I laid in bed relaxed. As if I could even be tense, I'm old and dying. I hardly have the strength to keep my eyes open for these last moments.

"Grandpa?"

The voice of my granddaughter rang into my weak ears. Somehow, I was about to fall asleep before I heard her voice. It was a labor to open my eyes to see her again.

"Yes?"

The little girl, no she was almost a grown woman at this point, she sniffed as she held back tears.

"Is there anything... what should I do? I don't know anymore."

"Kid, you find the little things that make you happy and you cherish them, but don't be afraid to lose a couple of them or even all of it as you get older."

"I won't."

"And, if you find something that really means something to you, a chance to do something great in your life. You take it, but please don't forget about the people that care about you. They'll worry about you if you never call."

"I promise."

"Good."

I felt satisfied giving her that answer. I cursed my son to chase a dream that ate him whole. I don't know where he is, I thought I'd be more angry that he didn't show up at this last minute to see me.

I'm not. I'm just a little sad.

After all, around me are all these wonderful people I call my family. My wife, god bless her, I'm sorry for leaving first, she gave me a chance and I gave her everything I had left.

My oldest, he was a lot like me when I was younger, lazy and isolated, but I never let him drown like I did. He's a much more stable family man and I hope he's as proud of himself as I am of him.

My youngest, she didn't have to go find herself like most excited young adults and college kids. She was sure in everything she did because I never told her she couldn't, but I made sure she knew when she was stepping on toes when she didn't need to.

My middleborn, I don't know what he's doing, but I hope he's happy too. I want to say he's a piece of shit, a rotten bastard and maybe even lower than scum. He left his young family to be a rock star. He didn't leave a note, or anything, I had to end up using the last years of my life to make sure I could keep us all afloat.

I deserve this.

I never helped my parents out after all. I was a leech too, for way longer than I should've. By the time I realized I needed to find a job and take care of myself it was already too late for me to make a plan to save them too. They never gave up on me but I had to give up on saving them, it wasn't realistic for me to make up for all the time wasted.

My mother died when I was forty, a sudden stroke left her unconscious and she passed a week later in her sleep at the hospital. She never went on vacations anymore and was found passed out in work when her stroke happened.

My dad died when I was forty-one, I went to go visit him a year after mom died. Everything was like normal, I even watched a tv show with him before he told me goodnight as I headed home. I got a call from his boss that he didn't show up to work and found him in his bed. He didn't wake up that day.

I knew it would turn out this way. Nothing ever good came out of me being myself. I'm not really fit to be admired or even loved. I spent my whole life thinking this way, and I was right about myself, I never did anything great and nothing good ever happened to me.

Except one thing of course. I squeezed the warm hand in my grasp.

I turned to look at my wife.

"Thank you for everything, I love you."

"I know. I love you too."

She had bittersweet tears in her eyes as she kissed me on my forehead.

There was nothing more for me to say. Cliché as it is, generic as what I say may be. Those are the right words, they mean what I'm thinking. I was happy to live with her and I was happy to die here. Because of her I had no sorrow or rancor and because of her I can say I was wrong for once. She's the good thing that happened to me, where all the good that came in the last part of my life came from as well.

She took a chance on me, to see the good in me, to believe in me. My parents did the same and I gave up on them, I gave up on myself. I never made that mistake again, the pain is too much for one life.

I died with no regrets. I died with hope, love and happiness. The best kind of death to have I'd argue. I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

***

It's been said that when two astral gods clash, the world itself begins to tear. Through those tears, souls and other miracles seep into the world from the abyss beyond reality.

***

It felt like a dream. I was drowning, my lungs were filled with liquid. The air was really cold.

I managed to cough up all the liquid inside of me but my eyes had trouble focusing. It's so bright in here. I felt the rough movements of giant hands around my body, wrapping me up like a burrito.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

When my ears adjusted, I was shocked to hear the voices of the many giants in the room, so clear and unmuffled.

"...your father?"

"I thought you wanted to name him after your brother? We agreed on that right Ve?"

"It's your choice he's your son. Mylo has to accept that at least."

"He looks more like you though, Daphne."

My eyes finally adjusted, I was staring into the emerald eyes of a giant ginger. She had freckles that complimented her warm looking skin.

I tried to reach out trying to make sense of what I was looking at. The giant woman held me closer to her face. Then I realized my hands were small.

"He's really quiet isn't he?"

I turned my head to look at a giant of a man with blue eyes and chestnut hair. Beside him was a passive looking porcelain woman with black hair and hazel eyes.

I'm a baby. That thought struck me.

"aah, nwaah."(Oh no.)

"Not entirely silent is he?"

"Hu,hih, I guess not. Hmm, Freddy. Yes, your name is Frederick, you'll just have to settle with Carlisle for your middle name."

The redhead, my mother caressed me with her soft hands.

"I can live with that."

"You better."

Of all the afterlives envisioned, I ended up with reincarnation. And out of every sorry person in the world I was the one chosen to be here? I thought about this as I continued to unravel what's happening.

I had my dying thoughts and now I get to learn I'm not getting eternal rest.

"aah."

I tried to sigh but this new body of mine is incapable of adult speech let alone a discernable groan. The idea of having to go through life again in diapers and learning basic principles did not sit well with me.

