Chapter 3

Now that Silent is born

Silent. Why have I been cursed with such a name? Silent’s ponderings haven’t pushed him any further than the day he was born, again that is. Having completely forgotten that Orza claimed reincarnation was a normal situation.

I can’t imagine that it is a family name. He thinks to himself while his mother is holding his legs far above his head, cleaning yet another mess silent has created unwillingly. Even three days after his ‘birth’ he is confused. I am sleeping almost all day, and I am always tired, it is like this place that being stuck me in saps my energy constantly. In truth, Silent was unaware that babies needed to rest so often just to grow, let alone have brain function at the level of an average teenager. Also, this planet worked wonders for Silent that he would only find out about in the future.

Silent didn’t particularly enjoy the beginning of his new life. At first, all he ate was breast milk, which was gross, not because it tasted bad, it didn’t taste terrible, it was actually kind of sweet, it was mostly the stigma against it.  The bad part was that Silent remembered every moment of protruding out of his new mother each time she lifted her blouse to feed him. At first he wouldn’t have anything to do with her, but after the first few hours he was so famished that he thought he could eat even spiders and not regret it.

After a couple of days Silent began to ignore his qualms about breastfeeding, and began to think of more important things. He constantly reminisced on his former family, Silent had two sisters before that he had constantly ignored, the youngest was nine, the older sister was twelve. Silent imagined thousands of times since his death getting revenge because of what was done to himself, but he once more neglected his siblings, even after death he felt he was a bad brother. His parents however were older, they were already fifty when the monsters attacked them. Part of him was relieved at their early death since they didn’t have to watch their children die in front of them. They also didn’t have to endure old age after the Long family travesty. If they had survived, Silent’s previous father would likely commit to a self destructive lifestyle of alcoholism and living on the streets, while his mother would have most likely not been able to survive after her children’s deaths.

Silent continued about his life for the next several months hating himself, saying to himself that it was his fault that his family had been murdered. I should have listened. This single thought permeated his mind more than anything. His previous parent’s had constantly warned him about his “friend”. They said Jim was no good more times than now-Silent cared to remember. He had entered a state of self loathing greater than any amount of hormones had produced when he had first began to go through puberty.

After another several months of his monotonous trifecta of eating, sleeping, and making a mess of himself, Silent began to have more and more control over his body. Silent began crawling as early as he could physically handle the stress of holding up his own head.

Silent found that crawling was rather ineffective in moving about his new home though and began to sit and scoot on my rear across the ground. This allowed him to be just a little bit taller as he moved, and he didn’t have to rely on coordinating his underdeveloped muscles to move.

While he was learning how to move his new body Silent continued to think of the reason that his family and himself were killed in his past life. Silent would scoot to a secluded corner of the house as often as he could and cry as well as hate both himself and the being that forced his unfortunate situation to occur.

This obviously caused Silent’s new parents to worry about him. They thought that I was hungry or tired. They didn’t know that he wanted to wallow in my self pity for just a few more months before his dexterity allowed him to speak and walk.

On one such adventure to a secluded corner Silent had entered a room of a house that he had never entered before. In this room was a person he had never before met. Silent knew of his mother, and his father in this world, but this person was not either, this person was a woman that had reached the point in life in which the hourglass was heavier on the bottom than the top. The woman had an aura about her that drew one’s attention immediately. Even in a crowded street, she would be noticed with ease. Silent had taken a liking to her as soon as he had seen her.

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“So you have finally wandered into my room,” she said soothingly, her voice compared to any other Silent has heard is like water over oil, it is bewitching. Almost immediately he had come to the conclusion that this woman was magical. No one should be this great and not have the assistance of some kind of spell, Silent jumped to this conclusion with the only evidence being her voice and presence.

“You are quite sharp, aren’t you little one?” She questioned rhetorically, gazing at silent all the while. A sweet smirk was on her face. Her eyes pierced Silent’s soul. He had never been looked at like this before, it felt like the sins he had committed in this life and the last were obsolete with one gaze. Even the bright smile of his happy mother wasn’t so great. Silent felt as if he would do anything to constantly earn such an understanding and happy look.

