and forced it to analyze the situation. It was a fact I had baby limbs. So that meant I’m in a baby body? That explained why I couldn’t stand up, and why each passing day I could better distinguish the shadows. I reasoned my eyesight was still developing. However, I could not find any logic that explained having a baby body.
So then, if logic can’t explain it it’s only reasonable something illogical will… Ok, just reference all those fiction books and movies you loved and find any scenario that would explain this.
A few hours passed as I sorted through my memories of anything involving fiction. I felt refreshed and lighthearted after remembering many of my favorite stories. As I finished summarizing my findings into four possibilities my tired body forced me into sleep.
Lets go over the scenarios once again.
This is what afterlife is like. It’s impossible to refute this possibility, after all who knows what the afterlife is like? Is there even an afterlife? No way to answer that, but it seems unlikely. After all, why would the senses evolve? Would you even need senses?
Time traveling. Somehow returning eighteen years back in time. Reliving them would be worst than hell. This would definitely be the worst possible scenario. Mental breakdown would surely happen after going through that one more time.
Speaking of insanity, mental breakdown can also explain this. Somehow surviving that last seizure but loosing your mind. Being a baby is some sort of mental safe heaven? This isn’t the worst option, with a body on the verge of death surely this will end soon…
Reincarnating. Live again in a different time, place, and (hopefully) body. Does everyone who dies reincarnate? What about animals? Without some convenient god explaining everything it’s impossible to refute or answer any of this.
I felt relieved after having that calm and focused internal dialogue. It had been a long time since the last one. Stress about dying and everything that followed probably diminished my internal voice. I quickly made up my mind. There was no point worrying about it. If it turned out to be time travel, suiciding would put an end to it. If it happened to be mental breakdown my body would die soon enough, without me being able to do anything about it. Lastly, if this were my new life (reincarnation or afterlife) I would cherish and make the most of it.
Live life to the fullest! If this is truly a new opportunity at life, don’t squander it in meaningless enterprises; don’t waste it on worthless emotions such as fear and anger. Pursue your passions fervently! Let no one get in your way!
I vowed to live so that I may live.
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