Sean Brynor

It was a strange feeling, being birthed. Disorienting is the best way to describe it. There wasn’t really any pain, though I’m sure my mother would disagree, but it was extremely uncomfortable. It was like having my head shoved through a small hole, but instead of stopping when nothing else could fit, my head morphed and shifted to fit through. It’s not an experience anyone can say they remember, except me, of course.

I’ve known since then that I’m not normal. I had gained consciousness a few weeks earlier, but at that point I didn’t know where I even was. Then, well, what happened, happened, and I realized that I was a baby. Though I already knew that something was wrong. Babies don’t typically know that they are babies. I was an enigma. I already knew and understood everything, from language, to regular customs, to the infuriating difficulty that was math. I was essentially an adult mind inside of a newborn’s body. The only question was, how did I come to be? Specifically I meant my mind. I understood how babies were born.

Unfortunately, given my body’s current state, I was unable to spend a lot of time thinking about that question. I mostly just slept and pooped. I had grown tired of my daily life rather quickly, even though I was only two weeks in. The thought that I would have to wait several months, maybe even a year, before my body would even be able to crawl, was terrifying. The boredom alone may be enough to kill me. I did my best to keep my brain occupied when I was awake, but when I started to think too much, I would pass out. I suspected my baby brain was having a hard time processing all the information I was pushing through it. This caused me a lot of headaches, pain that could only be quelled through screaming, to my parents' dismay.

It took a full month before I could see clearly. When I could, the world seemed incredibly bright. I wanted to see everything. After months in darkness, everything that my eyes came across was like a new mystery I wanted to unravel. Then, I would recognize the object. Whether it was the fireplace, the table, or a cooking pot, I knew what it was. I always knew what everything was. Those mysteries were quickly solved, and the world suddenly went dark again. Everything lost its luster and became dull. So, I started looking for things I didn’t know. My eyes traveled upwards to the woman staring down at me.

I was being held by my mother, whom my father called Cori, in the main room of the house. We sat on a wooden rocking chair that was moving back and forth, a motion that almost made me fall asleep. Next to us was the fireplace, already lit, even though I could tell it was just past midday looking outside the window. On the other side of the room was what seemed to be a primitive kitchen. Pots and pans were hung over some kind of fire pit, with a single pot hanging just above the flame. In the middle of the room was a table, with benches on either side of it. The floor was stone, and most of the walls were wooden. That was it. There was nothing else.

Fear welled up inside of me. There was no electronics, no modern technology at all. Where was I? Was I in the past? Did I time travel? Who am I? Why did I know so many things? Why did I understand it all? More and more questions kept rushing through my head. For the first time in my life (which had only been a month), I felt truly helpless. Almost like a real baby. Tears began to run down my face, and I wanted to yell. To scream. I wanted to convey any possible emotion I could, but before I could, I heard my mother’s voice. For the first time, I truly heard it. It was soothing to my ears. A calming sound that instantly made me want to fall asleep.

“Hush, my little bird. It’s okay, everything will be alright, mommy’s here,” she said, a slight nervousness in her voice.

Everything seemed so simple at that moment. Nothing was important except Mother. I looked up at her face, getting my first real view of her. She was warm. Gentle. Everything a mother should look like to their child. Her smile was like honey. It instantly calmed me down, pushing all of my questions away and leaving my focus entirely on her. Her eyes were a deep blue, like water, and her hair was long and smooth, flowing down past her shoulders, so blonde that it was almost white. I would have stared at her for hours, if not for father bursting in through the door at that moment.

“Oy! I brought home a nice meal, sweetheart!” He boomed across the room with a rough and deep voice.

I imagine I would have started crying then and there if I was a regular baby, but I did well to hold my composure. That was until he scooped me up from mother with one arm and I managed to get a look at him. It was then that any normal human would be terrified. Father was huge, towering so tall that his head almost hit the ceiling, and muscles so large I’m surprised he hadn’t already crushed me by accident. However, his physique was not what was terrifying about him, it was his face. One eye had a horrible scar cutting from his forehead down across his cheek, revealing a deep hole where it once used to be. His other eye was dull brown, but fierce and almost angry. Other scars were scattered across his face, only slightly covered by his short beard. He also had scars across his arms and legs. His hair was probably the least scary thing about him. Long and brown, somehow neatly tied into a bun at the back of his head.

“Sean! Look at what Father brought home for dinner!” He yelled into my ear, lifting up the dead something that was in his other hand. I wanted to cry from the stench alone.

“Aaron,” My mother said quietly, her honey-like voice turning it to want could only be described as the sound equivalent to a sword, “You’re scaring Sean.”

Father looked quickly down at me, then back to Mother, a look of dumbfoundedness, then fear going across his face, “Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

My sight was still a little blurry, but I thought I could see my father’s fierce eyes change into ones filled with sorrow, but as quickly as it showed up, the look disappeared. Mother took me back in her arms and I immediately melted into them.

“Anyways,” Father said, finally calming his voice slightly, “I’ll get this ready so that we can eat it with the stew tonight. I’ll be right outside if you need me Cori.”

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“Thank you, love,” My mother responded, any anger she had seconds ago completely absent from her voice.

My parents then exchanged a kiss, and my father walked outside to clean whatever animal he had hunted. At that point, my brain had clearly suffered from taking in so much information, and I completely shut down, falling asleep.

My first dream came to me during that nap. I’m still not sure if it was a memory or not, but it definitely has helped me figure out who I am. I was in a car, driving. Or rather, learning to drive. Beside me sat a woman, but I couldn’t make out any of her features. I just knew that she was a woman. I could feel myself press the gas pedal too hard, and the car accelerate quickly, jerking me backwards against the leather seat. I awoke quickly after that.

