So I'm minding my own business as I walk down the street. Sure, I wasn't really paying attention (I'm a bit of an airhead) but I assure you I definitely looked both ways before crossing! Which is why, when the police car ran me over, it was totally not my fault that my headphones drowned out the sirens.

Running from the po-po-police!

I ain’t got no re-re-release!

I was dying, bleeding out on the asphalt (trust me, it’s as gross as it sounds). The police dude was yelling and pacing. If he hadn’t hesitated, maybe the ambulance would have gotten here on time. Maybe I wouldn’t be dying. Maybe I wouldn’t be slowly dispersing into the atmosphere. As I dissolved into pretty sparkles, I thought, ‘I never liked authority figures anyway.’

“Waaahhh!!!!!” I screamed. I was hungry, and baby bodies need nutrition like no one’s business. Forget about preteen growing pains, talk about baby ones. I’m eating my weight in mush and I’m still hungry.

“Shhh, shhh, here you go Mary,” said nurse number 1 (I never got their names) as she spoon fed me baby mush.

Perhaps I should explain the situation. When I died, I didn’t die die. I sort of floated around in limbo as a sparkle cloud. It was pretty boring, so I tried contorting into shapes after a while. Lizards, butterflies, airplanes, I was all of them. I was just trying to shift into a particularly detailed bird when I was suddenly sucked down a vacuum. If I had to describe the sensation, I would say that I developed a new understanding of what my deceased goldfish went through when I flushed him.

When I awoke, I was in a baby’s body. More precisely, Mariana Lillian Monstrue, the love rival of the heroine of a popular otome game called “Lovely Lolita.” The game was about a very short, beautiful peasant girl who was extraordinarily talented at magic, and her name was Sirena Willow. She got a scholarship to a high class magic school usually reserved for nobles and she was horribly bullied because of her status. The main offender was me, Lolita Mariana. I had no talent in magic and was horribly jealous of her, so in all the love interest’s routes I interfered. I wasn’t really a love rival, per say. All the routes had their own rivals, but I was the big bad wolf determined to bring her down. In all the endings, both the successful and failed ones, I was imprisoned for trying to assassinate her. Woe is me.

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This time will be different though. Not just because I refused to bully her, but because I was wonderful at magic.

Magic relies on two things; imagination and connection. First was imagination. You had to be in touch to the elements, to understand them. For a magician, water was not water. It was a river, flowing and swirling, ever changing in state, form, and shape. For me it was one oxygen molecule and two hydrogen molecules bonded at a 104.5 degree angle.

Yeah, I was weird.

Next was connection, which was more important. Without it you wouldn’t ever be a magician even if you were absurdly imaginative, just an artist. It was exactly what it sounded like, a connection to the world. It directly relied on the soul, which is why I was so good at magic. Whatever hire ups around decided to tie me down to this world with chains and a double knot, it was how much I was aware of the energies around me.

Combine the two and you get baby me telekinetically floating toy blocks around the room when I was alone even though I couldn’t even crawl.

I first learned of my identity when Mother AKA Lady Monstrue named me. “Lovely Lolita” was my favorite otome game because of the beautiful visuals and storyline. I had played all the routes, both main and hidden, so rest assured I could recognize the name of that bitch who always cockblocked me the little twofaced-

Yeah, I didn’t like Mariana.

But all of this was unimportant. What was important was learning how to crawl. My goal was the other side of the crib, and I was getting there on my own physical power. No getting magically lazy for me, no sir, I was not flying-

“Weeeeee!!!!!!!!”