There was darkness. Then there was pain. Then he heard voices and screams of fear and sorrow. Then, there was light that blinded his eyes. Then, here he was — at the arms of a warmly smiling woman that he couldn't help but smile back.

("Where the hell am I?") He answered curiously

The woman before him was beautiful. Her facial features were comparable to that of fashion model. Well, perhaps, not at her prime as her age was evident on the small wrinkles on her face, however, this did not degrade her beauty and the change was superficial. The woman had a light complexion, her hair was brown which were matched with beautiful golden irises of her eyes.

As he stared with a smile, she spoke to him, however, he did not understand the words being said nor he recognised the language. But at the moment, that was the least of his concerns, the biggest was — he is not from here. He does not know why he was in the hand of the woman before him, nor he knew how he got here in the first place. Thus, at the moment, he was rather perplexed by his current situation, and understandably so.

He tried moving his head, but he found it rather difficult as if his body cannot do the actions that he wanted. Then, as he moved his saw his right arm — utter shock was the only thing he felt, though, his expression did not reflect these feelings. He did not want to believe it at first, but coupled by the fact that he was in the arms of a woman; being carried like a small child.

He did not want to admit it, but supported by those two undeniable evidence, there was no denying his absurd situation. This information came to him like a speeding bullet and threw him in the state of mental shock. His logical and skeptical mind hoped that this was merely a dream, but he knew that his dreams were never this clear. Often times, he had simply forgotten them, and when he does, they were often murky.

("Sigh... Fuck.") He sighed and sweared internally as his mind began to put together the pieces of his bizarre circumstance. No matter how much he tried, there was nothing he could do.

("Now what should I do?") He ponders to himself. Again, there was nothing he could do, but he did not like the idea of being idle. To him, there must be someway that he could extract something productive with the time he will spend in his new body.

He wanted to act in a collected manner, but in reality, he was panicking mentally at the unprecedented. Given the nature of his new reality, he could'nt have thought of a plan of action. But, most importantly — he did not want this, he wanted to return and nothing else, simply because he had too much to lose leaving the place where he was from. His ambitions; his aspirations of raising his nation to greatness and thus, shifting the course of history and forever imprinting his mark on his beloved nation. With him being stuck in some unknown place, then, all of his goals and all his toiling to achieve said goals would be thrown into the dustbin and never to be recovered.

At the moment, his mind was sporadic, and his heart — while not literally — was beating rapidly in nervousness.

("Shit! This is not what I want! This is not what I want at all!") He shouted internally, though he wanted to physically do it instead, unfortunately, the physical limitations he had now limited such an action as the only words that he could conjure were incoherent noises.

As time passed, his initial shock began to subside, although, another realisation would disrupt his ease of mind once again. As he was in deep thought, he tried to recall some of his memories — none came up. Like missing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, he knew where the pieces should be, but the some of the individual pieces themselves were missing. However, unlike the first wave revelation, the effect on his mental state was limited and he was able to quickly return to a nominal state of mind.

Still, he found this fact troubling, while he was not sure with the ramifications of his memory loss. While he dreaded the possibly that he somehow was afflicted with a cognitive disease, but given how supernatural his situation was, it was also likely that it was something else.

Aside from the upsetting fact, he did find sole relief from his troubles; it seemed his academic knowledge remained — the present pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that made him aware of the absence of his missing memories. He valued his knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom, if he lost such qualities, he won't even know what to do. It was apparent that the memories he lost were mostly personal in nature — his name, his relationships, anything related to his person — they were gone.

("I don't have time to think about that now!") He shouts to himself.

Shaking off the least imperative musing that he had, and shifting his focus on the most immediate issue — him being a child and in a unfamiliar place that he has zero knowledge of.

("Alright, first order business: Information gathering.")

He looked around, although, he couldn't do much since he was now in a different body that is also happened to be in development, and at the early stages at that. His muscles felt rather weak as if they are not used to moving at all and he had to wait until his body grew enough to allow him to mostly freely explore the place he is in.

Thus, he can only look to the ceiling or to his right and left unless he was allowed to crawl around. He wanted to say it physically to the woman who carried him and apparently talked to him, though, again, he did not understand a single word; another issue that he had to tackle — Language and communication.

("This is annoying.") He quickly did not like the coming years to be in his current form and only realised how much he liked to move. To be constantly working on something; to be productive until he was exhausted. Unfortunately for the hapless man trapped inside of a child, he had no choice but to wait.

("Good thing I could think to past the time.")

He tried to speak again, with a question to the woman before him, but expectedly, he could only utter incoherent baby noises and nothing else. It was obvious his vocal chords — like the rest of his body — was still in development and would take time for them to mature.

("How old am I anyway?") While he asked to himself, he obviously did not know that without verbally asking to the woman, whom, he assumes to be his mother. As he cursed his physical limitations to do anything that not even communication was remotely possible for a time; one of the many things he held dearly for their usefulness.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

While he had many questions and thoughts, he had to set them aside in order to deal with the immediate issues at hand. They were not hard to solve, and it was clear that his objectives were thusly: Learn as much as he could and achieve his ambitions. Which, despite the memory loss regarding him and his connection, his life goals somehow remained in his mind. It was a mystery that he highly doubted would be solved in anytime in his life, perhaps even never.

Discarding the thought of how he got to the situation that he was in, and instead focused and how deal with it. When more time passed, the fact that he was now, once again, a baby. He was resolved to play along and act what people expected him to, at least, to a limited extent.

