The world faded away. Silence, darkness and weightlessness are the only things that can be perceived. John’s last memory was of him falling asleep in his apartment, tired after another long day at work. But now he can only experience this new existence. Time doesn’t appear to move and strangely enough, he also doesn’t feel panic.
After an unperceivable eternity the silence stops, a small buzz can be heard. Then the weightlessness vanishes, the weight of his own body begins to return. Lastly, on the horizon, the darkness is pierced by a small light that begins to grow bigger and bigger.
Then, as the almost blinding light pierced through the darkness, causing John to squint his eyes. As his vision adjusted, he found himself in a room, surrounded by figures in white garments. The room was pristine, with the scent of herbs and incense filling the air. It felt comforting yet strangely alien.
And then he saw it—the source of the light. In the center of the room, a woman lay on a bed, her face twisted in pain. John's eyes widened as he realized what was happening. He was witnessing a birth.
The woman's pained cries echoed through the room as the midwives attending to her hurriedly prepared for the arrival of the baby. John watched in awe as the tiny life fought its way into the world, gasping for breath. And as the baby emerged, its cries filled the room, blending with the mother's relief.
A strange sensation then washed over him, suddenly his field of vision was really small. The midwives helping the woman give birth were now holding him. He could barely feel or move his own body. He was then put near the woman who just gave birth. They were all talking but he couldn’t understand a single word of it. He also noted he stopped crying due to his confusion.
There were a lot of things in his mind but the one thing that always came back was how he found himself in this situation? Was this the most realistic dream he ever had? The universe playing a cruel prank on him? He didn’t know.
More and more people began to arrive at the room and even if he couldn’t understand what they were talking, he could understand their intentions somewhat. Whoever John might be now, he was important. These people were expecting something great out of him in the future. Something that he didn’t know if he should be happy or sad about.
Everyone was mostly happy with the situation but there were some outliers. The midwives were showing a level of respect in their gazes toward John that he would expect someone to give to royalty. As for the woman that just gave birth, she had a really a really big smile on her face. Would be better if he could make any details about anyone but his vision was really bad at the moment.
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It was strange, but from the woman near him, he could feel a warm sensation. Love, warmth, a sense of belonging that calmed him down. He didn’t know exactly what was happening, but he could feel a deep connection to some of the people there and if they were his new family, he hoped they would help him navigate this new life he found himself into, if that was what really happened.
As he was starting to somewhat accept his new situation, some of the midwives just summoned water and lights from their hands and began to move it around the top of the room. The only thing in his mind at that moment was that he definitely wasn’t in his world anymore. Whatever the women were doing, it was magic. Not the fake magic of his old world but the magic you would find in fiction. He saw it so he couldn’t deny it existed even if he wanted to.
The shock of what he was seeing brought flashes of his old life to the front of his mind. As a journalist, John had been exposed to the horrors of the world—corruption, violence, and the darkest aspects of humanity. It had taken its toll on him, leaving him somewhat depressed and disillusioned. Yet, amidst the darkness, a spark of hope for people, for a better world, remained within him, a flame that could not be extinguished.
But this new world offered a chance for a different kind of existence. A realm where magic existed, where people harnessed its power to shape their reality. It was a realm of wonder and possibilities in his eyes, a stark contrast to the harsh realities he had known.
John, though, had always been different. Extremely intelligent, he excelled in academia and absorbed knowledge like a sponge. However, his pursuit of wisdom came at a cost. Social skills eluded him, and he often found himself baffled by the superficial conversations that consumed others. How could people talk about nothing, he wondered, when there was so much knowledge to explore?
Questions burned within John's mind. How exactly did he find himself in this world? Could he learn to harness mana just like everyone around him? And most importantly, why had he been reborn in this new existence?
There was a glimmer of a possibility that lay in his past. In one of his last assignments as a journalist, he had encountered a supposed mystic lady who claimed to have answers to the unknown. Desperate to find his lost girlfriend, who had vanished without a trace over a decade ago, John had sought her assistance. He remembered the mystic's enigmatic smile as she promised to help him, but he had dismissed it as mere theatrics.
Now, in this new world, John couldn't shake the feeling that his rebirth was somehow connected to his past, to the unanswered questions that haunted him. Perhaps the mystic lady held the key to his newfound existence.
As he lay there besides his new mother, he steels himself for the new life he has. He has no doubt that it wasn't a mere accident he found himself in this situation but until he grows up he won’t be able to do much about it. He will not let this get in the way of his pursuit of the truth.