I aged gracefully until I died at the ripe age of 78, at no point did I need to wear diapers or help cleaning the drool off my face. I wasn't senile. I didn't look forward to the concept of making up for the time I didn't spend in a retirement home in my second life.

"Is it fine to let the kids in?"

"Yes, I'd like them to meet their new brother."

Hm, so I have siblings, that's new. To me their steps rushed in like a sudden earthquake or stampede localized solely around the bed me and my mother were resting in.

I looked at my father, and right in front of me he kissed this other woman. Wait what? What's going on here? I thought about how strange it was to be straddled by my mother only to see my father engaging in loving whispers to another woman.

I looked around at my other siblings none of them seemed disturbed by this sight. That's around when I noticed it first. Some of them are certainly only half-siblings. Dark hair with blue eyes, light hair with hazel eyes matching that other woman. Then my two brothers and sister had green eyes like our mother but had some variation of blonde and auburn hair.

What kind of family did I end up with?

"Can I hold him?"

"Just be very careful and hold him firmly but don't squish him."

My mother handed me off to one of my half sisters. She had the same pale complexion as her mom.

I reached out my hand to touch her face. I was curious for some reason. She reminded me a bit of my wife I thought.

I felt the sudden release of her arms, she dropped me.

***

Mylo's Pov

My son is strange. He speaks like he's always in a rush to finish something. When I give him my regular lessons he seems immediately annoyed. He rarely spends time playing with my other children and his younger siblings.

Poor Vanilla, she thinks she might've been the cause of his strange mannerisms. But I know she's not, Daphne healed him immediately once he was picked up off the floor and handed back to his mother.

He stayed quiet after the pain was gone.

He didn't seem bothered by being handed off to Veruca to feed him either. All of Daphne's children complained when they were first handed off, but Fred didn't mind at all. Veruca felt quit good about that, but again he's not like my other children. Even Veruca's babies didn't like being away from their mother even if it was to be fed.

Strange but not bad.

He was able to learn how to talk scary early. I don't think he was even one year old. Not to mention he was walking well before his older brother could even properly run.

His memory is extremely good, any lesson I taught him he recalled effortlessly. His capacity to learn is more than I could provide some days. The regular lessons don't entertain him because he already understands them and wants to move on despite being only two.

He doesn't play with his siblings because he'd rather go into my study and read any old book. I've tried to have him paint with some of his sisters if only so he doesn't end up alone all day, but he just ends up finishing an odd sketch and leaves once it's colored. The girls always tell me how uncanny the drawings seem with structures of what looked like buildings surrounded by stars and spider webs. Very strange for a three year old when his sister was still using only her fingers.

He speaks to his mothers properly and doesn't make a fuss when they ask him to do anything. That's more than what I could hope for when his older siblings can't even stand to be told to take a bath more often.

My son is strange but clever. He just turned five this week.

***

I was in the middle of wrestling with my older brother Luca. I wasn't quite big or strong enough to make any meaningful defense so I ended up getting thrown about. I was sturdy at least, my bruises could be brushed off and scratches hardly stung.

That's usually how it felt to me until he launched me too far and I dove forehead first into the dresser in his room.

It hurt a lot, I thought I'd never felt as much pain before in my life. Then something odd happened. I remembered. The last time I felt this much hurting on my head was when I was a baby. Memories that aren't really mine flooded my head again as I kept thinking back to that moment as a baby when Vanilla, my older sister, dropped me on my head.

The pain was fading but the memories were persistent.

"Fred are you okay? Look I didn't mean to hurt you. Please don't cry."

"It's not that Luca. Give me a second, mmh."

I rubbed the spot on my head that felt squishy after the fall. A strange thought occurred to me: have I been reading to many of those stories in father's study that I just suddenly overlapped my own life with these made up events?

No they can't be made up I remember a little clearly now, I was old and dying and the memories from before then exist too I can tell somehow. The old me ended up being a baby for couple of minutes then Vanilla dropped me and I had forgotten for so long.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Hmm? Oh! Yeah I just had to hold in a little bit of a yell, it did hurt after all."

"You're really tough Fred. Even Marty cried when I pinched him on his arm once. He knocked me back over it too."

"I'm not going to hit you back for it, you weren't trying to throw me there."

"Right. Come on, dad's probably waiting for us to start his lesson today. You're learning with us this time."

My father decided it was time for me to start learning more advanced subjects this past week. He knew I had the intelligence to keep up with my older siblings.

I knew what lesson today would be about, novice level magic. It fascinated me to learn about it since I'd seen my own mother do it when I was a baby, and my father used it a lot when he trained with my eldest siblings.

As I began running with my brother down the hall and then the central stairway, I felt something strange. The sensation was entirely alien to me.

I remembered something about the books I read in my father's study, the sixth sense of the human body, the flow of mana through our physical bodies. This must be it. When I began thinking back on my old life I realized there was an entire feeling missing in them. It only came back now that I'm aware of it in my body. I wondered if everyone else could tell how odd this sensation is.

If I considered how much time I spent in my old life to now, this felt so unbearable like when a person gets hit with sunlight after leaving their house in the morning. The sudden warmth and brightness. That's how this felt to me after getting lost in thoughts of the past. I think the more accurate analogy would be like a blind person waking up with sight.

I caught up to my brother as he left the door to the library open.