"AAAGH FUCKING FUCK—"

Now I was in my own dream again, and I made my dreamscape as I wished it to be: my room back at my childhood home before Ma and Pa divorced. I threw the chair across the room, having it slam into the wall. "What sick joke is this?!" I crashed my foot into the side of the low table, sending it cascading through the wall and into the black void of my unconsciousness as I fell to my knees. My hands pushed against my face as I began laughing hysterically, falling onto my side as I imagined the pain of laughing too hard causing my sides to hurt. Then I covered my eyes as I began to cry.

"Fane... please... don't leave me..." I begged, before recalling the image of Fane contorted into a pretzel and felt bile rise in my throat, but held back as I began laughing again. "Haha.. ha... oh my god Fane this is a crazy Joke! Haha! You got a laugh out of me! So come on..." When he didn't reply, I bit my lip and screamed. If I was conscious, no doubt my throat would have been injured with how loud I imagined it to be.

Everything hurt, and soon I was just lying on my back, staring at the ceiling to my room, covered in holographic images of stars and galaxies. I don't know how long I imagined myself there, but I sat up at some point and walked to the door. My dreamscape ended beyond this door and I would wake up. I could stay here forever, if I wanted to. But I would have to wake up eventually and only a few hours would have passed. Instead I punched it, broke that door down into pieces and threw the entire room into nothingness.

Nothing made sense. Who was that woman? Why did I have baby hands? No, more than that, why was I a baby? I knew of the theory of reincarnation, but it was just a theory, there was no proof, and no one stepped forward over the past millennia with proof of being reincarnated. Those that did come forward had been proven false. In fact it was completely implausible in the first place!

How does one persons complete brain capacity get transferred into the body and brain of an infant? It made no sense! It can't! It's completely impossible!

And yet... and yet... it happened? Am I supposed to believe that? Am I supposed to simply take that as it is? That I was granted a second life at the cost of my other half? No, absolutely not. I refuse to believe it.

Haha... hah... fuck.

This is so fucked.

"Fane... I need you. I'm sorry I got mad. Please say something... anything... just something. Let me know you're here..."

"Fane come on. We've been together forever."

"Fane, I'm scared. Please."

I looked "up" into the vast open void. If there was a "God" and they brought me to this point, got rid of Fane, I would tear him down off his throne and drag him through manure, force feed him the guts of his worshippers and crucify him before throwing him into a black hole to be torn into nothingness.

Maybe... maybe I should just end it again? I already died once... I can do it again. A life without Fane isn't worth living in.

No... I know Fane like he knows me, he would hate that. Besides, when did I first meet with him? Maybe it will repeat that cycle... was I eight? No, I was nine when I first spoke to him...

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Yes, yes, that'll be it! As long as I live until then, then I will be able to hear him again. My other half...

And so I began counting to seventy-nine.

Upon finishing my count and waking up, I found myself staring at the ceiling. It was a rustic brown, no more processed than simply being sawed through. I pushed my tongue forward and felt my gums, the gross feeling of toothless nubs the same as being a human. But I wasn't human, and that disgusted me. I was something that imitated a human so closely, and yet I could feel it. Inside me, something was wrong and different. Was it the amount of ribs? Though that was part of it, it was only a piece of the problem. No, there was something in my body that didn't belong and I wanted nothing more than to rip it out. I didn't know where it was, I didn't know what it did, but—

In a moment, all thoughts ceased for the briefest moment as a cool breeze washed over me. Miraculously, I had control over my limbs to... an acceptable degree for now. And my head wasn't as heavy as when I first woke up. Surprisingly—or not, this was a dream after all—my head could be lifted, and I rolled onto my belly, looking up to see an open window and a crib. I seemed to be on a bed, though I hesitated to call it that as the cloth was so rough that I might as well be sitting on dry dirt. Sniffing, there was a heavy stench of perfume.

Foul. Absolutely wretched. These troglodytes were basically poisoning themselves without realizing it whenever they breathed around this sort of scent. We had long gotten rid of the body odor humans produced, and so we only used light scents as an extra if we wanted to impress someone or just for our personal pleasures. In fact, the empire had done so with every species that requested it.

I crawled my way towards the edge of the bed and looked down its edge. Briefly, I wondered if I would die if I fell from this height. But with how sturdy this infantile body seemed to be, considering I could lift my own head now, the only way I would be able to do that is if I landed on my neck, and even then I might not die and instead just remain catatonic for the remainder of my life.

A horrible fate that would be.

Everything was so loud, now that I was in "silence". Rubbing my hand over the "fabric", if I could call it that, it was so loud that I was surprised. I could hear my own heartbeat, and I could faintly hear the quiet chatter of people outside the window. Loud.

Loud... it was so loud...

It was not entirely unbearable, but it was definitely unpleasant. The conversations outside my window were of the same, grating language as before. It was rough and guttural, nothing like the refined tongues I was used to. The words themselves were unintelligible, but their tone carried a weight of everyday concerns and idle gossip, echoing through the open window. if I could close the window, I would.

Exhaustion began to hit me with a headache that followed suit without warning, and I held my head, the pain bearable, but like the noises, highly unpleasant.

"Auuu..." I whined, perhaps a bit louder than I had hoped, as the door opened with a loud creaking that sent a shiver down my spine. Barely having time to turn to them, my limbs were failing me, causing me to flop onto my belly and nearly fall. The person who came in, a woman with green hair and pretty enough features, giggled slightly before picking me up and sitting down. They began to talk, and no doubt it was the same language that I was already hating, but it seemed to be a softer-spoken dialect, as it wasn't as irksome.

They began singing a lullaby that at first sounded like a warcry, before the soft, gentle tones lulled me to sleep. Reaching out, I didn't want to sleep yet, I needed to at least... try and communicate.

"Auh.. aaauu..." But all that came out were babbles. Their lullaby was interrupted by them giggling before they seemed to misunderstand and let me grab their hair. My eyes were so heavy that I couldn't see anything at the moment as they shut involuntarily. It was only through force of will that I opened them briefly, letting me see the briefest glimpse of green hair and a slightly curved up pair of lips.

My head was soon pressed to their chest. I could hear their heartbeat as well as my own, and while it was no doubt a strange thing, I was calmed. Paired with the lullaby, and the light scent of flowers—something that wasn't choking me like everything else—I was drifting to sleep, until exhaustion claimed me.