I’d like to think so, Silent thought to myself, overwhelming joy danced in his heart because of the praise of this senior citizen.  His heart was filled with nothing but praise for this lady. Her brown hair looked as if life was abundant in it even after a lifetime. Her nails had no signs of her true age. Her eyes were a verdant light violet, like a flower freshly bloomed in the spring. The only sign of aging at all on the woman was crow's feet at her eyes as if she squinted for a living and grew small wrinkles about her cheeks from countless years of laughter.

“Most people do entertain the idea that they are bright, but I have a feeling that you will do great things Sai,” She said, this had been the first time Silent Had heard such a nickname for myself, he became caught off guard just from this, let alone the seeming conversation he began to having with this grandmotherly woman.

I wonder if she can hear my thoughts, read my mind like a book even? I wouldn’t put it past someone in this place, that being Orza did say this place was one of magic and swords. Silent’s thoughts continued as he stared at this woman, his eyes spread wide as if he had seen a miracle. Silent lifted my arms up as if to grab at some of her presence, grasping at the air, hoping to grab hold of some of the mysterious charisma flowing off of her invisibly, his legs still stuck out in front of me at an awkward angle that only gymnasts and babies were capable of.

“The mind is not like a book, but it is open to those who have enough power, and you, Sai, can call me Grandma Black.” She explained all of this in a single breath. His suspicion confirmed, she does have access to my deepest thoughts. As soon as she said this Silent began to worry. His mind flashed to the thoughts of his regret, his fear, his self loathing, all of his worries of his past family, all of his experiences in his past life. In seconds, Silent had thought of all of this and let out a small squeak before turning around and scooting as quickly as he could toward the door of this secluded room and the mind reading of ancient Grandma Black.

“Oh, did I scare you, you shouldn't carry that much resentment anyway, it is hard to fathom how you could even remember any of that, ” her sweet voice once more came from behind him. “I knew about your past as soon as you had entered the womb child. Even then, your mind was active.” he turned his head to look back at her one last time before exiting the room, mind games like hers scared Silent more than even the gun that the brute in his old home had. “Sai, whenever you’re ready, come back here. I’ll be waiting for you. We will have a lot to discuss child.” Her call echoed through the three room hall, loudly yet soothingly. It had reminded me of one day when Silent’s own grandmother had dropped him off at elementary and said that she loved him out of the window of her small car while driving away.

The following days after his scare were far less eventful than meeting with an elderly mind reader. Silent had avoided that back room though at all costs, when he finally began to be capable of walking he had begun taking a roundabout way to the bathroom just to avoid her always partly opened door. The route that he took naturally avoided the part of the door where she could see directly out of it and into your soul. Silent’s new parent’s however coerced him into taking the faster, and seemingly more dangerous route a handful of times though. Each time, Silent could see a sliver of her face through the crack in the door and see a single eye staring back at him,  locking him into place.

More than a year after his re-birth, Silent had finally learned that that woman was in fact his grandmother on his father's side. No one that spoke to her called her by name, my father called her ‘Old lady’, Silent felt that this was rather disrespectful when he first heard it, but realized that it was endearing after a while. Silent’s mother however merely called her ‘Ma’am’, there was far less endearment in her tone, so naturally Silent came to the conclusion that she was his father’s mother, and that his mother didn’t enjoy living in the same house as her mother-in-law, Silent of course was unaware that his grandmother had trained his mother and that is how she and his father met, nor was Silent aware that his grandmother was countless years old and she was still training my mother.

Silent’s  parent’s had found after a few short months after my birth that he was not a fan of their baby talk and he did not respond to it at all, but now after about a year and a half of growing up in their house, they found that he was far more eloquent than they had raised him to be. Silent listened as his father told his mother about the news in the town. He watched as they cooked odd food, that, while it didn’t taste foul, it could not win any prizes either. Eventually, Silent began to form his own words and could now investigate this new world of magic and swords.