When I opened my eyes next, I was assaulted with color. I didn’t know what was happening so I started to fanatically look around. Well, I say look around, but all I could do was move my head up, down, left and right by about 3-4 degrees…not much moving around, is there.

I did soon realize what was happening, we were babies, both me and him, well at least I think it was him. I was this babies twin so if it wasn’t him, that would be a hell of a coincidence. Well I expected this and thank god I wasn’t awake while I was born, that wouldn’t be a pleasant experience.

Wait, did I just thank myself? Better not think about that if I don’t want to go into overheat…

I could hear some noises in the background, but I guess my ears aren’t yet up to speed, or I have some hearing problems, which I hope not. It would be truly annoying.

After I calmed down, I noticed we were held by a woman. A very beautiful woman, whom I presume was my mother. The only thing bad with this picture was that she was crying. And those were not tears of joy either.

Panic was about to befall me again but I steeled my mind and started analyzing the problem. I could not hear what they were speaking and I could only see the woman crying and him in front of me. We both looked alive and well so I could not understand why she was so sad.

Soon, someone took me from her and, before I could see who it was, my body felt so tired that I fell asleep. Well it seems like being born is exhausting.

The moment I woke up next I was in a bed. Next to me was him, who also looked like he was about to wake up. Waiting for him to wake up I surveyed the room, or what I could of it with my limited head movement. Which was the celling and a window through which the moonlight shone.

You would think a celling and a window aren’t much to see in a room, but you can actually learn a lot about the house from just those 2 details. The first thing I saw was that both of them were made of wood. The celling also didn’t have a light. I suppose that they could have some lamps, but I somehow doubt it seeing the craftsmanship of both pieces.

I may not be the best expert…actually I may be, but that’s not important. The thing is, while we were watching earth, both I and he gained enormous knowledge about everything, including architecture, and this house, by my standards was made with an ancient form of it. Seeing the almost new condition of a wooden house, I was led to believe this world was just past the Middle Ages or was still in it.

Or we were in a museum, but really…who leaves a baby in a museum?

Him: “AH-gah-gu!”

That sound broke my concentration on the architecture of this house and I turned to see him staring at me with wide eyes and a slight red face. I guess he wanted to say something and it came out as baby talk.

I smiled and wanted to burst out laughing, but I knew better. I would sound just as stupid and didn’t want to give him a reason to laugh at me.

Looking at the evil glare my twin brother gave me, all my urge to laugh subsided. I have to say, seeing an infant less than a day old glare at you with that kind of look is terrifying! You can be the most powerful man in the universe and that look would still terrify you.

Just as I was contemplating the terrors of babies, I heard him cry. This took me by surprise. A lot! He should be just like me, know everything from his past, and also, that glare more than confirmed my suspicion that he’s someone else. Why would he cry? Did he want something and is unable to get it?

Then it downed on me. Food! We need to eat!

I was also hungry but I didn’t even realize. Being a ghost with no need for sustenance, I forgot how it even feel to be hungry. The uncomfortable feeling in my stomach wasn’t just something that babies have, I told me I need food.

I immediately followed him in crying. It was quite fortunate that he figured it out when he did. I wouldn’t want to become a malnourished baby.

While screaming at the top of my lungs and thinking that if feels oddly satisfying, I hear the door. With that I also realized something, my hearing works just fine!

Hurray for me!

The next part was awkward to say the least. Imagine a giant (from my perspective) woman, well at least a beautiful green eyed brunette, about late 20’s or early 30’s, pick you up, take her boobs out and shove one of them in your mouth.

I think I’m developing a mother complex... and so is my brother by the looks of it.

With our bellies full, we were laid in the bed next to each other again, and soon sleep took hold of us.

Babies sleep a lot!

........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

It’s been 7 years since we were born now. I have to say, humans in this world grow up fast!

In only 7 years both of us reached an age equivalent to 13-14 years old on earth. Yep, almost twice the speed of growth from our original world

Now this, for both me and him, was a blessing. Less time as a child meant more time to enjoy this world. But what about normal humans, those that don’t have memories of another life? How do they mature mentally so fast? Well, until now, I didn’t find the answer, but, that may be because of our current situation. We have never met a young human till now.

The only person that ever comes to see us is the mother and, from time to time, an older gentleman who seems to be our grandfather.

Anyway, let’s go over what we learned those past seven years.

Firstly, our names. After we died, both I and he stopped using our names thus leading to us forgetting them. We didn’t stop because a grand plot or something, just because there was no need for names, your whole world has only one other person in it, do you really need a name for him?

Well, I’m getting sidetracked. As I said, we got our names, and what names they were…For me, the little brother it was Dale, for him, the big bro (JUST BY 27 SECONDS!!! 27 FUCKING SECONDS!!!!...I wanted him to be the “kid” for once…), was Chip.

Of course, at first, even tho the names were not the best, it was ok, we didn’t think too much about it. But then I started thinking, why do they sound so familiar? Sure, I did see a lot of people with those names in my 130,000 years of watching over earth, but it didn’t really fit. Then it clicked, those stupid goddesses! I’m almost entirely sure this was their plot, like they gave my grandfather inspiration or something (oh yeah, he’s the one who named us btw). They named us after some fucking squirrels!!!