Although I have yet to explore the outside, it’s clear to me that the world I am currently in is foreign, at least somewhat, to me. I know of things yet to be invented, and, if what my dream tells me is true, I have lived a life where those inventions existed. I have lived before, somewhere else. This is a second life. I have been reincarnated. The only issue is, I have no memories of my previous life. I have retained my knowledge, but not the personal memories of my first life. Part of me actually felt happy about this. Although my memories would better help me understand my situation, I feared that any personal attachments I had then could leave me depressed. Well, more depressed. The issue of my boredom had still yet to be resolved.

The house was less than fascinating, and while it was fun to have Father pick me up and run me around the room as if I was an airplane, it grew repetitive quickly. It also became difficult to keep my food down, likely straining my parents' relationship. In fact, it seemed everything my father did strained their relationship. Despite his looks, Father was much more like a child than even I, the baby, was. He regularly played with me, having more fun with my toy ball than I did, since I found it boring, and constantly teased my mother as if he was a middle schooler. Now that I thought about it, both of them did look young. Well, Mother looked young. Father looked like a barbarian, but given how he acted I imagined he wasn’t very old. Despite all of his vices though, I felt loved, but also incredibly bored.

I wanted to explore. To see what the world was like outside the house, but my parents had yet to take me anywhere. Father went hunting everyday, and mother would occasionally go out, but only when he had returned. It wasn’t until I was about six months when I could finally convey my feelings. I was being held by Mother at the dinner table and, through an incredible amount of effort, finally spoke my first word, “Outside.”

It was very quiet, and almost unintelligible, but it made my father drop his fork.

“Did he… Did Sean just say his first word?”

“He did! I think he did!” My mother yelled ecstatically.

They both began to jump up and down in glee. The moment actually made me quite proud of myself. It did take a lot of effort to say that one word, so I felt their celebration fit the circumstances. Father took me from my mother’s arms and held me out in front of him.

“My boy. Growing up so fast,” I thought that Father might cry after saying that.

“He said outside Aaron,” My mother said, “Perhaps keeping him cooped up all this time hasn’t really been good for him.”

“I could take him hunting with me,” My father said, his face telling me he was completely serious.

My mother hit him hard on the back and said, “You’re insane you imbecile,” with her sharp, sword-like voice, then quickly switched back to the honey-like one, “I will take him on my errand run tomorrow then. It would be good for him to see the village.”

Success. The next morning my mother prepared for us to go into the village. She planned on purchasing some vegetables for the stew that night. I could hardly contain my excitement as she carried me in a small backpack towards the door. With every step, I grew more and more greedy for something interesting on the outside. My expectations grew, but something else was growing beside it. A weird tingling feeling in my stomach. It was incredibly uncomfortable, and only became worse as we got closer to the door. Something was wrong. I was so close to the outside yet, I felt like I had to stop. Alarms were going off in my brain telling me to get away from the door, from the outside.

As Mother passed through the door and into the front yard, I felt my breath be taken away. My chest grew incredibly tight, and I felt nothing but absolute terror, but there was nothing I could do. I could only start to scream. Mother quickly took me off her back and held me tightly. I couldn’t hear what she was saying through my screams, but she ran us back inside and did her best to calm me. I passed out soon after, exhausted from my fear and my screams.

I awoke that evening in my crib, barely able to hear my parents outside the room.

“He just started screaming. I don’t even know why. I was so scared. He stopped breathing for a minute,” I heard my mother crying.

My father was consoling her, helping her calm down, adding a sense of guilt to my confusing emotions. I wanted to go outside, to see what the world looked like, but something inside of me, something from before this life, wouldn’t let me. I was doomed to live as a shut-in, unable to see the world around me. At this thought, I closed my eyes, hoping to wake up as a different person. I dreamt for the second time. I was lying on a bed and all I could hear was yelling from outside the door to my room. I had my hands on my ears, and tears were crawling down my face. I didn’t want to move. I was scared.

Several months passed and we celebrated my first birthday. No attempt was ever made by me or my parents for me to go outside again. They didn’t even bring me close to the windows. I resented them for this. Part of me wished for them to force me outside, so that I could move past whatever had happened to me in my past life, but a part of me was glad they didn’t. I had started to get the hang of walking, making exploring the house much easier, but nothing would ever pique my interest. I would just end up falling asleep wherever I walked. No more dreams came, despite my best efforts. I thought if I knew what happened to me it would help me get over this fear, but it seemed my memories wouldn’t come back to me by choice.

Finally, my boredom and sense of curiosity overcame my fear. As Father was preparing dinner, Mother walked out of the house to go into the village. I walked over and climbed up the bench sat by one of the windows and watched her walk away. Outside the house was a small stone pathway that led to a gravel road. Our house was sat atop a hill, the gravel road leading a few hundred meters down into the village. The yard was surrounded by a stone wall maybe a meter high, and I could see flowers and plants growing in a garden just at the edges of it. As Mother walked past them, I saw something I couldn't believe.

Even cooped up in the house, I thought I had begun understanding the world around me just a little bit. I thought it was the past, or maybe even some distant planet that only had primitive technology, but it was now clear that I was completely wrong. This wasn’t the past, it was an entirely different world from the one I knew. I watched as Mother flicked her hand towards a patch of flowers in the front garden, a stream of water rising from a small pond and gently spraying them with a clear mist. Then, she simply continued her journey into the village.