Summer, 615 CA
The first thing I remember was opening my eyes.
The light was bright, and it took my vision several seconds to adjust to the strange, flickering orange light surrounding me.
My body felt good, all things considered. I didn’t feel any fatigue or lingering injury, but I couldn’t seem to move my neck. My fingers and toes moved freely, but they only responded after a significant delay.
Someone shouted excitedly in a language I didn’t understand. The language sounded to me like it was from continental Europe, but I knew enough German and French to know that it wasn't one of those two. Had I woken up in a Dutch hospital? I turned my eyes toward the source of the sound and saw a man in his thirties dressed in a strange, anachronistic outfit. The man’s clothes were antiquated, as if they were from the Victorian era. The man in strange clothing reached toward me, and I suddenly felt myself lifted into the air. What? He lifted me like I weighed nothing at all.
My eyes turned toward the force that had lifted me up into the air, and I saw that the man was holding me up in his massive hands. I saw my own body; it was small, naked, and pudgy.
Ah.
I didn’t survive the accident. The infantile body that I presently inhabited served as proof of that. Somehow, my consciousness had been transported into the body of an infant.
I surveyed the scene. The man holding me up must have been my father. He had jet black hair, unnatural red eyes, and striking good looks. Though the man’s features were alien to my sensibilities, there was an undeniable charismatic presence to the man that I could not deny.
To the other side of my small body was the woman who I inferred was my mother. Sweat had beaded on her cheeks, and bags had formed under her eyes, but she smiled weakly when I looked at her. She had reddish-brown hair and skin that was a shade tanner than the man’s.
The man passed me over to the woman who cradled me in her arms. It wasn’t an altogether unpleasant experience, all things considered. The woman spoke to me in that foreign language. Every word she said was completely lost on me. I heard the two words "Thale Feldrast" used together in conjunction a few times, and I figured that must have some meaning.
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After being passed around and manhandled for several infuriating hours, I laid in my crib and thought about my situation. They had placed a diaper and onesie upon my small, vulnerable body. I was clothed, which was somewhat of an improvement.
Turning my eyes toward the edge of the crib, and there I saw a small girl staring at me. Curious red irises belonging to a little girl that couldn’t be older than four years old watched me over the lip of my crib. Her hair was the same color as that of the woman who had held me in her arms so recently, and her eyes were the same unnatural color as the man’s. Considering that she had the features of my mother and father, I could only assume that she was my sister. The girl had long hair that stopped at her neck. Instead of growing downward, her hair grew outward, giving her a kind of "mop top" hairstyle.
The girl smiled at me. Her smile radiated trust and purity, and it made all the suffering in the world seem strangely distant. As I looked at the young girl, a memory flashed through my mind. It was a memory of this same girl, but she was twenty years older and bleeding to death on the ground.
With a quivering hand and eyes filled with dawning realization, she reached up toward a man with glowing red eyes and black hair. The man's expression did not flicker as his sister's eyes closed for the final time.
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The girl from my memory was named Miriam Feldrast, and she was an NPC from an MMO that I had played in high school called [Ferrum Online]. The memory faded from my mind, and the little smiling girl remained. The resemblance between the two was uncanny. It was very easy for me to imagine this little girl growing up into the woman from the memory. In reality, however, that was impossible. Miriam Feldrast was a video game character. She was a level 50 Priestess who was killed by her brother after being injured by the player's party. What was the name of her brother? It was tough for me to remember. Oh, that's right. It was Count Thale Feldrast, a level 70 Archmage.
I was struck by a wave of realization. My mother and father kept saying "Thale Feldrast." In [Ferrum Online], Thale had piercing red eyes and jet-black hair like the man who held me. I raised my hands until I could see them without moving my head. The small pale orbs hanging in my vision were the hands of Thale Feldrast.
I thought of how Miriam’s story went. Unlike Solana, the younger sister never turned against Thale. Miriam remained completely loyal until the moment Thale slit her throat.
I had been reborn into a video game.
The game was called [Ferrum Online], and it was one of the only video games I had ever played to completion. I had beaten the game in its original build, but I had never played the follow-up expansions. I was in medical school when the last expansion came out, and I couldn’t dedicate any time to it. There was one thing I knew about the expansions, however. Five years after the beginning of the game, an entity known as Lothar the Judge would appear from space and attempt to end the world. On some servers, he was successful, and those servers were deleted. Lothar would appear in the year 640 CA. Thale Feldrast was born in 615 CA, so I knew that I had 25 years until Lothar’s appearance. That was, of course, assuming that I could even make it to 640 CA, considering that the original Thale Feldrast died in 635 CA.
I briefly considered what tools were available to me. Thale Feldrast was the son of Armond Feldrast, the Count of Northwind. Due to the nature of inheritance laws in the Northern Realms, that made me the Heir Apparent to the Realm of Northwind.
In terms of drawbacks, I remembered that Thale Feldrast suffered from a weakened constitution and a frail body. He had to walk with a cane, and his desire to fix his ailing body drew him to dark magic. By the time the players fought Count Thale Feldrast in [Ferrum Online], he had committed unspeakable acts and transformed himself into a monster that could only survive by consuming the souls of the innocent.
When I shook myself out of my reverie of deep thought, I realized that I had been staring directly at Miriam for thirty seconds. She said something in a terrified, faltering voice that I did not understand. Miriam kept speaking, and her words became more fearful with each word. She took a few steps back, and I had to strain my eyes to track her. As I followed her eyes with my own, I saw that she was crying. With tears in her eyes, she fled from the room.
Armond Feldrast came into the room a few minutes later. He had a smile on his face, and Miriam was hiding behind his leg. As he approached, the man spoke soothingly to Miriam, and she responded in a timid voice. I thought of how trusting she was, and how betrayed she looked when Thale cut her throat with all the mercy of a farmer slaughtering a prized cow. Many things in [Ferrum Online] were preventable, but Miriam’s death wasn’t one of them.
My father scooped me up in his arms and sat down on a nearby chair. I found myself at about head-height with Miriam who regarded me with fearful eyes. My father said something in that same soothing voice.
I figured I should do something to calm her. With one pudgy hand, I reached out toward her. Miriam reached forward as if to shake my hand, and I grabbed one of her large fingers with my hand. She smiled happily, her red eyes beaming.
“Hello,” I tried to say in English, but the sound came out as a baby’s meaningless babble.
Miriam giggled, and my father let out a hearty laugh. Less than a minute later, I had been returned to my crib.
My father said some words as he grabbed Miriam by the shoulder and led her away from my crib. Armond Feldrast was smiling, and Miriam’s eyes were locked on mine. She waved a timid hand at me, and I raised my hand back in an approximation of a wave.
Without warning, white text appeared in the center of my vision. The text was generated from left to right as if it was being typed out on a computer.
System Initialized