Rahma knew she was more than what everyone saw. She wasn't just a little girl but she was someone else from another place.
At 3 years old, she made the mistake of telling her parents about her other life in a magical world. Her parents called the mullah to exorcise the jinni that they thought possessed their daughter.
Since then, she kept the memories from her previous life to herself, the memories were mostly vague, but she remembered two things above all else;
“I have to learn more about technology, especially weapons” she didn’t always remember why she had to learn about weapons, but she knew she must.
The second thing she remembered was “Find and meet Mr. Vorlds.”
Obtaining knowledge wasn’t easy as her previous life in this world. She was now in a poor, conservative family in a poor, conservative country that didn’t look too kindly to educated women. She taught herself to read and write at age 4. Still, it wasn’t until she was 8 that she finally convinced her family to let her into school, telling them that being educated and getting a degree in medicine would increase her chances of finding a rich husband.
She had a lot of knowledge from her previous two lives, so she excelled at her small school in the small village. this made her the “genius kid,” which made everyone in the village, including her conservative family, support her education.
She didn’t hate her new family; they were kind simple people who wanted what’s best for her according to what they understood was best. Her father wasn’t as jovial and funny as her blacksmith father, but he also wasn’t like the drunkard who used to beat her. He was a harsh pious man who spoiled her when he thought no one was looking. She had 4 older brothers, and all were very protective of her. It was sometimes suffocating, but sometimes she enjoyed the attention. Only sometimes, though.
Before graduating high school, she had a conversation with her mother.
“Umma,” she called her mother that when she wanted something, “please tell abba that I have to go to the city to become a doctor.”
“Why the city?” her mother said while cleaning rice “what’s wrong with our town? All your cousins went to the local college, and they married wonderful husbands.”
Rahma skipped a few grades and was going to be accepted into the finest university in the country. She scored the 2nd highest grade in the country on the national 12th-grade midterm exams and would probably score higher on the finals. She was the pride of her family and village, but her father was still reluctant to send his favorite child to the city by herself.
“You heard what the minister said” the minister of education himself came to their house pleading to let Rahma study at the university.
“Yes, yes,” Her mother continued to clean rice, “don’t let all this talk of ‘Smartest kid he’s ever seen’ and ‘a national treasure to the motherland’ go to your head” she pointed the spoon to Rahma “these are creepy old men, and they never want anything good to women.”
“Mother, please, I’ll be careful; Ihsan even said he would gladly come with me” Ihsan was the youngest of her brothers, just a few years older than her. He was her favorite brother. “I’ll be safe there.”
“Safe with who?” her mother scoffed. “Ihsan can barely keep himself safe!”
Her mother was no help, so instead, she went to her grandpa. He was the most ‘progressive’ of her family, meaning he didn’t think women were entirely subservient to men, only a little.
“Don’t worry, Rahooma,” he told her while watching the news and drinking chai “he probably already trying to find you a house there. He just wants you to keep you on your toes and tell your uncles that he wasn’t entirely ok with this”
Rahma hoped her grandpa was right.
After finishing the final exams and scoring the highest grade in the country despite being only 15, her father had a private conversation with her.
“Sweetie, I am sorry, but you’re not going to the capital,” her father said sadly. “it’s filled with predators and awful men; you won’t be safe there alone.”
“Father no! please, I promise I’ll be good, Ihsan will come with me! I can’t learn in the local college.”
“I know,” her father couldn’t contain his smile, “because you’re studying abroad!”
Rahma took a moment to process the information.
“You’re not going to go to the best university in this country. You deserve to go to the best universities in all the world!”
She squealed with delight and hugged her father, who reluctantly hugged her back.
Her grandfather was wrong. Her father wasn’t delaying because of relatives. He was delaying because a foreign embassy offered Rahama a fully paid scholarship to one of the best universities in the world.
Her entire village came to the party her family threw her; the mayor gave a speech about how this proves their village superior to the other villages in the prefecture. Her mother wore her best clothes and said really liberal ideas to the other women like “maybe girls shouldn’t be married when they’re 16 and instead study.” It was almost scandalous!
Her brothers were shooting guns and fireworks. Ihsan was sad but only because he wanted to go with her and couldn’t. They slaughtered two whole rams in her honor.
