Chapter Four

Life After Death

Taking a moment to scan the room that I was apparently given birth to in, I was unimpressed. After growing used to living in a fairly nice house with beautiful black and white furnishings. For lack of better words, the shack that I was currently in was disappointing at best.

It looked to be something akin to a log cabin with large wooden walls. I was currently in who I assume to be my new mother's arms on a small bed with dark blue sheets. The person my mother referred to as Michal was standing right to the side of us. He was just peering down into my eyes with a grin so wide I swear it would touch his ears if he smiled anymore.

After taking in as much of the 'house' that I was able to before Michal, who I assume to be my father, picked me up and very slowly began to rock me back and forth.

After being handed off again to the doctor for a quick check, I heard the woman who just birthed me say, "Thank you so much, doctor. For everything you have done, even making sure to bring some extra food that your wife made."

"Please Aleana, everyone in this village would do just the same as me because we know you would do it for us as well," the doctor said warmly before getting up and seeing himself off to give some time to my parents.

"Look how cute he is, with his little patch of hair, an- Oh My! Michal, come look at Adam's eyes," my new mother said.

As my father scurried his way over to me, I thought, 'Adam, huh. Is that my name now? Also, what in the hell is up with my eyes? I can see perfectly, and there isn't anything wrong that I can tell. Is it something above them that I can't see?'

Whenever my father got to me, he made an exaggerated gasp as well before stuttering, "They are- Th-they are different colors. How did that happen?"

"I have no clue, but isn't it beautiful? It's like he has one of your eyes and one of mine. The blue in his left eye even has the same sparkle that yours does."

"And his brown eye looks just like yours as well," my father said, still stunned.

"Really. Just 'oh, it looks the same,'" my mother said in a mocking voice. "I gave a real compliment, and you’re just the same as usual, I see." After saying this, both of my parents fell into a fit of laughter at their obvious attempt to poke fun at each other.

With both of them laughing at each other I felt something that I hadn't felt in quite some time. I felt delighted. It wasn't that I was sad or depressed before, but the type of joy that I felt watching them laughing with each other was simply a different type of joy. Pure and unrefined joy.

The joy didn't dissipate whenever they finally stopped laughing -which felt like it would go on forever- the joy didn't dissipate. It started with me brightening my mood. A little while after Michal and Aleana stopped laughing they moved through the door on the side of the room opening up to more of the house, which honestly surprised me that there was more to the house.

After leaving the little room that we were in, my parents slowly took me to a small sitting area. It had one small loveseat and a small davenport, and both were made out of a rough clothy texture. It made up for this downfall by having the pelt of some large furry animal covering the seats.

The centerpiece of the room was a large stone hearth that had a beautiful wooden mantel above it. Sitting on the mantel were two small portraits. One of the portraits portrayed an ocean sunset, the other depicted a view of a forest in autumn right when the leaves hit their most beautiful.

Seeing the portrait of the autumn forest reminded me about the falling of the leaves in San Francisco and the life that I had there. Who knows, I don't know where in the world I am right now, but hopefully, I will be able to make it back to San Francisco, to my home.

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After my own little internal silique, I realized that my parents were talking with each other about the future, my future. When I realized what they were talking about, my hopes were dashed about returning home to San Francisco.

"... if he has the ability to become a proper mage, I want to send him to a formal school, not some random place in the countryside," my mother said in a demanding but also friendly tone. She said it with just enough authority to make sure you knew that it wasn't something that she would change her mind on, but not so demanding that it felt as if you couldn't reply at all.

"I'm not saying that we should send him to a bad school, but he has to become a proficient mage first, and that is a very large but. You're not a mage and even if you were a mage it is still fifty-fifty for a child of two mages to be a well-off mage."

After hearing that, I was at a complete loss. Magic, really? If the magic that I was thinking of was the magic they were talking about, then there was absolutely no way that I was on earth. It passed through my head initially that I was transported to the past. However, if I was thrown back in time due to my supposed reincarnation and magic was a real thing, there surely would have been history and reports of magic.

