It’s me, only, it’s not. Does that make sense? Probably not. Then again, I don’t quite understand myself what’s happening. The reflection in the lake. It’s a boy, with messy brown hair and large gray eyes. My brown hair. My gray eyes. My nose, my lips, my ears. My face. It’s me, only... it’s not.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, holding it a moment, before letting it exhale. Then I check the reflection again. Nothing has changed. I see myself, my younger self. Somehow, I have become a child again. Nine, no, ten years old? I stand, about half a foot over four, water dripping from my clothes, and I do a jumping jack, a squat, a cartwheel. Everything feels normal, my movements, my body, my own, like I have always been this way. Am I dreaming?

I pinch myself, hard, my cheek turning red. Did it work? Actually, how would I know? Now that I think about it, I’ve never been clear as to how it’s supposed to work. How does pinching yourself help determine if you’re dreaming or not? Would you not just dream of the pain? For that matter, what is the difference between a sufficiently vivid dream and reality anyways? Where do we draw the line between…

Stop, Jaxon. You’re getting sidetracked. You’re letting your mind run wild again. Let’s not jump down this philosophical rabbit hole just this minute.

I breathe. And again. Putting into practice a technique I learned in public speaking class to calm the nerves. Then I turn my mind away from the metaphysical to the more pragmatic questions.

Where am I? A lake. How did I get here?

Suddenly, raging fire and thick, black smoke fills my senses, and I fall to my hands and knees. Though the air is crystal fresh, I gasp for it as lingering dread rattles my body. A minute. Two, three and four. Slowly, the adrenaline subsides, and my heartbeat returns back to normal. The panic attack passes, and I collapse to the ground, lying on my back, my face drenched in sweat. Above, fluffy clouds surf across warm blue skies.

“Aries,” I mumble softly to myself. The man in the costume. He must have been the one that shoved Christie into the closet. But why? Did he start the fire?

His words come rushing back. Death. Reincarnation. Arcadia.

I raise my hand towards the sky. It’s small, smaller than I remember, with short chubby fingers. Reincarnation. What was that all about again? Some Buddist thing, I think. Aiden had been obsessed with it at one point. Wouldn’t shut up about it. Now I kind of wished I had paid more attention. Think...

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“That’s right...” It’s when one’s soul is reborn into a different body. I think there’s something about karma too, like if you did a lot of bad stuff in your life, your soul gets reborn into a bug, or something. So then, is that what this is? Reincarnation? I died? And now my soul has been reborn? I’ve never been much religious, agnostic at best, so I have a hard time believing in a soul, let alone that a soul can be reborn into a different physical form.

I stand, looking out into the lake again, searching for an alternative explanation to the predicament I find myself in. Perhaps I did not die in the fire. Perhaps my body was so badly burned that they transplanted my memories into a clone, one that was younger than my current body. Didn’t they do something similar with a sheep? I mean, who knows what the government is capable of that they’re not saying, right? And then after they did the memory transplant, they, um, dumped me here, without explanation, at some, um, random…

“...lake.” I shake my head of the stupid idea. Running through it, it seems even less plausible than the reincarnation one. I sigh, wondering if I’m going about this all wrong, thinking myself in circles. I’m not getting anywhere with so many questions and so little information to work off of. Will not the simpler solution be just to find someone and ask? At least clear up where in the world this is. I need to just stop thinking and start moving, get some blood flowing.

“Alright, let’s go with that,” I say, trying to pump some energy into my veins. I turn away from the water and begin walking, across the meadow and into the forest beyond. Gradually, trees surround me, as do exotic plants rainbow in color. Well, one thing is for sure. This ain’t New York anymore.

A rustle from a nearby bush pulls me out of my thoughts, and I can feel my body tense, alert to the potentially unknown danger. To my relief, however, what emerges is a dog, a fluffball of a golden retriever. It approaches me with caution, large round ears flopping about as it moves.

“Hey, boy,” I say softly. I hold out a hand, gesturing it my way. The dog appears to understand, its pink tongue now panting in joy as it prances before me. I reach behind its ears, giving it a scratch, the dog’s furiously wagging tail indicating I’ve hit the jackpot. “Good boy. Good boy,” I say as I search the dog’s neck for a tag, hoping that it might give me a clue as to my own situation. None is to be found, however. “Are you lost like me?” I ask.

The golden retriever tilts its head, as if understanding, and then it does something I would have never expected. It vanishes. I blink, and then it’s gone.

“What… on… earth?” I mumble, and I grope my hands wildly about through the air, just to verify that indeed nothing is there.

Am I going crazy? First this new body. Now a vanishing dog.

A bark draws my attention back to reality. When I look up, I find that it is the golden retriever from before, only, he is now about fifteen feet to my right. He barks again, as if calling me to come. I oblige, and when I reach it, it again vanishes into thin air. A minute later, it reemerges, this time ten feet ahead of me.

“I see,” I mumble. Setting aside the absurdity of a teleporting dog, it’s clearly trying to lead me somewhere, probably because I had indicated I was lost.

Another bark, and a slight smile tugs on my lips as I break into a sprint, following after the Teleport Dog through the forest. Thirty minutes later and I’m out, finding myself on a dirt road. Behind, I hear the dog calling to me, and I turn, offering it a wave. “Thank you!” The dog nods as if in understanding before it vanishes for the last time.

I stare at the empty space for a long, hard minute before saying aloud, “Okay, well that just happened. Reincarnation it is then.”