So Chip & Dale, meaning me and him, started pouting. For 7 years!

Yep, right until now! It isn’t that long, is it? Anyway, because of that people started to consider us retarded as we never smiled and never talked. We didn’t play with the toys and didn’t bother to listen to other people.

Obviously, we learned the language, it was pretty easy actually, a bit of an archaic English, and so we got it down by the end of our second day alive. Meaning that we knew what they thought about us and why our only human contact was mother.

Because our so called condition, our mother was always saddened. At first she tried to talk to us be we didn’t bother to listen, well I didn’t and by the looks of it, neither did he. Well, whatever, we didn’t care. We got stuck with two stupid names for all our lives, why should we care about a random woman’s worries.

That was our mentality until now. What happened now? Our mother started crying while hugging us and told us that no matter what happened today, we would still be loved. Kind of a weird thing to say. I didn’t know when, but seeing her cry made me feel a little bad about ignoring those people until now.

Our actions have consequences now, and 7 years is a long time to stay silent. True, to both me and him, it felt really short, like a couple of hours, but coming from the guy who played thumb war for 700 years straight…not convincing!

Crying in front of us was also something she never did. Every time she was with us, she was smiling. You could see she was forcing herself, but we didn’t care much, we didn’t really see her as our mother either, if I’m really truthful. But, seeing that display of affection, and realizing that she took care of us until now it dawned on me.

She truly is our mother! Not just some woman we are observing out of boredom. We are not in that room anymore and we are still looking at the world as if we are observers and not part of it. Why were we even mad about? Chip and Dale may not be that great, but they are names, something we didn’t have, or need in that room.

I opened my eyes wide as I realized. We also have a family! Maybe we even have more brothers and sisters. What about our father, why was he never here? We even forgot why we came to this world. Shouldn’t we have been training in magic and swordsmanship like those protagonists that are reincarnated?

ARRG! We are so stupid!!!!

I look at Chip, my older brother, and he looks at me. He has the same look of astonishment as me. Naturally he also figured just how stupid we are…I think we are the stupidest smart people alive!

He nodded and I understood what he meant.

Chip: “Mother.”

Dale: “Mom.”

The crying stopped. Our mother let go of us and looked at us with a look of surprise, and happiness. Was she so happy for just that one word? Damn it, I should just hang myself for making this woman so sad. Looking at her now, I was stunned. The woman who fed us that night was no more. Even tho she was still beautiful, she lost most of her shine. Years of sadness pressed on. In front of us was a woman who looked almost broken, much older than she should have been. The only saving grace was the light in her eyes that was growing brighter by the second. Hearing that her sons were not mutes must have given her some hope.

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Even if we were not paying attention, we do know that in this world, even if your body matures faster, the average human lives almost 200 years. That is more than twice than our old world. We also knew that a person will only start to show visible signs of aging after 100 years. She was 102 when we were born and now she seemed to be nearing 140. In other words, our stupidity made our 20 year old looking mother, look like a 40 year old in the span of 7 years.

Without waiting any longer, we did what we had to do.

Chip & Dale: “We are sorry!”

With a 90 degree bow, we apologized. It was the only sensible thing to do. We may have not socialized much in the last 100000 years, but that doesn’t mean we were out of the loop in regards with commune sense, well, earth commune sense, but it can’t be that different, can it?

Elle POV:

Elle: “Haah..”

Today is the awakening ceremony. How I dreaded the day my babies 7 years old…

Random Girl: “Heey! Elle! Wait a bit!”

Lisa? Damn, I don’t want to deal with her now. I know she means well, but there is no more hope in my life.

Elle: “Hello Lisa, what did you need.”

I put up my daily fake smile, which she obviously saw trough, and greeted my sister.

Lisa: “Haah, Elle, you don’t have to force yourself to smile, you know? I know today your sons need to participate in the ritual because of father. How about I go and ask father to give them a couple more years? We could say that since they are ret-”

Elle: “LISA! My children are not retarded! They may be mute and a bit antisocial but they are not retarded! If that’s all you have to say please leave me alone.”

I could feel the tears start to overflow my eyes. I need to get out of here, I don’t want to cry in front of Lisa again.

As I left, I could see, from the corner of my eyes, the dejected look of my big sister. I know I was a bit rude with her. She wanted to help me after all. But I know my children aren’t retarded. They are not even stupid. They just keep to themselves.

I managed to hold my tears in by sheer willpower, which is, until I entered the brothers’ room. After seeing their faces and thinking about what may happen today, I broke down!

Crying my hearth out while hugging my children, I heard two soft voices.

Chip: “Mother.”

Dale: “Mom.”

They called me! They talked! They are not mute!

For a few seconds I just stared at them hoping they would talk again. My hope was answered, but not in the way I expected.

Both of them apologized. It may seem like it wasn’t much, but for children who were supposed to be unable to do anything by themselves, bowing down and apologizing with coherent speech made me think just how complicated the action they just did was.