He realised that he would need to create a character, or at minimum, a modification of his current personality — though, he doesn't really remember, but surely, remnants of it existed and simply forgotten it. Naturally, he also worried that he might spill knowledge that he is not expected to have. He wanted to be seen as innately intelligent and prodigious, and not as uncannily knowledgeable. The uncertainty of the outcome and not the consequences themselves is what he feared the most. Hence, he should keep his reincarnation or whatever it was — a personal secret.

After deliberating his actions to himself while simultaneously reacting to his mother's playful gestures with smiles and giggles. Frankly, he does not have to try hard to act like an infant should; it was a surprise, but a welcome one. He does not know why that is, but that did not matter to him at the moment as it made the issue easy to resolve.

After the shock finding out that he was in a body of child in an unknown place, the reality began to sank in and gave him a more stable peace of mind. The fact that he was most likely and somehow reincarnated, he did not want to believe it initially; his logical mind and general common sense refused such acceptance. But, also having a mind of rationality, a few strong evidence pointed that made him think otherwise.

("The fuck is happening...") He spoke in a tired tone (Mentally at least), and if he had greater control of his body, he would have slumped his shoulders.

Not letting his mental exhaustion take over, he again refocused attention to the present; the immediate issues he had on hand. Trying his best to no longer get sidetracked by other thoughts, but then again, he did not feel his situation was urgent. But still, he wanted to deal with it now rather later.

He saw his mother talk to someone outside his view, he wanted to turn his head and see but there was no luck. His neck was too weak for now, while it could hold up his head, which also goes with the rest of his muscles. However, he was not dexterous, and his condition is far from that word as possible. His movements were limited, naturally, that was expected from a newborn.

("Shit... I need to learn how to crawl again don't I?")

While he does not remember his past, he could infer with the knowledge that he had that revolved around learning the basics. Walking, eating, drinking, playing, reading, thinking, speaking and so forth. Good thing he already a majority of those, the issue was the reading and speaking where he had to start from the very beginning.

Before he realised it, time had passed quickly, at first, when he came here, it seemed to be noon and now, it was evening. It that time, he saw curios faces in varying lengths of time. There was his mother, of course, then a elderly woman who was apparently a house maid given her outfit and likely acted as midwife when he was conceived. He saw her in brief moments, but mostly saw her holding a poker face, though, he did sometimes see her with a smile, he could only assume it was directed towards him.

The elderly woman's face was covered were wrinkles as if she was nearing 70 or 80, yet, her hair was brown with only spots of white here and there.In their conversations, he heard his mother call her 'Helena', though, he was unsure if that was what actually was said and not that he misheard.

Then, there was a toddler that met his gaze — a girl, possibly 5 years of age looked to his direction. Her stare was mysterious and innocent, for a girl her age, she had an exceptional poker face. To his remaining knowledge, children are an expressive and reactive bunch, hence, they were rather poor controlling their feelings and emotion. Another example that there are always exceptions to the norm no matter who and what they are.

Most glaring about her appearance though, she had similar features as the woman that carried him, or rather — his mother. Naturally, anyone with minimal brain power could surmise that they are mother and daughter. Hence, making her his elder sister.

The two stared at eachother, both with curiosity and wonder, then the girl turned to their mother. They spoke for a brief moment, again, he did not understand a word of the exchange, but he got the sense that it was personal and he got to see a glimpse of emotion from the girl's face. Determination is what he saw, but for what exactly it was, that is something he does not know and will not know for a while.

When the conversation ended, she continued to stare at him with a mysterious expression. He could not help but wonder what that was, but that was something he had to set aside for something else.

He spent half of his time on his head, and at times a lot more. As a result, he had not been paying attention much to his surroundings, he wanted to look around by trying to turn his head or simply rolling over to hopefully get a better view. But, all those did was make dizzy was not exactly keen into to doing it again. He also realised that he got tired rather quickly when moving too much, hence, in the fear of over working his body, he decided moved far more sparingly. That was essentially his life for days, and, when he could, he tried to observe anything of interest to him. There were no books for him to look at unfortunately, but then again, he is most likely a few days old and is nor expected to read or speak a single word.

Another interesting detail he found that, that his mother had pointed ears like a stereotypical elf from a fantasy book. It was not very long though, and more similar to that of normal human ears than anything else. But again, just like before, segments of his mind refused to accept the reason that she was an elf, but instead, it was a sort of minor genetic disorder.

Despite thought, he never took it seriously as it had no immediate negative effect. But, he did take it as evidence that he might be in another world, but he couldn't be to sure as it was not enough to prove that. He does not if she were an elf or not, he could not prove that unless asked or read about it. But the issue of language rose again, and his desire to learn the native tongue and language increased.

Then, the days passed on as he became an infant again and loss his personal memories but somehow still retained his memories. It was a mystery that he highly doubt would be solved anytime soon or ever. He did not want it, he wanted to achieve his ambitions in his former world, not here — if he was in a different one. But what can he do? He is only a feeble human after all (If he is still that). Perhaps though, he could achieve it here instead; his dreams of changing the world and leaving his mark on it that still could be seen and felt even after his death. Even if it dismayed him that he no longer lived in the same plane of existence as the personal heroes that he admired in the history books. But he still has chance of doing it here, although, that is reliant on his current circumstances and forces beyond his control.

However, if he were lucky, then he might have a shot of spiritual following the footsteps of the great men of his old world, or perhaps he will be motivated by the individuals of this world too, like the former. It was a shame, to lose what he had back then, he did not know what they were but he could feel that it was a lot. But again, there was nothing to do but to just deal with it and somehow move on.

Thus, trough an absurd circumstance, his goals and ambition remained, but he had to start from square one and on an unfamiliar other world that might be similar to the ones in a fantasy fiction.

A new world. A new body.A new life. For a child with ambitions as high as the mountains.He hoped things will end well.