The next week her brothers and mom drove her to the airport. Her father was too sad to go with them. She understood and promised him she’ll come back, she promised her mother that she’ll pray 5 times a day, she promised her eldest brother to find him a foreign wife, and to the others to get them visas.
When she cried at the airport security, she promised she would help them as soon as she finds knowledge and this Mr. … (What was his name again?)
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University life wasn’t as easy for her as in previous lives; she pursued a degree in engineering and physics. She did not know these fields in her previous lives, and so she didn’t have the advantage she had so far her entire life.
Her family kept calling her every day. They were hopeful and expected her to be the best student there like she was in her small village. But now she was in a big pond, and she knew the main reason she got accepted was political and the need for the university to diversify. Her schoolmates were either rich assholes who had the best education from birth or literal child geniuses who could solve complex quadruple equations absently while playing video games.
Rahma had a full scholarship, but she still worked to send money for her family and afford the same things her friends could.
Rahma was behind all her friends in all things except in one, drive.
She was driven to learn more and to grow her knowledge. Not just because of what she remembered from her previous lives, but she also wanted to support her family back home. They didn’t complain, but she knew how much they were struggling back home. She now understood that her brother Ihsan was gay and won’t live life as he deserved there. She had to get them out.
After a nap in the library, Rahma remembered a name from her previous life, “Mr. Vorlds” She immediately went on her laptop and searched “Mr. Vorlds.” The only result was fictional characters and one author on a self-publishing website.
By the time she was 17 years old, Rahma had forgotten almost all details of her previous lives. She wasn’t sure it even existed. The only thing that made her doubt that it was all an overactive imagination of a child was her knowledge of metallurgy and ancient smithing techniques.
It wasn’t until she read that self-published story titled “The World’s Cave” by that author calling himself “Mr. Vorlds” that she had paused and reconsidered everything.
The story was written in the 2nd person style, it was talking to the reader, and she knew it was talking to her.
It wasn’t a very well-written story. She often suspected that the author was writing this in his 2nd language or an actual child. But as she read, she started to remember. This was her story. How did this “Mr. Vorlds” know her story? Her memories of a previous life.
She finally decided to message him:
“Dear Mr. Vorlds.
I know this might sound crazy but reading your story, I had the crazy idea that you were writing about a previous life. I even predicted where the story would go before you even published some chapters. Please ignore this if you have no idea what I am talking about. But if you do, please let me know.
Best regards
Rahma Ali”
Within 5 minutes came the reply.
“Fucking finally, kid! Where the hell you’ve been? I’ve been waiting to find you for the past 3 decades! Let’s meet up. Where are you at?”
Rahma wasn’t sure she should give her contact information to this random stranger. She debated it for a minute, but the coincidences were too large to ignore.
She asked to meet him for lunch in a college town café the next week.
That week she couldn’t think straight. She was absent-minded in most of her lectures and classes.
“What if it’s not fiction?” she asked herself. “What if I am truly from another world on a mission to save my … ‘Kingdom’?”
It sounded crazy, but she had enough knowledge in quantum physics to know that parallel worlds are possible. Of course, she wasn’t idiotic enough to think this meant there was a magical world or was she?
On the day of the meeting, she wore her finest clothes and sat in the restaurant. She ordered coffee and waited, and waited. It was 2 hours until a young girl barely 11 years old with a weird princess costume sat in front of her and grabbed a menu.
“Sorry I am late, trouble with an over-eager babysitter,” the little girl said.
Rahma’s first reaction was confusion, then humor (was someone playing an elaborate prank on her), and finally anger. Why is she here talking to kids about some magical kingdom!? She should know better! She is a Ph.D. student in one of the finest universities in the world.
“I am sorry, but there must be a mistake. I think I should leave.” She was about to leave when the kid's eyes gave her pause. They were old eyes.
“You had a crush on one of the Baker boys. That’s why you went into my cave the first time,” the child, Mr. Vorlds, said with a knowing smile.
She slumped into her chair, she never told anyone, she never even thought about it explicitly, but she knew it to be true.
“What…” it was true, it was all true. It came rushing back to her, She was breathing a bit too fast now.
“Calm down, Rahma, order us some sweets and order yourself something hard to drink.”
“I don’t drink alcohol,” she said absently mindedly as she thought of what it all meant.