There were no reports of magic being used in the past that were reliable. Anything that mentioned magic was folklore or blatantly made up for views on the internet. My parents also made it sound like it was common for people to use magic. If it really was that common, there surely would have been some information on the topic.

The amount of inner turmoil that I was experiencing -the panic of no longer being on earth but also the excitement at possibly being able to learn magic- was starting to really solidify the predicament that I was in. I was no longer on earth, or at least I was on earth before any recorded history. That didn't make much sense though, because there were things like paint, and we were in a relatively complex structure. There were also metal hinges on the door. The technology for metal hinges hadn't been invented before historical recordings. In the grand scale of things, hinges were still a relativity new invention.

After hinging back and forth on the topic of still being on earth, just long in the past, I realized that sleep was slowly overtaking me. It angered me that sleep was slowly lulling me in. I wanted to sit and listen to more of what my parents were speaking about and learn more about where or when I was. I wanted to know more about magic, but as all great things come to an end, my pursuit of knowledge came to an end as well as sleep slowly overtook my consciousness.

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Five months later

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In the past few months, I had come to learn and accept a few things. The first and arguably most important was that I indeed was no longer on earth and that I had reincarnated. The most important people so far in this new life were Michal and Aleana Fritz, and they were the people who had given birth to me, Adam Fritz. It took an unimaginably long time to have it finally set in that I had a new name. It was awkward getting used to a new name after tens of years of hearing another name.

The fact that I was no longer on earth was set in stone relatively early on. I stumbled upon a wordless book in the study that happened to have maps of varying places pertaining to the continent we were on. With the book, I knew that if this was earth, even this one book would have been found and kept as a relic of the old days, and it was proof that it wasn't just a time before history and record-keeping.

Another thing that came to my attention was movement. I was under the impression that it would be easy because I had done it before in my past life, but I don't think I could have been more wrong. Crawling, the first step to becoming mobile, was near impossible at first. Having to move specific mussels at specific times with almost no control over your body is unimaginably difficult.

After a few months, I finally got the hang of it. I didn't think I would be as satisfied as I was when I first successfully crawled. I only made it a few feet, and it was from one side of the rug to the other slide in our little living room. While it was a small distance, it paved my way to where I am now.

I was currently sitting in my mother's little study room where she was knitting. It wasn't a large room by any means. Still, it was an extremely cozy room with a large painting on one of the walls that was similar in design to the painting on the mantel depicting an autumn forest.

The other main feature of the room was a large bookshelf spanning an entire wall. I was attempting to make my way over to the bookshelf when my mother looked up from what she was doing and sighed. I thought she would get up and take me back to her side. Surprisingly, though, she went back to knitting, just mumbling about how 'adventurous' I was even as an infant.

I finally made it to the shelf and was staring at the books' spines when I realized something. I couldn't read them. I was so excited to finally learn more about where I was and more about magic, but I couldn't read the damn books.

I tried to pull one of the books from the shelf to see if it was only the spine that was in a different language. Seeing it up close though, it looked similar to English but different in an indescribable sort of way. Somehow without me noticing my mother had jumped into action and snatched me up from the floor, scolding in her motherly voice, "Don't touch those, what would I do if one of those fell on you."

In response, I just gave a slight grunt in my baby voice because that was all that I was currently able to do. Hearing that, my mother seemed to melt at the simple little noise I had made. Without even giving me enough time to make another move or sound, she went and grabbed a book from one of the middle shelves and opened it to start reading it to me. It was a children's book about a powerful hero that slew a mighty dragon trying to destroy the world.

In the middle of the book, my mother took a moment to reminisce to herself about my father's adventure days, saying how wonderful he was back then. Even as embellished as it was, my mother's talking to herself about my father proved extremely insightful. She revealed something fundamental about where I am currently. That being how mages take the first steps in learning magic.