I was right all along! My children are not retarded!

After a moment, I gathered my bearings and talked with them.

Dale POV:

After our “first words”, mother was surprised to say the least. Still, I have to give her credit for calming down pretty fast.

The first thing we talked about was why we apologized. As if we rehearsed the story, both me and Chip told her the reason we didn’t talk for our whole life. I got to say, spent 130,000 years with someone and you start thinking like him…or he starts thinking like you. I still stand by the fact that the excuse was my own original idea.

What that idea was? It’s simple. We didn’t know how to express ourselves so we choose to remain silent, that is, until we saw our mother cry.

I know. A lame excuse, a lye of course, and not even something believable. But she was willing to overlook that just because we were now speaking with her.

I think we could have told her whatever and she would still believe it. That’s how happy she was.

The rest of the time spent was spent talking about random stuff and just plainly “catching up” with each other.

She also told us about our father and the fact that he died when we were born. Apparently, there was an organized attack by the creatures that night and he was one of the people who died fighting to keep the village safe. You could practically see the sadness emanating from her, as she talked about our father.

Thinking that this woman lost her husband and then had to take care of 2 retards (not in the medical sense, as in idiots who don’t know how to act like grown-ups) my face turned into a frown.

I swear I won’t be that insensible ever again!

From there the conversation steered to the village and creatures. The so-called creatures were mana beasts. They usually just loiter in woods and on mountains, but, sometimes, there is an overly intelligent one who organizes raids against the humans. One such raid happened 7 years ago.

The family we are part of now was weakened a lot by the attack and now has to put all its hopes on the younger generation hoping a talented individual will be able to raise them again to provenance.

At first I was a bit confused by this discussion. I didn’t know about the family and what position they occupied in whatever settlement we were in. This was soon remedied with a question from Chip, apparently he shared my confusion.

Chip: “So, what position did we have before? Were we the rulers of this town?”

Elle: “Oh! So you don’t know…the town we are in is indeed ruled by your grandfather. The problem is not the town tho, it’s the kingdom. Your father was a member of the Eternal. The organization right beneath the king, composed of the most powerful 15 warriors and mages of the kingdom. Your father was the 13th seat.

If not for that damn A rank Shadow Panther…”

I could see that this was hard on her. Learning all I needed, and that is what position we were in the kingdom, our father was a really powerful warrior who died to an equally or more powerful monster, I decided to switch the subject.

Chip: “So, if the beast was so powerful, how did this town survive?”

It was hard, extremely hard, to resist the urge to face palm. Instead, I gave my brother the most deserving death stare.

Of course he understood it. He also realized what he’s done, but it was too late.

Our mother accepted the question as something she expected, but the sadness in her eyes suddenly intensified. Still, she held her tears. I was again surprised at how strong this woman was.

Elle: “Well, you see, the only powerful beast was the A ranked one which your father fought and paid with his life to kill.

The other ones ranged from F to C. Most the people can handle a E ranked beast, and for those above, they were handled by the guards and our fighter.”

I was glad. Truly. Even if she was saddened by the tale, it seems that her husband’s sacrifice was something she took pride in. Even if she was left alone, she was happy about what resulted from that loneliness.

I am no psychologist but watching human behavior for as long as I did, it’s impossible to not learn how they think.

My analysis of our mother almost made me vomit. No, not at her. She was a beautiful and strong person. Almost too radiant to be just a human.

What made me feel so disgusted was us. The only reason she didn’t break down when her husband sacrificed himself was because of her two sons. Her two idiot sons whom she had to think as retarded.

I took Chip’s arm and walked to a corner out of her earshot and started whispering. She did think this action was wired, but she allowed it. Maybe out of fear of us going silent if she didn’t.

Dale: “Dude, why were we so stupid? Even if we were a bit mad about our names, why did we go silent for 7 years? I didn’t even realize that so much time passed.”

Chip: “I..I don’t know. I was just slightly mad at those goddesses, and pouted for a bit. I didn’t know that a whole 7 years passes. I have to wonder, how we were so numb to everything. And this woman. I feel like punching myself…Actually, Punch me!”

I was a bit surprised at his outburst. He’s usually even quieter than me. And his idea…it actually sounded good. I may make me feel better.

Dale: “OK, we are doing it at the same time. You got to punch me to!”

After counting to 3 we did a cross punch straight out of an anime.

Mother, of course, was surprised and cried out in alarm.

Elle: “WHA! What are you doing!!??”

…Beating some sense into our skulls! Of course I couldn’t say that.

Dale: “It was divine punishment for the years of silence”

She was still pretty confused, but let it go. I was faint but I could swore there was a smile forming on her lips.

Dale: “By the way, you said that the monster are ranked by letters. How are humans ranked?”

Elle: “Oh, that. Don’t worry, everything will be explained at the cerem-….OH NO!”

Chip & Dale: “What?”

Obviously we were confused. Why did she suddenly jump and scream like that?

Elle: “The ceremony. It already started! We have to hurry. I’ll explain on the way.”