“Oh,” Mr. Vorlds said, confused, “Well, order one anyway. People are really weird about kids drinking alcohol or buying drugs in this world. You would think a drug dealer would be ok selling me a couple of grams of grass, but nooo, even drug dealers find their morals when a kid asks them for a hit.”
This was too comedic for Rahma, and she began to giggle almost hysterically.
“Calm yourself, kid,” Mr. Vorlds said. I’ll explain everything, I promise.
They ordered food, and (Mr.?) Vorlds ate pancakes. She didn’t order him/her alcohol despite his protestations. Him? “HE” was a little girl. She was confused about his pronouns and wanted to ask, but there were so many questions.
“So why are you a kid? I thought you came here decades ago.” She finally asked him.
“I did,” Mr. Vorlds said while his mouth was full of the desert. “I died in my previous life, some freak bungee jumping accident, it’s a very safe sport usually, but someone fucked up. Word of advice, don’t take discount bungee jumping tours, this is my 2nd life here” Mr. Vorlds said while pointing at her with a fork.
“Are you a girl or…” she asked, pointing at the princess costume.
“Yeah, my father is some rich a-hole, and I told him there is a birthday party in this town, which there is, but it’s a princess-themed, so he got me this as a ‘surprise,’ I think. It’s cute, though!”
S/He didn’t really answer the question, but Rahma had to admit the costume was cute.
“So, it’s true, your story.”
“Yep!” Mr. Vorlds surely had an appetite of a child.
At least this explains the bad grammar.
“Why the vagueness?” she hadn’t touched her food. She wanted answers, "In the story I mean, it's a very vague story"
Vorlds shrugged. “I can’t remember much either, I remember you, but I don’t remember your gender, your name, the real names of the ‘Kingdom’ or ‘Empire.’ Even the towns and city names are just guesswork. ‘Eastport’? I just remember there was a port east of the village. I don’t really remember what it was really called.”
She was quiet for a while, digesting all the information.
“What about the stuff that happened when you weren’t there? My conversation with the queen? And this ‘emperor’ he sounds a lot like a Napoleon from this world trying to invade Britain.”
“I have my sources. I had many friends at the royal court, and to be 100% honest, I did a lot of guessing, but if you’re here, that probably means I was right. As for the ‘emperor’ and Napoleon, I guess there is a lot of overlap, but I am not really sure we were even human in that world!”
That made Rahma pause. Was she human? her memory was weak, barely better than the story, but… “That can’t be true….”
“what’s the gender of your ‘spouse’ there?” Vorlds asked her, “what was your gender there?”
She didn’t know, was she the son or daughter of a blacksmith? She was a rich tycoon, but she was also best friends with a queen, and she was sure she wasn’t attracted to the queen at all.
“I used terms and ideas from this world to describe that one. Do you honestly think a parallel world would call me ‘Vorlds’ but actually means ‘Worlds’?” the little World princess giggled. It would have been adorable if it wasn’t a tad creepy knowing that this person was probably hundreds of years old.
“So now what?” She asked the little girl and felt silly. “Now, you either pay this bill, or we dash. I didn’t bring my dad’s wallet with me.”
It wasn’t an expensive restaurant, but all the deserts Vorlds ordered would put a dent in her monthly budget. But she never considered breaking the law and dine-n-dash.
She walked with Princess Vorlds, trying to take the bus to the hotel Vorlds’ father was staying in. “I am only staying in town for a few days. My dad has some friends at your university, I’ll try to sneak out and meet you again, but it’s difficult, urgh it sucks being a kid again."
Vorlds looked unwell and s/he did end up puking at the bus stop, and Rahma regrated, allowing him/her to eat that much dessert.
Back in her apartment Rahma laid on her bed and thought about all the ramifications.
“Reincarnations were real, and parallel worlds were real,” She whispered as she laid down on her bed.
Did this only happen to her, or was it something common to all people in all worlds?
Was there a way to travel between worlds besides dying or reading a magical book in a cave?
Was magic real, or was it just technology, or did each world have different physical laws?
She was scared, she was unsure, but most of all, she was excited. She was going to win the Nobel prize for sure!
She slept and dreamt of alien worlds and magical queens, and powerful wizards who warned her about the dangers of getting what she wanted.