It’s all darkness around me. Have I actually died? Was it a mistake to let those weaklings kill me while I stayed there doing nothing? Could I have been wrong that I would actually be reborn again?

Hmm… I don’t actually know. It must take some time for me to be reborn I guess. At least I hope that’s the case, otherwise it would be really stupid of me to let myself die so easily.

I think I’ll just wait for now. Panicking and assuming things won’t get me anywhere. It’s better to wait and see what happens… Besides I can finally rest now. There’s nothing for me to look at, no one to keep track of, no need to worry if everyone is doing their jobs properly. It’s a nice change, somehow this endless darkness is comforting.

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I don’t know how long I have been waiting for, it must have been eons. It’s time enough for me to start getting tired of this darkness. I used to like it, it comforted me. But now, when so much time has passed, it’s starting to get on my nerves. I don’t know when I will be reborn, if I will even be reborn. Surely after all this time my soul should have been fused with a being. Or was I mistaken? I never did have any proof of whether I will be reborn after death or not. I simply trusted in my gut.

Hmm… I hope I wasn’t wrong…

Wait… the darkness is changing… it’s still dark around me but there’s a hint of redness surrounding me… I think it’s the start of my birth! Whew… I was right after all!

With time, the redness grew all around me. I waited for the chance to get to the outside world, see with my own eyes what it means to be alive.

Soon, I was able to move somewhat. I discovered I had two feet and two legs, much like the shape I had been when I died, which is weird… I wasn’t aware of any race that had this shape. Did the gods make this shape as a tribute to me? Hmm… Only time will tell.

I started to hear voices, although they were too muffled and low for me to make out anything. Whenever I head the voices I tried to move towards it, hoping that I might be able to hear something and understand just a little bit about the world outside. However, no matter how much I kicked or tried to move, the space was too cramped for me to do much. I did discover that whenever I kicked outwards towards the walls of my surroundings, I would hear voices filled with delight, as though my kicking was something good.

I proceeded to kick as often as I could, hoping that if it was a good thing for me to kick and it brought joy to others, I might not be as alone as I once was in my previous life. However, my body seemed to be too weak for me to keep up the kicks for long. I would get tired extremely quickly and be forced to go back to sleep.

Soon enough, I felt something I had never felt before: pain. It was strange, I had always been too powerful for anything to hurt me. Even when all the gods were attacking me, I only felt a slight itch. Either this new body of mine is too weak or the pain I am feeling is too great.

With the pain, I also felt a pushing sensation, and I felt myself moving backwards. I tilted my head and found that I was moving towards some form of light behind me. I tried to move around to get a better look but the pushing was too strong for me to cope. Let’s just see what happens…

With a final strong pushing force, I finally moved out of the red place that had been my home for so long and opened my eyes to a light that almost blinded me!

I had to blink a few times to get used to the light, and I found myself surrounded by a few more beings that also had two arms and two legs. Some were looking at me with delight, some with worry and some with fear.

Hmm… I think I was just born. Seems it’s time for me to start a new life!

__________________________

Elliot Ray was walking around nervously outside a closed door. He was worried sick about many different things.

Firstly, behind the door was his wife, Jasmin, who was about to give birth to his son/daughter. He was worried about her health as he knew she wasn’t too strong to begin with and the birthing process is extremely taxing on the body.

Secondly, he was worried if his child would be born healthy or not. He hoped the child would be healthy, as he wasn’t confident enough that he would be able to support his child if he/she needed special attention.

Thirdly, even if the child was born healthy, Elliot still wasn’t sure if he would be able to support his increased family financially.

Lastly, if the child was a girl, Elliot hoped that she won’t be beautiful. Elliot knew all too well what happened to poor girls who were beautiful…

He kept pacing about, trying to get rid of all his worries, but it was to no avail. He just couldn’t get rid of all the ‘what if’ questions running through his mind.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

He was still pacing about when the door burst open and a midwife came out with a face full of alarm.

“Mr. Elliot! Come quick!”

Fearing the worst, Elliot ran behind the midwife inside the. He saw his wife first of all, holding a child with a worried face. All the midwives and some friends of Jasmin’s were standing around the room, some with fear on their face and some just simply alarmed.

Elliot hastened towards his wife and saw that she was thankfully breathing well and seemed fine more or less. But her expression was anything but fine. “What’s wrong? Is everything okay?”

Jasmin finally looked up from the baby towards Elliot. Wordlessly, she handed the child in her hands to Elliot. Puzzled, Elliot took the child and immediately found out what the cause of all the worry was.

The baby was a boy, and looked healthy enough. He was staring curiously around without making a single sound. The worrisome thing was that his eyes were crimson red, not just the pupils, but his entire eyes were red! His jet black hair and red eyes made him look completely like a demon out of nightmares!

Hoping against hope that there was some kind of explanation to this, Elliot asked, “What’s wrong with his eyes? Could it be some kind of injury…?”

No one answered. Everyone just stayed quiet and looked at each other nervously. Suddenly, the oldest midwife by the name of Sally spoke, “Give the child to me. Maybe his eyes are filled with blood and we are just assuming the worst. Hand him over and I’ll try washing his eyes, let’s hope it’s just simply blood and nothing else.”

Elliot immediately handed over the newborn over to Sally with a new found hope in his heart, and looked closely to what she was doing. She simply walked over to a water basin filled with clean water and dipped her hand in, then started washing out the child’s eyes.

For a few minutes no one spoke, and the only sounds to be heard were of Sally washing the child’s eyes while Jasmin cried silently on the bed. Sally then stopped washing and looked at the child again, then without a word she handed the child back over to Elliot with a slight smile on her face.

When Elliot looked down again at the child, his pupils were now jet black like his hair and the surroundings were white, completely normal eyes! Elliot started grinning and handed the child back to Jasmin, who was still on the verge of tears.

Sally then spoke loudly as Jasmin was examining the baby with a relieved face, “Seems like my guess was correct, thank the Gods! Congratulations on having a healthy baby boy Elliot and Jasmin!”

With that, the mood in the room lifted considerably as Elliot hugged his wife who was now crying with relief. All this time, the boy just kept silent and observed his surroundings…

__________________________

Whew! That was close. Apparently having red eyes was a huge problem.

I heard what the man, presumably my father, said about my eyes and was able to catch a glimpse of my eyes in a mirror while a female held me. They were red, just like my eyes in my original body had been. Luckily, I still had my power to shift my physical appearance as I wanted, and I willed my eyes to turn black and look just like the eyes of the people surrounding me looked like while the idiot female was splashing my eyes with water.

It seemed to work, as after that everyone calmed down and the mood in the room turned light. I kept observing my surroundings, but there wasn’t much to look at. I still didn’t know what race I was just born as, all I knew was that everyone surrounding me was incredibly weak!

I mean seriously, seriously weak! If it’s true that the gods made this race after seeing the shape I was in when I died, then this race wasn’t made as a tribute to me as I thought, instead it was probably made to mock me!

Anger filled my mind as I vowed to wreak havoc on those idiot gods! But before I could shift into something else and go beat the living daylights out of the gods, my little weak body got tired and my eyes started to feel droopy.

Cursing my weak body and the idiot gods, I drifted off to sleep as I heard the man whisper to the woman who I think is my mother, “I think we should name him Fenix, so that we can always remember his eyes that looked just like the eyes of a Phoenix.”

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Author here. Let me know what you think and if there are any mistakes or errors... I can't believe I already have a few people who followed this work and also a couple to mark it as their favorite! Thank you very much! I hope I will be able to deliver a good, enjoyable story for you all!